Another Loss Leader for CBS

Well, the 1998 Winter Olympics are over, and between the time difference, the snowed-out events and CBS's somewhat wan coverage, most of America seemed ready to let the print journalists tell them how great it all was. CBS wound up with the lowest-rated Winter Olympics in 30 years, scoring a 16.2 /26 share for its prime-time coverage -- 42 percent behind Lillehammer's 27.8/42 and 13 percent off the 18.7/29 from Albertville. Most humiliating of all, the Eye will have to make good with peeved advertisers -- who coughed up $450,000 for a 30-second ad -- after CBS's ratings failed to live up to the promised 19.5.

But here's the kicker: The network nevertheless got quite a bit of what it wanted from this year's games. CBS won 16 of the 17 nights in the crucial February "sweeps period," when local ad rates are set. Ratings for local news on CBS affiliates were up. And David Letterman's "Late Show," boasting coverage from Nagano by Dave's mom, finally beat Jay Leno -- for the first time since August 1995. In an entertainment landscape splintered by cable and the Internet, Nagano still sat 184 million Americans down in front of their TV sets -- tying it with the Albertville Olympics for the third most watched sporting event in U.S. history -- despite that pathetic showing by the telegenic American men's hockey team. And AFC football's only seven months away.