NBC has more than Bode Miller and Michelle Kwan to be concerned about during the Olympics at Turin, Italy. There's also Simon Cowell, Evangeline Lilly and those interns on "Grey's Anatomy."

Many factors have conspired to make the Turin Olympics -- through five days of competition -- less of a television event than past Olympics. Probably the most significant is that other networks are putting up a fight with potent weapons.

NBC was knocked on its heels by the first night the Olympics went up against Fox's "American Idol" Tuesday. Based on preliminary Nielsen Media Research estimates, "Idol" doubled the Olympics audience when they went head-to-head again Wednesday.

The 17.9 million people who watched Wednesday made it the least-watched night of Winter Olympics competition since at least 1988, according to Nielsen.

Through the first six days of Olympics broadcasts, the average Olympics viewership of 21 million people is down 36 percent from the 2002 Salt Lake City Games, 43 percent among the 18-to-49-year-old viewers advertisers prefer.

Bracing for competition

American Kristina Koznick took three runs yesterday with a brace on her right knee, her first time on skis since injuring herself almost two weeks ago.

The top-ranked U.S. women's slalom racer skied on a gentle slope.

Koznick, 30, has only six days until the women's slalom. She has partially torn ligaments in her knee.

Change the subject

Speed skater Chad Hedrick says he istired of talking about Shani Davis. Then again, it sure didn't take much to get Hedrick worked up -- just a few questions about Davis' decision to skip the team pursuit.

"This Shani thing is really getting on my nerves right now because I'm the one with the gold medal and we're sitting here talking about him not practicing with us and not doing this and not doing that," said Hedrick, who started his Olympics with a dominating victory in the 5,000 meters and has three more races to go.

"We should be talking about other people," Hedrick said, mentioning U.S. teammate and 500 gold medalist Joey Cheek.

Where are the crowds?

Replicating the big crowds and carnival atmosphere of previous Winter Olympics was never going to be easy -- especially in Italy, a country where soccer rules.

It's been a mixed picture so far at the Turin Olympics, with some athletes complaining about empty seats and docile crowds and others performing in front of packed stands.

Speed skating has been a far cry from the last three Olympics, where it had great interest and took place at spectacular venues. "It's very disappointing to walk in and it's half empty," American speed skater Jennifer Rodriguez said earlier this week. "I can't believe this is the Olympics. It almost felt like a World Cup meet. The Olympics should be sold out."