While viewership for the Pyeongchang Games are down from four years ago, the audience figures have been higher than NBC "had anticipated when it began negotiating with advertisers looking to buy time in the 18-night spectacle," resulting in the ad sales team having "some bonus available inventory on its hands," according to Anthony Crupi of AD AGE. NBC Broadcasting & Sports Chair Mark Lazarus said the Olympics ratings "increased our capacity in ways we did not expect." The net as a result is "freeing up some of the commercial time it had held back as a hedge against possible makegoods." Lazarus said that NBC has "'a few million dollars' worth of inventory it had salted aside for makegoods that it can now sell to 'advertisers who came in with smaller buys and who want to buy up' or, perhaps, newcomers who approached the PyeongChang Games with a wait-and-see attitude." Media buyers who bought time against NBC's Total Audience Delivery metric confirmed that the network's current numbers are "landing right in the sweet spot of its guarantees." The expectations of those who "bought into the complete TAD package far outweigh that of the early birds who negotiated against guaranteed household ratings." Lazarus said nearly 90% of Olympics advertisers "bought the entire suite of products" (ADAGE.com, 2/13). In L.A., Stephen Battaglio writes, "Television's age of lowered ratings expectations has come to the Winter Olympics." However, NBC execs "weren't in a panic" (L.A. TIMES, 2/14).
IN A GOOD SPOT: VARIETY's Brian Steinberg noted while NBC acknowledged that viewership in primetime had fallen, "viewership in other dayparts is up." Lazarus said that the net "took erosion into account when devising advertiser guarantees, and established benchmarks accordingly." Lazarus: "If you look at the total media landscape, if you are down roughly 5% over a four-year period -- no one is doing as well as that in television. We are doing very well" (VARIETY.com, 2/13). Lazarus noted that Pyeongchang has "already surpassed the overall digital consumption of the Sochi games four years ago." Lazarus: "This turned out to be the most consumed Winter Games in history." Lazarus said while past Olympics have seen audience spikes for specific events, this year, “people are coming for the Olympics, and they’re staying at a relatively even level throughout the evening." He added, "People are coming for the Games, regardless of what the specific content is." ADWEEK's Jason Lynch noted that is a "promising development," given that some of the "biggest U.S. stars" in the Games -- including skiers Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin -- have yet to compete due to weather delays (ADWEEK.com, 2/13). Lazarus said that the Olympics "remain the biggest event on television with an audience that is double or triple that of the combined audience of the other networks during prime time" (PHILLY.com, 2/13).
