NBC drew the worst television ratings ever for the Winter Olympics as American viewers abandoned the Winter Games for such primetime shows as Fox’s “American Idol.”

General Electric Co.’s NBC drew an average 12.2% of primetime viewers in the 110.2 million American households with televisions, 37% less than for the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City, according to Nielsen Media Research. The previous primetime low was a 13.4 rating for the 1968 Winter Games at Grenoble, France.

NBC’s broadcasts from Turin, Italy, faced five nights of competition from “American Idol,” the show on News Corporation’s Fox network that is the most-watched program in television in America, and a primetime audience that usually knew the results of events that were staged hours earlier in Europe.

“A tape-delayed Olympics is always a problem and more so today, with all of the information alternatives available,” said a former NBC Sports executive, Mike Trager, who now is an industry consultant.

Each night of NBC’s primetime coverage, except February 11, was down compared with the last two Winter Games. “Desperate Housewives” and “Grey’s Anatomy” on Walt Disney Company’s ABC and “Survivor” on CBS also beat the Olympics.

The network also may have lost viewers because it ranks third in America, hampering its promotional efforts. The highest-rated weekly show on NBC, “Law and Order,” is tied for 16th most-watched.

“NBC is a weakened network,” a former CBS Sports executive, Jay Rosenstein, said. “If fewer people are watching your network, how do you build anticipation for the Olympics?”

NBC promised advertisers ratings in the range of 12% to 14%. Since the ratings finished within that range, discounted or free air time to advertisers, known as makegoods, probably won’t be necessary, media buyers said.

Its Web site, NBCOlympics.com, recorded 361 million “page views” during the Games, 44% more than 2004 Summer Games in Athens, according to NBC. That equates to 15.1 million different visitors to the Web site, NBC said.

The highest primetime Winter Olympics rating was a 27.8 for CBS’s coverage of the 1994 Games in Lillehammer, Norway, which featured the on- and off-ice battle between U.S. figure skaters Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. The 2002 Winter Games had the second-best average, drawing 19.2% in primetime.

The chairman of NBC Sports, Dick Ebersol, last week predicted profits from the Turin Games of between $50 million and $75 million, including $5 million to $6 million from the Internet portion of NBC’s coverage.