Winter Olympics Torino 2006

[CCL]

So what are the ratings in your country for the Winter Olympics. So far the ice dancing has been the most popular viewing in Britain with nearly 5 million viewers on BBC2.

http://media.guardian.co.uk/overnigh...714598,00.html

The ratings in the US have not been very good. Part of that is, of course, that there is a big time difference between the US and Italy so that, when you get to prime time, all the events are several hours old. The ratings in Canada have been ok but not spectacular.

I much prefer Davis to Hedrick, personally.

[femme fatale]

I think that the women's hockey semifinal and final were pretty high rated here in Sweden. Even though we can watch everything live, people still have jobs, maybe you can catch a certain run in alpine, but you really can't skip work for a hockey game. Or you can do like friend of my boyfriend, he got paternal leave just in time for the Olympics .

[Rusicade]

So, femme fatale, did you watch that hockey game?

I was just wondering because the Swedish coach (Gustafsson?) said they should throw the game so they can play Switzerland in the quarterfinals...and Sweden lost 3-0.





Davis just won a silver, while Hedrick won the bronze. Forget how long the race was...1500 metres?

[Belfastgirl]

Some wonderful performances in the ladies' figure skating short program. Mind you, some of them look about 12 years old.

[QuinntheEskimo]

The ratings in the US have not been very good. Part of that is, of course, that there is a big time difference between the US and Italy so that, when you get to prime time, all the events are several hours old.

I'm sitting at lunch today watching SportsCenter and all of a sudden without any warning what-so-ever... the 1500m Speedskating results pop up on the screen. so now i ahve absolutely no interest in watching a sporting event where i already know the outcome (3rd time it has happened so far). which is what ESPN is probably trying to accomplish, so i will watch whatever college basketball game they have on tonight... would it be so wrong to show SOME consideration and give a warning that results are coming...

I've been tivo'ing the Olympic coverage, and i can generally scale 4 hours of coverage into about 45 minutes worth of watchable material... damn all of the feel good stories and relentless commercials.

[Belfastgirl]

BBC commercial free thank goodness!

[Lucynda]

woohoo our girls qualified number 1 and 10 in for the ariels finals.
A chance to win our fifth ever winter olympic medal
Our bobsled girls did brilliantly too and are in 14th place.

[JR.]

I think if that were the case we would never see the ice dancing, wasn't the silver medal the first time we won in over 30 years? It could be that the race gets really low ratings and they are thinking of getting rid of it, because no one is watching?

This is the exact reason. Any type of figure skating does well in the ratings here. I don't think many people here care about biathlon, especially sine there are no americans even close to the top.

i don't know if this is true, but i wouldn't doubt it. our media seems to be tearing apart our athletes if they don't medal. and when they do medal, if it's not gold, the questions all seem to be about why they didn't get the gold. i'm with louis lane. replace those reporters and set a new tone. let's support our athletes. maybe they would do better if their country was behind them win or lose!

That's because they spend so much time hyping them before the games even start. Then they look a bit foolish when they don't win, so in order to cover their asses, they start with the "what went wrong" stuff.

[julitta]

i have a question since my husband, who is usually my book of knowledge, is gone. i was looking at the medal chart, and the initials they put in front of the flags. i know germany's deu is deutschland, but what is switzerland's che? thank you in advance!

[sukee]

After reading this, who sounds like the bigger a-hole?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11464797/

And Shanni Davis looked happy to have won a silver medal. He actually seems happy with doing his best, even if it doesn't include a gold medal. Chad looked like he had been kicked in the teeth. Many people are happy with bronze. Is he upset he won't get paid as much?