TV ratings down for winter Olympics

The 2006 Winter Olympics ended Sunday. Did you notice? Apparently, not many Americans concerned themselves with their skiing, skating and curling brethren: According to Nielsen, nightly television ratings for the 2006 games were the lowest in recent history. NBC and its cable networks pulled a 12.2 Nielsen rating and a 19 share for its nightly coverage of the Olympics — an average of 20.2 million viewers per night. That's down from the 19.2 rating and 31 share the 2002 Salt Lake games drew. NBC's total viewership for this year's Olympics was 184 million, down 3 million from 2002. The previous low rating for a winter Olympics was in 1968, when the games in Grenoble, France, got a 13.4/21 Nielsen rating.

Houstonians were even less interested in watching the Olympics than most Americans: Houston was ranked 52nd of the top 55 TV markets in terms of viewership, with a 9.6 rating and 14 share. Salt Lake City, as you might expect, was No. 1, followed by Denver and Portland. Miami, Birmingham and Memphis ranked below Houston.

So the question is: Why don't more people watch? Are Americans just not that interested in winter sports? Was it because some members of the U.S. team were losers this year? (Yeah, we're talking about you, Bode.) Does the round-the-clock coverage overwhelm us? Or do we just prefer to get our information from the Internet?