The 2012 Olympics showed improvement over previous games to give NBC a predictable win Sunday night, while the official premiere of CBS's dating reality series "3" dropped considerably from its preview last week, according to preliminary numbers.
NBC, which ran the Olympic games throughout its primetime slate, took the night's top ratings and total viewership far and away with an average 11.4 rating/31 share in the advertiser-cherished 18-49 demographic and 35.4 million total viewers.
The demo performance represented a slight 2 percent improvement over the equivalent night during the 2008 games in Beijing, and a 63 percent leap over the 2010 winter games in Vancouver.
Fox, which ran repeats throughout the night, drew second place in ratings and fourth in total viewers with an average 1.2/3 in the demo and 2.5 million.
CBS and Univision virtually tied for third in the demo, with the former taking a 0.9/3 and the latter taking a 0.9/2, and came in second in total viewers with 4 million. (Univision took a narrow third place over Fox in in total viewers with an average 2.6 million.)
Following a "60 Minutes" repeat at 7 p.m., CBS aired "Big Brother" the following hour, which dipped 10 percent from last week, to tie its lowest rating ever with a 1.8/5, and drew 5.1 million total viewers.
The time-period premiere of "3," which got off to a discouraging start last Thursday with a preview episode, fell even further, dropping 38 percent to a 0.5/1 and taking 1.8 million total viewers.
ABC, which ran repeats throughout the night, came in fifth in ratings and total viewers with a 0.6/2 and 2.4 million.
