LOS ANGELES -- Whatever happens over the next 17 days at the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in Beijing, China, American viewers came together en masse to watch Friday night's Opening Ceremonies on NBC.

Masterminded by Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou ("House of Flying Daggers"), the Opening Ceremonies were vast in scope, precision and manpower. NBC taped delayed the airing of them 12 hours so that it could run during primetime in the US.

Saturday morning, the network announced that based on Nielsen overnight ratings, viewership was 19 percent higher than the 2004 Athens Games and 16 percent higher than the 2000 Sydney Games, with an estimated nearly 17 million households tuning in.

The Top 10 audiences were found in San Diego, West Palm Beach, Sacramento, Denver, San Francisco, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Salt Lake City, Nashville and St. Louis.