The Olympic Competition Effect

There's been a lot of debate about NBC's Olympics coverage over the last week plus. The question that really seems to underlie it all, at least from my perspective, is, "Are the Olympics 'sports' or are they 'entertainment'?" They're different things for different people, but NBC's approach in primetime is clearly the "entertainment" one to a large extent.

I thought an interesting way to try to examine the nature of the primetime Olympic audience would be to look at the shows most affected by the Games' arrival. So here are the week-to-week changes against the Olympics for a large selection of broadcast and cable originals. These only include shows that aired both the week before the Olympics (July 20-26) and the first week of the Olympics (July 27-August 2).

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 8/2/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• The Summer Olympics had another huge night thanks to Phelps/Lochte II and the women's gymnastics all-around. And following four straight days of just barely topping the 2008 pace, Thursday's NBC telecast surged to 14% ahead of night seven in Beijing. That's the biggest Olympics-to-Olympics gain since the Opening Ceremony (which was +18%).

• Among the hardest-hit Thursday originals vs. the Olympics: ABC's Wipeout and the Anger Management (0.7) / Wilfred (0.4) / Louie (0.3) combo on FX. All those shows shed about a third of their demo audience week-to-week.

War of 18-49 Flashback, Jericho (CBS, 2006-08)

JERICHO (CBS)

Scheduling history: The first season of Jericho aired in two big chunks in the Wednesday 8/7c timeslot. Season two saw a move to Tuesday at 10/9c, where it aired after the only regular season edition of Big Brother.

Spotted Ratings, Wednesday 8/1/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• Though down a lot from Day 5, the Summer Olympics were still on the upside vs. the corresponding night in Beijing (+5%).

• A slower Olympics night seemed to mean generally smaller hits to the broadcast and cable competition, though ABC's Melissa & Joey (0.5) and Baby Daddy (0.4) had a really bad week.

War of 18-49 Update, Rules of Engagement (2011-12)

Let's take a look at the 2011-12 season (the sixth overall) of Rules of Engagement on CBS.

Spotted Ratings, Tuesday 7/31/12

WHAT MATTERS:

• The 2012 Summer Olympics had their best night yet with lots of American medals in swimming and gymnastics, surging to more than a half point ahead of Friday's Opening Ceremony rating. NBC's coverage was also back on the upside vs. Beijing in 2008, finishing 3% ahead of the fifth night in 2008 (12.4), which ended up being the highest-rated night of that Games.

• As usual, a pretty mixed bag for those who dared go original vs. the Games. Among the biggest casualties were ABC's NY Med, TNT's Rizzoli & Isles (0.8, way down vs. a 1.2 last week) and Comedy Central's Tosh.0 (1.0, down from last week's 1.4).

War of 18-49 Update, Criminal Minds (2011-12)

Let's take a look at the 2011-12 season (the seventh overall) of Criminal Minds on CBS.

SpotVault - 3 (CBS) - Summer 2012

3

Sundays, 9/8c, CBS

SpotVault - Olympics (NBC) - Summer 2012

Summer Olympics on NBC

Spotted Ratings, Thursday 7/26/12: Failur3

WHAT MATTERS:

• CBS got off to an awful start with new dating show 3. They had a bit of a tough time scheduling this once ABC moved The Bachelorette finale on top of 3's skedded premiere date, as they hoped for a premiere that could avoid both Bachelorette and the Olympics. Well, they found a way, but it got out of the gate with numbers well below those of typical post-Big Brother drama repeats, and the Olympics certainly didn't help in what would be its final airing the next Sunday.

• On the other hand, ABC (finally free of Duets) had one of its best evenings of the summer with a two-hour Wipeout comfortably hitting a season high and Rookie Blue doing its best work in over a year.

• USA saw a second straight new season high from Burn Notice (1.4), widening its gap over the rest of the network's dramas and getting back to about even year-to-year. Sullivan & Son (0.9) on TBS held on pretty tight in week two.