Yahoo's Olympic Upset

NBC's online coverage of the Beijing Olympics continues to be a boon for the traditionally TV-centric company, as nbcolympics.com draws hordes of users who have viewed more than 56 million video streams since the site went live. But despite the record online video numbers, it looks like it might have to settle for silver(light) in overall traffic.

According to Nielsen Online, Yahoo Olympics is the surprise leader in traffic so far in this competition, with 52 million unique views to NBC's 47 million.

NBC Olympics had more than a million more unique visits than Yahoo Olympics on Aug. 8, the day of the opening ceremonies, but saw the margin narrow until Yahoo Olympics began leading in daily unique traffic on Aug. 11. It has led ever since.

There are still several positives for NBC, however, as viewers spent almost three times as long on its site compared with the Yahoo site; 15:50 on average for NBC, 6:49 for Yahoo. And video numbers continue to be record-breaking, likely helped by peak traffic at lunch time (the top hour of coverage for NBC last week was either 12 or 1 p.m.).  

Yahoo's surprising Olympic finish will also likely cause some heartburn at Microsoft, given the recent squabbling between the two firms.

For more:
- Nielsen reports Yahoo Olympic upset. 

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