Balloon Man

Some people look up facts and some people make up facts. Brian Williams makes up facts. On Saturday, Brian once again took time during his Nightly News broadcast to brag about NBC's ratings. He told us that, "By the way, as opening ceremonies go, last night was the most-watched ever for a non-U.S. Winter Olympics--an estimated TV audience of 68 million people." Meanwhile, in Sunday's New York Times, Richard Sandomir wrote, "The opening ceremony on NBC Friday night attracted an average of 32.6 million viewers, the second most for a non-United States Winter Olympics carried by an American network." Brian's figures were more than twice those reported in the Times! So who should we believe? Sandomir is a highly-regarded writer for the most trusted newspaper in the country. Brian Williams is NBC's head cheerleader who regularly uses his newscast to promote NBC and their shows (including his own). Last March 4, Brian spent two minutes talking with CNBC's David Faber about what a great company General Electric is--for the sole purpose of trying to prop up GE's sagging stock price. And let's not forget that Brian and his producers make a practice of submitting their broadcast to Nielsen intentionally misspelled as "Nitely News" when they think a particular broadcast will have lower-than-expected ratings. That way, the lower-rated "Nitely News" won't bring down the ratings for "Nightly News". So Brian Williams and his producers don't exactly have any credibility when it comes to ratings. Brian inflated NBC's Olympic ratings so much that Falcon Heene could have floated away in them.