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Beijing Olympics attracts record 4.7 billion TV viewers
Xinhua
Updated: 2008-09-06 19:17
SHANGHAI - The Beijing Olympics, which ended two weeks ago, attracted about 4.7 billion TV viewers worldwide - a new record for an Olympics, the market research firm Nielsen said.
The figure, based on data from 37 viewing markets from August 8-24, surpassed the 3.9 billion who watched the 2004 Athens Games and the 3.6 billion of the 2000 Sydney Games, Nielsen said.
About 94 percent of »Ê¹ÚÌåÓýapp's 1.3 billion people watched the Games, the same ratio as in the nearby Republic of Korea. Mexico came next, with a viewing ratio of 93 per cent.
In a report on August 14, Nielsen estimated that almost one-third of the world's population, or about 2 billion people, watched the dazzling opening ceremony on August 8, led by film director Zhang Yimou.
Ma Guoli, chief operations officer of Beijing Olympics Dissemination Corporation Ltd., had predicted 4 billion viewers worldwide before the Games actually opened.
However, 4.4 billion had watched televised events in just the first 10 days of the Games, Nielsen said.