Beijing Olympics end with massive viewership

August 24, 2008 The Beijing Olympics ended Sunday, attracting nearly all of China's 1.3 billion people to their televisions, making it "likely to be the most widely watched Games in Olympic history," according to International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge. Over the past 16 days, images of a transformed Beijing were beamed into primetime in the U.S., the world's second-largest television market by viewers, by NBC, which paid $894 million for the exclusive U.S. broadcast rights, from which it says it has garnered more than $1 billion in advertising revenue. Data from Nielsen Media Research showed that 96% of Chinese families watched at least some portion of the Olympics on China Central Television, the country’s primary state-run broadcaster.

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