NBC expects Olympics ad sellout

Friday, Aug. 13, 2004 | 11:07 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

NEW YORK -- General Electric Co.'s NBC said it expects to sell its remaining television advertising slots for the Olympics by today's opening ceremony in Athens and to make about as much in profit as it did from the Sydney Games.

NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol said last month at a press conference that the network makes a "big profit" on the Olympics, declining to say how much. NBC made at least $50 million from the Sydney Games, according to the San Jose Mercury News and other large U.S. newspapers.

"We're absolutely guaranteed profitability on the order of what we made in Sydney," NBC spokeswoman Cameron Blanchard said in a telephone interview. "We will be sold out by (today)."

With about 2 percent of ads remaining, Blanchard said NBC will reach its goal of $1 billion in advertising sales for the Summer Games, which run through Aug. 29. Leading advertisers for the broadcast include Coca-Cola Co., Eastman Kodak Co., General Motors Corp. and McDonald's Corp.

NBC is seeking to attract a larger audience after its broadcasts from Sydney drew the lowest Olympic ratings in 32 years. Higher ratings from Athens will help NBC promote its fall lineup, which for the first time in a decade will be missing hit comedies such as "Friends," the fourth-most-watched show in the U.S. last year, and "Frasier."

With a 30-second prime-time Olympic commercial costing about $650,000, the Athens telecasts will generate about $1 billion in ad revenue, Karen McCallum, a media buyer at McKee Wallwork Henderson Advertising in Albuquerque, said in an interview.

Prime-time programming for the U.S. will be taped because of the seven-hour time difference between Athens and New York. About a third of the cable coverage will air live on CNBC, MSNBC, USA Network, Telemundo and Bravo.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority -- which has spent millions on its high-profile "What happens here stays here" campaign -- has never advertised during the Olympics, though it gained lots of attention with failed efforts to advertise during the Super Bowl.

The convention and visitors authority considered promoting Las Vegas around the Olympics this year, but decided it was too expensive, spokeswoman Marina Nicola said.

Instead, the agency this year is running ads on NBC at odd hours that don't surround Olympics coverage, she said. These ads are "make-good" ads that the convention and visitors authority is getting for free from the network because the agency paid for ad slots that were preempted by breaking news coverage or for other reasons, she said.

Bloomberg News contributed to this report.