NBC finds this Olympics a tougher (advertising) sell (Dinosaur Media DeathWatch™)

In just one month, on Aug. 8, NBC will begin airing the Summer Olympics from China, but from the looks of things it's not shaping up all that well for NBC as it attempts to sell its remaining ad inventory.

At the least, the Games are looking to be a disappointment for the network, say media buyers.

A lot will depend on how viewers and advertisers respond to the Olympic trials now airing.

Ad spending will most likely fall short of NBC’s goal of more than $1 billion, despite it having a record 3,600 hours of coverage on television and the internet.

About 15 percent to 20 percent of the TV inventory remains unsold, say buyers, down from roughly 30 percent just prior to last month’s upfront ad market. NBC declined to comment for this story.

“Advertiser demand is okay,” says Andrew Donchin, director of national broadcast at Carat.

“Are they sold out? Absolutely not. Do they have a lot of hours to sell? Absolutely yes. But, from what I understand, and I’ve been in the marketplace, their sales have been picking up.”

What's hurt the Olympics has been the negative press over many months, and that's led many advertisers to hold back from committing to the Games.

“I think the Olympics have the makings of a massive disaster. Advertisers are antsy about it,” says another buyer. “This is a toxic Olympics, and some people don’t want to be a part of it.”

Much of the recent bad press has been directed toward China's rulers over their shoddy human rights record, from their oppressive control over neighboring Tibet to the recent imprisonment of protesting parents whose children died in the May earthquake.

Also, leading into the Games, there's been increasingly negative reports on China’s deplorable living conditions and air pollution so thick that visiting reporters say they can’t see more than two blocks away.

What NBC most needs is a shift in the story away from the negative toward some of the positive stories that are emerging from the trials, such as the performances of swimmers like Michael Phelps and Dara Torres, who have been breaking records in the trials.

"We’re starting to see some great stories emerge,” says David Carter, principal at consulting firm Sports Business Group. “The stories and personalities are starting to emerge and, despite the backdrop of China, it makes for an intriguing Olympics.”

Says Larry Novenstern, executive vice president and managing director of newcast at Optimedia:

“Obviously, human rights and that type of thing is being played up, but the Olympics as a platform is one of the best places to advertise. And NBC is going to maximize the positive and minimize the negative.”

These positive stories appear to be coaxing out advertisers who a few weeks ago were considering staying out of this Olympics. More such stories should coax out even more advertisers.

Also working in NBC's favor is the sheer amount of coverage on NBC’s cable networks and the internet. That's opened up opportunities for advertisers that could never afford ad time on NBC.

And even with the protests and the negative coverage, buyers point out the Olympics is still the Olympics.

“There are not that many big TV events anymore and this is a big event,” says Donchin. “Even with all the controversy about China, I think it’s good to associate yourself with the Olympics and people who watch the Olympics are very engaged.”

In 2004, the Summer Games in Athens averaged an 8.7 rating in primetime among adults 18-49, up from an 8.2 for the 2000 Sydney Games, according to a Magna Global analysis of Nielsen ratings.

To break even on this Olympics, NBC needs to pull in enough ad revenue to offset the $900 million it paid for the Games, and it's expected to do that.

http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=128198

Where Will We Watch Those 3,600 Hours of Olympics?
NBC Universal to Use Summer Games to Grasp Cross-Platform Viewing

By Brian Steinberg

Published: July 07, 2008
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — To watch the Olympics a decade or so ago, an inveterate sports-observer would likely have plopped down on the couch and turned on the TV. And that was that. These days, that person is more likely to also sneak a peek at a competition on a computer during the workday, view video highlights on a mobile device or even glance at a match while at a bar.

NBC Universal, which has broadcast the Olympics for decades, has a mission for the 2008 Beijing Games: It wants to analyze the new viewing behaviors of the Olympics audience. And in doing so, it hopes to get marketers accustomed to measuring TV audiences in a different fashion.

NBC has not just committed to analyzing the reach of each TV broadcast, streaming web video or mobile display of its Olympics content. The network will also try to track viewing patterns across every venue, in what might be an early but necessary attempt to gain a picture of the TV viewer of the modern era. These people watch TV content, of course, but don’t always watch it on TV.

Understanding viewers
The project will help advertisers and NBC “begin to understand how the viewer is thinking cross-platform,” said Alan Wurtzel, president-research, NBC Universal. When sports fans can get updates and alerts via mobile device, watch an evening event while out at a bar, look at streaming web video and, yes, just watch good ol’ TV, they will “experience [the Olympics] across a variety of platforms at different times of the day, depending on your life,” he added.

NBC expects the Olympics to draw more than 200 million viewers for 3,600 hours of program content, 2,200 of which are streaming video. The company will make the Olympics available via NBC, Telemundo, five cable channels, NBC.com, video-on-demand and mobile.

Whether NBC will succeed in its attempts to get marketers to pony up for more diffuse audiences remains to be seen. The effort is “trying to link media together,” said Jim Kite, president-connections, research and analytics at Publicis Groupe’s MediaVest. The question, Mr. Kite added, is whether a media outlet such as NBC Universal can turn its research from a tool to gauge audience reception and advertising effectiveness into hard data upon which ad prices can be based. “Whether it becomes a currency is a different thing altogether,” he said.

Research tool
Indeed, one Olympics advertiser simply sees the NBC data as a research tool. Bank of America is a sponsor of the U.S. Olympics team that has placed added emphasis on digital initiatives, such as social-networking, in addition to its TV advertising. “The information from NBC is likely to provide us with rich data that will complement our own internal advertising and brand measurement efforts,” said Joseph L. Goode, a spokesman for the financial-services company.

The media concern will try to go both broad and narrow. NBC Universal will offer a “total audience measurement index” across mobile, online, VOD and TV as well as results from an online survey of 500 Olympics consumers each day, checking on the time they spend with different media as well as the time of day and location of their exposure to Olympics programming. While the index offers a directional picture to how many viewers watch content, it is not able to tell whether the views are unduplicated, and whether the same viewers are watching across different venues.

NBC will also work with IMMI, a San Mateo, Calif., company that uses a mobile-phone-based digital-monitoring system to measure consumer media exposure. NBC will try to measure how people follow the Olympics throughout the day and the share of time they spend with mobile, online and TV. IMMI will also help drill down further, analyzing whether online watching takes place at home and at other venues, including work. NBC Universal will also use diaries, interviews and focus groups to get a sense of consumption habits and attitudes over 17 days of the Olympics.

HBO's Gumbel: Lack of Blacks Makes Olympics 'Look Like a GOP Convention'
Newsbusters.org ^ | 2/16/05 | David Pierre

There were some eye-opening remarks from Bryant Gumbel on the most recent episode of HBO's Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel. According to a transcript posted by a television columnist named Seth Frelich, Gumbel said the following in his closing monologue last week (emphasis mine):

"Finally, tonight, the Winter Games. Count me among those who don’t care about them and won’t watch them ... Because they’re so trying ... Like, try not to be incredulous when someone attempts to link these games to those of the ancient Greeks who never heard of skating or skiing. So try not to laugh when someone says these are the world’s greatest athletes, despite a paucity of blacks that makes the Winter Games look like a GOP convention. Try not to point out that something’s not really a sport if a pseudo-athlete waits in what’s called a kiss-and-cry area, while some panel of subjective judges decides who won ... So if only to hasten the arrival of the day they’re done, when we can move on to March Madness — for God’s sake, let the games begin."

FR Source

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