Beijing Olympics has become the most viewed U.S. television event of all time. It had 211 million viewers on NBC Universal’s broadcast, according to Nielsen Media Research. That’s 2 million more viewers than the 1996 Atlanta Games. The daily viewing is also 11 percent higher than that of the Athens 2004 games broadcast

NBC paid $894 million for the exclusive U.S. broadcast rights of the Olympics and has profited from the bid when it announced it has more than $1 billion in advertising revenue.

CCTV paid some $17 million for exclusive China broadcast rights in of the Olympics and also has profited from the bid, as estimated $394 million was generated in Olympic advertising revenues. This figure probably attributed from 96 percent of Chinese families watching at least some portion of the Olympics on CCTV

Also another staggering figure is that nearly all of China’s 1.3 billion people tuned int to their televisions to watch the games. International Olympics Committee president Jacques Rogge was quoted as “likely to be the most widely watched Games in Olympic history”