The Beijing Olympics remain on pace to be the most-watched non-U.S. Olympics ever, validating NBC’s high-volume approach.

Nationally, NBC’s 17.6 average rating through Wednesday is the highest for a non-U.S. Olympics since the Barcelona Games in 1992. NBC has averaged 30.8 million viewers in prime time, more than four million viewers ahead of the 2004 Athens Games.

NBC has been helped that most of its prime-time coverage has been live this week, made possible because gymnastics and swimming were scheduled in the morning (Beijing time) to accommodate U.S. TV. The switching between live coverage of those two sports has added drama that often was lacking in prime time on past non-U.S. Olympics, when many viewers already knew the results before watching.