The 219.4 million Americans who watched the London Olympics beat the previous record of 215 million viewers for the Beijing Olympics, according to Nielsen numbers released Monday.
If counted as one event, the games were the most-watched in U.S. history. But the Super Bowl still beat any single night of coverage. It set the all-time viewership record in February by earning 111.3 million viewers.
The Games' 31 million average viewership for Sunday's closing ceremony was the most for a non-U.S. Summer Olympics in 36 years. London's viewership topped Beijing's by 12 percent and Athens' by 58 percent.
NBC averaged 31.1 million viewers over 17 nights in primetime, the most-watched non-U.S. Summer Olympics since the 1976 Montreal Olympics. That beat Beijing by 12 percent and Athens by 26 percent.
NBC Olympics Digital set records of its own, scoring 2 billion page views and 159 million video streams. NBC also boasted improved ratings for "Today" and "Nightly News with Brian Williams."
