In early January, we asked Americans how much of the Winter Olympic Games in Turin they planned to watch, repeating a trend question we asked prior to the 2002 Winter Olympics and 2000 and 2004 Summer Olympics.
At the time, 53% of Americans said they planned to watch "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of the Torino Olympic Games, which was the lower than any of the previous times we asked about Olympic viewing intentions. Specifically, the relevant percentages were 58% in February 2002, 59% in August 2004, and 59% in September 2000.
My initial thought was that it would be premature to conclude that Olympic interest or viewership would be down this year, because we asked the 2006 version more than a month before the Games started, whereas in the past we asked about interest a week or two before the Games started. Typically, interest increases as an event draws nearer, whether that event is a presidential election, the Super Bowl, or some other event. That should be expected because news coverage of the event increases closer to the date of the event, and people are more cognizant that the event is occurring.
We repeated the interest question in our most recent poll, conducted this past weekend, which allows for a fairer comparison to the previous years' results. Not only were the early indications of less interest confirmed, but the percentage who say they intended to watch a great deal or fair amount of the Olympics was actually lower than it was in January, at 47%.
Thus, based on our measure, we can confidently say Americans are not as enthusiastic about this year's Olympics as they have been about past Olympics. This is also backed up by the early TV ratings that show Olympic viewership is down this year, and struggling against some of the top-rated regular TV shows.