The NBC's coverage of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games drew the largest U.S. television audience ever for a non-U.S. Summer Olympics opening ceremony, according to figures released on Saturday.

Some 34.2 million viewers watched the opening ceremony, smashing the previous record of 27.3 million for the NBC's coverage of the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games, according to Nielsen Media Research, which released the figures.

The largest U.S. television audience for a Summer Olympics opening ceremony was 39.77 million for the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. Television coverage of Olympiads held in the U.S. traditionally draw larger audiences than those from outside the country because of larger overall interest in the Olympics.

Viewership was up 35 percent from the 25.38 million that watched the opening ceremony of the 2004 Athens Games.

Friday's ceremony from Beijing also drew the highest rating for a non-U.S. opening ceremony -- 18.6 -- beating the previous record of 18.1 for the 1960 Rome Games on CBS, the first Summer Olympics to be extensively televised in the U.S..

The rating is the percentage of television sets tuned to a particular program. Ratings for most forms of programming have declined in recent years because of increased competition for viewers from cable television, the Internet, home video and video games.

The highest rating for a Summer Olympics opening ceremony was 23. 9 for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

"The Olympic opening ceremony captivated the American public in unprecedented numbers for a non-U.S. Olympics," said Dick Ebersol, chairman, NBC Universal Sports and Olympics. "It was a magical and memorable spectacle and a great way to start the Beijing Olympics."

The heavy amount of interest in the opening ceremony also extended to NBC's Olympics website, BCOlympics.com, which had a record 70 million page views Friday, 10 times more than the 7 million the opening day of the 2004 Athens Olympic Games.

The NBC's coverage drew criticism from some television critics and viewers who said the ceremonies were interrupted by too many commercials and tape-delayed for 15 hours on the West Coast rather than being shown live.

The NBC reportedly paid $894 million for the rights to broadcast the Beijing Olympic Games, and is spending more than $100 million to transmit the games and pageantry. The network has already sold more than $1 billion worth of advertising on NBC, the Spanish-language network Telemundo and NBC Universal cable networks.

(Xinhua News Agency August 10, 2008)