NBC Olympic Advertising revenue.
It will be interesting to see what the rates are for the download service and what the Wavexpress percentage equals.
NBC SUFFERING ITS OWN OLYMPIC TRIAL$
June 4, 2008 -- With just two months until the Beijing Olympics, NBC is scrambling to sell out ad time for its broadcast of the Games.
The Peacock network is said to be aggressively pushing advertisers and their agencies to buy spots during the Olympics as part of the "upfront" sales negotiations that started in mid-May.
Ad execs estimated NBC was anywhere from $150 million to $300 million shy of its sales target.
Officially, though, an NBC spokesman said sales were on track. "We're about 80 percent sold and on pace with past games," said NBC's Brian Walker.
In April, NBC Universal chief Jeff Zucker said the network had sold about 75 percent of the available Olympic ad time and that demand was "incredibly strong."
General Electric-owned NBC is also pushing promotional tie-ins and other ad deals to unload as much time as possible before the opening ceremonies in August, ad execs said.
"Whenever you negotiate with the networks you try to figure out what the hot-button issues are and the Olympics are definitely a hot-button issue for them," said one ad buyer, who asked to be unnamed, citing the sensitive talks.
The network aims to pull in $1.1 billion to $1.2 billion in Olympic ad sales, topping the $1 billion goal it set for the 2004 Summer Games in Athens.
NBC needs to bring in about $1 billion in ad sales to break even on the games. The network paid about $900 million for the US rights to broadcast the Olympics and will spend another $100 million on coverage.
Most of the big spenders have already bought during the Games, which means NBC will have to chase smaller advertisers to close the gap. NBC is charging north of $750,00 for a single spot. Ad execs said the pro-Tibet protests against China are weighing on the Olympics, despite NBC's assertions to the contrary.
A second culprit is the slowing economy. Ad buyers noted the red-hot "scatter" market - in which advertisers buy whatever ad time is left over after the upfront season ends - has cooled in recent months.
"It's definitely slowed down," said one ad buyer. "The economic situation is now having an impact."
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