The Final Tally - 4.7 Billion Tunes in to Beijing 2008

September 5th 2008 - Hong Kong 

More Than Two in Three People Worldwide: Nielsen

The 2008 Beijing Olympics set many world records, with the latest being the Most Watched Games ever.  According to latest intelligence from The Nielsen Company , the Beijing Olympic Games attracted the cumulative eyeballs of 4.7 billion viewers over the 17 days from August 8 to August 24, ‘out-viewing’ the 3.9 billion who followed the Athens 2004 Games by 21 percent, and the 3.6 billion who tuned in to the Sydney Games in 20002 by 31 percent, or 1.1 billion additional viewers. 

The 4.7 billion viewers who accessed television coverage of the Beijing Olympics officially translates into approximately 70 percent of the world’s population, or more than two in every three people globally.

As the host nation, China led the world’s viewers with an audience reach of 94 percent along with South Korea, although by number of individual viewers, China – the world’s most populated nation – far exceeded that of any other country. Mexico followed closely with a 93 percent audience reach.