Whodathunkit?

Much has been made in the press over the last week at how lousy the ratings have been for NBC's coverage of the Torino Winter Olympics in Turin (which, I believe, is their official title for the games--almost as tongue-tying and head-shakingly dorky as the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim). The main NBC Olympics coverage has been trounced by Simon Cowell and Paul Abdul over at Fox's American Idol (which I have still yet to watch). But NBC's corral of cable networks that are also broadcasting the games have had banner ratings, including this tidbit from today's Studio Briefing (at IMDB):

NBC Universal said Tuesday that coverage of women's curling on Saturday averaged 1.26 million viewers on MSNBC -- making it the network's most-watched Saturday broadcast since the start of the war in Iraq nearly three years ago. CNBC saw an even larger growth spurt. While it averaged just 155,000 viewers in primetime in January, it averaged 1.04 million last week for its curling coverage.

I love the somnambulant sport curling and have enjoyed watching it via CBC's Olympic coverage (we get the Canadian network via our limited cable package from Comcast), almost as much as cricket--they're both easy-going and hypnotic. I wonder what the demographic is that's been tuning into MSNBC's coverage--Canadian expats? hangover victims (it is very soothing)?