The 2012 Olympics in London continued to open their lead over the 2008 summer games in Beijing on Wednesday night, while ABC's "Final Witness" took a steep dip in the face of competition from the games, according to preliminary numbers.
NBC once again took an easy win in ratings and total viewers with its Olympic coverage, which scored a 9.7 rating/28 share in the advertiser-friendly 18-49 demographic and 30.6 million total viewers.
That's down from Tuesday night's performance, but up 3 percent in the demo from the equivalent night of the 2008 Beijing games.
Overall, the London games are outpacing the Beijing games by 7 percent in the demo and 13 percent in total viewers.
Univision grabbed second place in the demo and third in total viewers with an average 1.4/4 and 3.6 million.
CBS drew third place in ratings and second in total viewers with a 1.3/4 and 4.6 million. The network ran repeats aside from "Big Brother" at 8 p.m., which held up well against the Olympics competition, dropping just 5 percent from last week with a 1.9/6 and drawing 5.3 million total viewers.
ABC came in fourth in ratings and total viewers with a 0.8/2 and 2.8 million. Like CBS, it opted mostly for reruns, with an original episode of "Final Witness" at 10 dropping 20 percent for a 0.8/2 and taking 2.6 million total viewers.
Fox, which ran a "So You Think You Can Dance" repeat, came in fifth in ratings and total viewers with a 0.7/2 and 2.1 million.
