Millsport

TURIN, Italy – Just when U.S. officials wished for the noise of American viewers plopping onto couches for two solid weeks, they received the yawn of indifference.

That click heard 'round the nation Feb. 12 signaled a collective thumbs down squarely on TV remotes as fans switched channels.

On Day 2 of the Games, figure skating icon Michelle Kwan tearfully announced her pullout within hours of much-hyped skier Bode Miller's fifth-place downhill finish. Both were expected to be prominent faces of the Games. For NBC's ratings, the next fortnight would prove an uphill struggle.

"It was a tough Games," U.S. Olympic Committee chief executive Jim Scherr said. "Overall, this has been a great performance. We didn't achieve our total capability because of the high expectations coming in. It's a little bit our fault."

 And a lot the fault of hit U.S. shows such as American Idol, which attracted better audiences. On Thursday, the night of the women's figure skating final, Idol was seen by 23.4 million between 8 and 9 p.m. EST – compared with 17.7 million for the Olympics.

"That's something we were concerned about," Scherr said. "There was such a lull after Athens."

The 2004 Summer Games offered many more events and competed with reruns. Athens also featured appealing stories such as gymnast Carly Patterson of Allen and swimming star Michael Phelps.

With Turin seven hours ahead of Dallas, results were readily available on the Internet before NBC's taped prime-time programs. That might have discouraged some from tuning in. And NBCOlympics.com, for example, had recorded 338 million page views through Friday. That's more than double its total from the 2002 Salt Lake Winter Games.

Scherr predicted a stronger response in the U.S. to the 2008 Beijing Summer Games because of interest in China, and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games, which will feature live prime-time telecasts. Beijing is 14 hours ahead of Dallas, and Vancouver two behind.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge said Sunday that the Games' ratings reflected public enjoyment of newer events. Freestyle skiing and snowboarding weren't included in the Games before 1992 and 1998, respectively. The U.S. won seven snowboarding medals, and the new event of snowboardcross provided a dramatic story line with Lindsey Jacobellis' gaffe.

Rogge said the new events have proved to be spectacular and have "also pleased the young audience, which we need to attract."

In the U.S., the ratings got a late boost with women's figure skating and Julia Mancuso's giant slalom gold medal. At one point Friday, the U.S. had narrowed the gap on overall leader Germany to one medal. But it was too little, too late: Friday's rating was the lowest for a prime-time Olympics broadcast since Barcelona in 1992. Saturday's rating was the same (9.7).

In Dallas-Fort Worth, the marathon coverage averaged a little below a 13.0 rating in prime time. D-FW consistently was in the lower half of the 55 major markets for which ratings were available daily.

Scherr noted that a record 26 nations won at least one medal, but conceded that poor showings by highly promoted U.S. athletes didn't help sustain interest in the 418 hours of broadcasts by NBC and its cable siblings – up from 375 ½ from Salt Lake City in 2002.

Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics, told reporters last week that the network projected a Games profit between $50 million and $75 million and did not expect to have to offer "make-goods" to advertisers.

"You can't compare these Games to anything other than Nagano, and we're about 20-25 percent off of Nagano," he said.

According to Ebersol, the NBA Finals are down 56 percent since Nagano in 1998. The World Series is down 21 percent.

Bob Basche, chairman of Millsport, which does sports marketing and sponsorship, said that describing NBC's Turin Games ratings in terms of doom and gloom would be misleading.

Basche noted the overall trend of declining viewership for major sports and entertainment events.

"In 1998, the average television home had 57 channels available," he said in an e-mail. "Today, American viewers have an average of 96 channels available to surf."

Chris Smith, chief strategy officer for The Marketing Arm in Dallas, said the Turin Games had a stretch of bad luck.

"However, don't cry too hard for the 2008 and 2010 Games," he said in an e-mail. "The 2008 Summer Games will be positioned as the coming-out party for China. A peek behind the curtain that has shrouded this country for so long will entice viewers to tune in."