"Clearly there's room for NBC improvement for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing," Robert Bianco wrote in Monday's USA Today. Here's one of his suggestions:

"Stop whining. No, not viewers, but NBC, which has responded to bad ratings by manipulating numbers and making excuses. You would think NBC would be embarrassed to acknowledge that CNBC and MSNBC do better with curling and women's hockey than they do with their regular schedules. It makes you think the real problem for NBC isn't what it airs during the Olympics; it's what it airs after them. And that's a lot harder to fix."

Quoting from the cable part of NBC's post-Olympics press release:

"MSNBC: The Olympics on MSNBC averaged 442,000 viewers (0.32 HH rating), up 123 percent over Feb. 2005 and up 110 percent over pre-Olympic first quarter levels. Through Thursday, "Hardball with Chris Matthews" is up 42 percent in the 5 p.m. ET hour (388,000 vs. 273,000) and up 43 percent in the 7 p.m. ET hour (572,000 v. 401,000) compared to pre-Olympic first quarter.

CNBC: CNBC's Olympic coverage averaged 669,000 viewers (0.46 HH rating), up 562 percent from pre-Olympic first quarter levels. Weekday coverage of the cult hit of the Winter Games, curling, 5-8 p.m. ET following "Closing Bell," delivered an average 876,000 viewers (0.60 HH rating), 579 percent higher than its February 2005 average in the time period (129,000) and 289 percent higher than its pre-Olympic first quarter levels (225,000). Through Thursday, "Mad Money," hosted by Jim Cramer, saw its ratings increase 72 percent during the Olympics compared to pre-Olympic first quarter levels (191,000 v. 111,000)."

NBC says: "Through Thursday, coverage of the Torino Games has reached 59.7 million total, unduplicated viewers on the cable networks of NBCU, 21 percent higher than the comparable time periods last year (49.2 million) and 37 percent higher than through the same point during the Salt Lake Games (43.7 million). CNBC's weekday Olympic curling coverage is averaging 913,000 total viewers (0.62 HH rating) up 608 percent vs. Feb. 2005 (129,000)." The press release doesn't mention MSNBC's numbers, though those are high too...

Ratings for MSNBC and CNBC have tripled in the last 10 days thanks to the Winter Olympic games, Media Life Magazine says.

As noted on Monday, Saturday's curling coverage on MSNBC delivered 1.26 million viewers. "Comparatively, MSNBC averaged 349,000 total viewers during primetime last month," Media Life says.

"CNBC has also seen tremendous Olympic gains. The network, which averaged an anemic 155,000 total viewers during primetime last month, averaged 1.04 million total viewers last week for its curling coverage, up 700 percent over last February’s average in the 5 to 8 p.m. timeslot and three and a half times more than its January average."

BCBeat's John Eggerton noticed an especially blatant plug for NBC's Olympics coverage on Saturday's Nightly News. Mike Taibbi, usually a hard-nosed reporter, told viewers that even though ratings are down for NBC's broadcasts, the Olympics are still worth watching.

The package noted that "NBC's Olympics Web site has had more hits for results and video in the first week -- 167 million -- than in the entire Salt Lake City Games."

Then it quoted "sports business expert" Lisa Delpy Neirotti: "I would say they're surpassing their viewership if you added up all the different mediums upon which people are watching."

After some happy talk about all the great storylines at the winter games, Taibbi concluded: "The Olympics continue to matter in a television and information landscape that continues to evolve."

Question: Would this story have made the Nightly News if NBC wasn't broadcasting the Olympics? Would ABC or CBS have commissioned this package, and if so, would it have concluded with the rah-rah line that "the Olympics continue to matter?" You decide -- the full transcript is after the jump...

continued...

NBC P.R.: Through Saturday, Feb. 18, "the cable networks of NBC Universal have reached 48.2 million total viewers, up 31 percent from the underlying level of 36.9 million in the same time periods in Feb. 2005.

MSNBC's Saturday coverage of the U.S. women's curling match vs. Italy delivered 1.258 million average viewers (0.81 HH rating) its highest rating and best viewer delivery in the 5-8 p.m. time slot since Election Day, Tuesday, Nov. 2, 2004 (1.272 million viewers), and the best Saturday for that time period since coverage of the start of the Iraq war, April 5, 2003 (1.801 million viewers). "

NBC's press release says: "Powered in part by NBC's weekend coverage of the Torino Winter Olympics," the Saturday and Sunday editions of NBC Nightly News enjoyed record viewership last week.

On Saturday, NN delivered 12,514,000 sets of eyes, the program's best Saturday viewership since the 2002 Olympics. On Sunday, NN delivered 16,117,000 viewers -- "the Sunday edition's best delivery ever.".

The broadcasts were anchored by Brian Williams in Torino...

Alessandra Stanley asks: "Where in the center of the world was Katie Couric?"

She was "banished to network purdah" during the opening ceremonies of the winter Olympics. Stanley suspects "NBC was sending its star a warning."

> Also: "Williams was smooth and assured in his new role as sportscaster, but he seemed intent on reminding viewers that he is first and foremost a serious newsman. When Costas began describing the aspirations of the Canadian hockey team, Williams tugged the conversation back to a harder news story, recalling the scandal over the controversial scoring decision against Canadian figure skaters in 2002..."

Scott Collins in the LAT:

"The Winter Olympics are providing a language quandary for the TV networks, which don't quite agree what to call the Italian host city.

NBC Universal, showing the games on its various over-the-air and cable channels, has slapped the 'Torino 2006' logo across its coverage, using the Italian name for the city on the Po River. Ditto the International Olympic Committee.

Geographic dissent, however, has already emerged.

'Turin is the city's English name,' anchor Elizabeth Vargas told viewers Friday on ABC's 'World News Tonight. 'Just as we would say 'Rome,' not 'Roma,' 'Florence,' not 'Firenze.' '" So ABC is sticking with Turin. But Torino "is the preferred choice at cable outlets Fox News Channel and CNN..."

NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics opening ceremonies delivered a 12.8 household rating and a 21 share, delivering NBC's highest rating in over a year. Here's the press release.

The average primetime audience was 22.8 million viewers, and a total of 50 million Americans tuned in at some point.

"It is the third most viewed non-domestic Winter Olympic Opening Ceremony in history, behind only the tabloid-fueled Lillehammer Games in 1994 (62 million) and Nagano in 1998 (52 million), according to Nielsen Media Research fast national data." (In other words, it's the lowest-rated winter opening ceremony since 1990 1992.)