A: No, as NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol confirmed in a recent note to staffers in saying, "It's no secret that our Olympic broadcasts are a resounding ratings success." In case anybody wondered if a network would keep its biggest ratings secret. Or wondered if NBC's ratings so far constitute a "resounding" success.

Q: Did NBC's Olympic primetime Tuesday, featuring what's usually the Winter Games' biggest draw in women's figure skating, outdraw Fox's American Idol?

A: No, but NBC did pretty well. NBC, during the head-to-head (8-10 pm ET), drew 12.3% of U.S. TV households while Idol drew 13.3%.

Q: At last month's U.S. figure-skating Olympic trials, did NBC really offer judges there the chance to audition for their very own NBC late-night talk shows?

A: No one can say that's a fact. What is known is that U.S. figure skating star Sasha Cohen helped NBC average 15.5% of U.S. TV households on the first night of women's figure-skating at the 2006 Winter Games. Without Cohen, who last month tried but failed to make the U.S. team, NBC Tuesday primetime averaged 12.6% — down 19% from 2006.

NBC has now solidified its late-night lineup.

Q: Will Brian Williams permanently host NBC's Nightly News from Vancouver?

A: No. He's there now because Olympic coverage always brings a ratings boost to other network programming such as the evening news. NBC chose to take advantage of having new viewers at least temporarily sampling Williams' show by having it serve as a sort of pregame show for primetime Olympic coverage.

After the Games, NBC's evening news will return to New York but it would also make sense for it to occasionally originate from the set of its the network's heavily hyped new chucklefest, The Marriage Ref. NBC's Today will also return to New York, where it will next week debut daily bake sale segments benefiting and promoting NBC's 2012 Summer Olympic coverage.

Q: What can anybody do to get NBC to show Friday's U.S. men's hockey semifinal (3 p.m. ET) live, rather than on tape-delay, across the USA?

A: No need. NBC announced Tuesday it will air that game live in the Eastern, Central, Mountain and Pacific time zones.

On the issue of tape-delaying primetime Olympic action in the West, NBC has pointed out it can't be that big of a deal since Olympic viewing is always highest in the Mountain and Pacific time zones. But for Vancouver so far, that isn't the case. The highest ratings are coming from the Mountain time zone, but the Central's ratings are in second ahead of Pacific's ratings.

Q: Why does NBC always go overboard milking the drama out of Olympic action?

A: It doesn't. A perfect example was NBC's admirably understated coverage of Canadian figure skater Joannire Rochette competing Tuesday after the recent death of her mother. The network let its pictures tell the story.