NBC Aggressively Pushing Advertisers To Buy Olympic Time

NBC reportedly is "aggressively pushing advertisers and their agencies to buy spots during the Olympics as part of the 'upfront' sales negotiations that started in mid-May," according to Holly Sanders of the N.Y. POST. While ad execs estimated that NBC is "anywhere from [$150-300M] shy of its sales target" for the Beijing Games, NBC Sports Dir of Communications Brian Walker said that sales are "on track." Walker: "We're about 80[%] sold and on pace with past games." Sanders notes NBC is charging more than $750,000 per 30-second primetime spot. Ad execs said that NBC also is "pushing promotional tie-ins and other ad deals to unload as much time as possible before" the August 8 Opening Ceremony. The net "aims to pull in [$1.1-1.2B] in Olympic ad sales, topping the $1[B] goal it set" for the '04 Athens Games. To break even on the Games, NBC "needs to bring in about $1[B] in ad sales," as the net paid "about $900[M] for the US rights to broadcast the Olympics and will spend another $100[M] on coverage." Ad execs said that the pro-Tibet protests against China are "weighing on the Olympics, despite NBC's assertions to the contrary." Sanders notes a "second culprit is the slowing economy" (N.Y. POST, 6/4). NBC sources indicated that the net is receiving requests from ad buyers "seeking value pricing on Olympics inventory, given the strength of pricing in the scatter market these days." DAILY VARIETY's Littleton & Frankel report NBC is said to be "close to a pact with media agency GroupM on media primetime inventory for an average CPM increase of 5[%]" (DAILY VARIETY, 6/4).