EARLY RATINGS REPORT ON NBC NETWORK'S OLYMPICS COVERAGE

NBC's prime-time telecast of the Barcelona Olympics last Wednesday night, 7:30 p.m. to midnight, earned an 18.9 rating and a 35 share. (The share is a percentage of households watching television tuned to a particular program.) From 10 p.m. to midnight, NBC averaged a 41 share - 41 percent of households watching television in the United States during that time period were tuned to the Barcelona Olympics on NBC.

For the first four of NBC's prime-time competition telecasts from Barcelona, the network averaged a 19.3 rating and a 35 share. The rating average is a 15 percent increase over that of the first four prime-time-competition telecasts of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, which averaged 16.8. The share average is a 17 percent increase over the 30-share average from NBC's first four prime-time-competition telecasts in 1988.

NBC and Cablevision reduced the per-day cost of $29.95 to $19.95 to encourage more viewers to watch their joint Olympics TripleCast. The price of TripleCast for the final seven days of the Games was lowered to $59.95.