Phelps second to Golden Girls

Reuters

OUTRATED: Swimming star Michael Phelps may have rewritten Olympic history, but United States television audiences prefer a Golden Girls spin-off, Empty Nest (inset).

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If Michael Phelps needed something to keep him grounded after his superhuman athletic displays of the past week, US ratings figures for his record-breaking feats might do the trick.

At first glance, it looks like another Phelps record: his historic eighth gold medal in the 4x100 metres medley relay gave US broadcaster NBC its most watched Saturday prime-time broadcast in 18 years.

But while the telecast including Phelps's swim averaged 31.1 million US viewers, it still didn't quite have the drawing power of Empty Nest, a long-forgotten TV spinoff of The Golden Girls, which drew 31.4 million viewers in February 1990.

Given Phelps was just four years old at the time, he probably doesn't remember much about Empty Nest, so we'll attempt to put it into context.

The Internet Movie Database says the program "tells of the day to day misadventures of a widowed pediatrician, Harry Weston, and his two adult daughters, Barbara and Carol Weston, who have come back to live with him after failed marriages".

The series, for which lead actor Richard Mulligan won three Emmys, also featured guest appearances from Golden Girls Estelle Getty and Betty White, aka Sofia and Rose. It ran from 1988-1995.

While swimming traditionally doesn't rate among sports fans in the US, much has been made of how the country has embraced its newest sporting sensation.

The program of the swimming at the Beijing Games was rearranged to coincide with US TV prime time, giving Phelps the maximum exposure possible in his bid to create history.

Now organisers might be asking if it was all worth it.

Admittedly, the network has averaged 30 million viewers in prime time throughout the Games so far, but in a TV-loving nation this puts it on a par with the numbers tuning in each week for American Idol.

-with Reuters

- © Fairfax NZ News