TV ratings: Salt Lake still burns to watch the Olympics

    The Olympic flame still burns bright in Salt Lake City, according to the number of local viewers tuning into the 2008 Beijing Summer Games.
    The Salt Lake City television market has the nation's fifth-highest percentage of households watching the Games in primetime, according to Jenny Love, KSL Channel 5's research director.
    The Salt Lake market, which has about 874,650 households with televisions, has been averaging a 24.9 rating each night for the first five days. That translates to 24.9 percent of Salt Lake valley households tuned to the Olympics each night.
    Of the 56 television markets that are measured in the country, Salt Lake City only ranked behind Baltimore, Denver, Minneapolis and San Diego in Olympic viewership so far, according to ratings by Nielsen Media Research.
    And those ratings are especially significant because the number of households watching TV is down 7 percent compared to the number watching during the Athens Summer Games in 2004.
    vince@sltrib.com