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The Opening Ceremonies of the Beijing Olympics delivered record ratings for the opening of a Games not held in the U.S., according to early overnight numbers from Nielsen that include the country's major markets.

According to Nielsen, 21.5 percent of U.S. households were watching the Opening Ceremonies from 7:30 to midnight on Friday. The event's share, or the percentage of people watching television Friday night, was an impressive 37. More reliable numbers, including total-viewer and demographic projections, were expected Sunday.

The 21.5 rating/37 share, which far exceeds expectations, reps a 19% improvement over the 2004 Athens ceremony (18.0/30) and its 16% above Sydney in 2000 (18.5/32). It's still below the 23.6/45 for Atlanta in 1996 but NBC notes that it's the best on record for a non-U.S. Opening Ceremony.

Of course, television ratings can't be looked through the same prism of recent years. NBC is devoting a massive 3,600 hours of coverage for the 17-day event, including 2200 hours of online coverage with streamed video on NBCOlympics.com.

Early returns have indeed been very impressive online. The Peacock reported that NBCOlympics.com saw its most traffic ever on Friday with 70 million page views, 10 times more than the 7 million pages views on the opening day of the Athens Games.

The Olympics run through Aug. 24. NBC estimates that it will deliver 2,900 hours of live coverage to the eastern part of the U.S., and about 2,600 hours of live coverage in the West.