TV Ratings: U.S. Olympic Trials give NBC easy Sunday win

Nastia Liukin at last night's U.S. Olympic Trials on NBC.

Credit: AP

Fast National ratings for Sunday, July 1, 2012.

NBC's coverage of the U.S. Olympic Trials in swimming and, especially, gymnastics, led the Peacock to an easy win in Sunday's ratings.

For the night, NBC averaged a 2.5 rating in adults 18-49, and 8.3 million viewers overall. ABC's original reality lineup gave it a second-place finish in the 18-49 demographic  (1.2, 4.5 million viewers), while CBS (0.8, 5.2 million) was the night's second-most-watched network. FOX (1.1, 2.5 million) finished in third in the demo and a distant fourth in viewers.

7 p.m. -- NBC and CBS split the hour, with NBC's swimming coverage (1.4, 5.6 million) winning in the demo and CBS' "60 Minutes" (1.1, 8.2 million) winning in viewers. An "America's Funniest Home Videos" repeat (1.1, 5.1 million) got ABC to third place, while "American Dad" and "The Cleveland Show" repeats combined for a 0.8 demo rating and 1.8 million viewers for FOX.

8 p.m. -- More swimming coverage (2.1, 7.7 million) now won the hour in both measures for NBC, followed by repeats of "The Simpsons" and "Bob's Burgers" on FOX (1.3, 2.8 million), a new "Secret Millionaire" on ABC (1.1, 5 million) and a "Hawaii Five-0" repeat (0.7, 4.6 million) on CBS.

9 p.m. -- NBC switched from swimming to gymnastics, and viewership for the hour shot up to a 3.1 rating and 9.5 million viewers. "Family Guy" and "American Dad" repeats on FOX averaged a 1.4 and 3.1 million viewers, followed by the first hour of "Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition" (1.1, 3.7 million) on ABC and a "The Good Wife" repeat (0.5, 3.9 million) on CBS.

10 p.m. -- Gymnastics continued to dominated for NBC, with a 3.4 demo rating and 10.2 million viewers for the hour. Hour two of "Extreme Makeover" was way back with a 1.3 and 4.2 million viewers for ABC, followed by a "The Mentalist" repeat (0.7, 4.3 million) on CBS.

All ratings information comes from preliminary Fast National Nielsen data, which includes live and same-day DVR viewing. All numbers are subject to change.

Alan Sepinwall
Sr. Editor, What's Alan Watching

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Alan Sepinwall has been reviewing television since the mid-'90s, first for Tony Soprano's hometown paper, The Star-Ledger, and now for HitFix. His new book, "The Revolution Was Televised," about the last 15 years of TV drama, is for sale at Amazon. He can be reached at sepinwall@hitfix.com