Over The Hills?

The Summer Olympics didn't finish as big as it started. The Hills didn't start as big as it finished.Here are the broadcast and cable ratings highlights for the week ending Sunday, per the latest Nielsen Media Research rankings:
The audience for the Beijing Games' closing ceremony was 25 percent smaller the opening ceremony's audience, but (1) that's normal and (2) that's still a whole lot of people. Sunday's finale averaged 27.8 million, easily the post-Michael Phelps Olympic highlight for NBC, and easily the week's top show.Viewership was up a whopping 42 percent over the 2004 Summer Games' closing ceremony from Athens. In all, the Beijing finale was the most-watched summertime closing ceremony since the 1996 Atlanta Games (34.1 million).In all, NBC said it averaged 27.7 million prime-time viewers during its 17 nights of Olympic coverage. That's up 13 percent over Athens. And that's up 269 pe (link)