The final numbers are in and Milwaukee was the third biggest market for NBC's prime-time Olympics coverage, with only Salt Lake City and Denver beating us.

Nielsen Media Research numbers showed a third of southeast Wisconsin TV households watching television were tuned to Channel 4, an average of 190,000 area homes nightly over the 17-day run of the Vancouver games.

For the record, Seattle was in fourth place, and Minneapolis came in fifth.

Channel 4 general manager Steve Wexler has a couple theories on why viewership was so strong in Milwaukee.

"First, we are a very strong NBC affiliate," he said, via e-mail. "In general, NBC programs do better on Today's TMJ4 than in many other cities because the station is a leader in the market and has been for a long time. Even NBC's failed 9 p.m. experiment with Jay Leno did better here than elsewhere."

He also sees a strong Olympic connection to southeast Wisconsin.

"There were so many compelling local stories that made the Olympics 'must see TV' in Milwaukee. Many of the athletes grew up in Wisconsin or trained here. I heard a lot of people tell me they felt like they were cheering for a local team when they watched the Games," according to Wexler. "I'm sure that connection had a lot to do with the strong ratings performance."

There's a third possible reason that I'll add. Milwaukee's TV market tends to skew a bit older than some markets, and the Nielsen analysis shows that the Olympics score far better with older viewers than it does with younger viewers.

Those big numbers during the Olympics allowed Channel 4 to promote itself to an increased audience.

As Wexler explained, "whenever stations are home to a big, 'shared experience' event (such as the Olympics or the Super Bowl), they have the opportunity to remind regular viewers why they choose that station ... and of course, they work hard to convert people to their brand.

"For us," said Wexler, "that meant showcasing our strong lineup of local news, weather and sports talent and delivering the kind of big investigative stories that people expect from us."

Nationally, the Vancouver games were second to the 1994 Lillehammer, Norway, games, which pulled in 204 million viewers. Vancouver had 190 million. The 2002 Salt Lake City games had 187 million.

On TV: Speaking of ratings, Nielsen overnights show Jay Leno's return to NBC's "The Tonight Show" pulled in 6.6 million viewers to David Letterman's 3.8 million on CBS. Check back in a few weeks to see numbers that actually mean something.

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