By Adam Pasick
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Winter Olympics are likely to remain a major focal point for advertisers despite falling short with U.S. audiences this year, the chief executive of No. 2 global advertising group WPP Group (WPP.L: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) said on Wednesday.
"The television ratings were, I think, a little bit disappointing, but NBC said they made a good return on it," Martin Sorrell said at the Reuters Global Technology, Media and Telecoms Summit in New York on Wednesday.
Yet fragmenting TV audiences have paradoxically made big events like the Olympics more important than ever, even with smaller audiences.
"There are very few events that have significant reach anymore. That's the paradox of Super Bowl advertising -- why does a 30-second spot cost $2.5 million?" Sorrell said. "There is a pool of money which has remained pretty much the same that is willing to bid for those programs."
This year in the United States, the second week of Olympics coverage trailed programming on another network in the key 18-49 demographic for the first time in decades. The event, televised by NBC, did have several big ratings draws, including two strong nights of women's figure skating.
Sorrell noted that the Turin Olympics' U.S. ratings were probably affected by the 6-hour plus difference in time zones.
"I find it difficult to believe that an event like the winter Olympics, summer Olympics, the Super Bowl or the Academy Awards would become less interesting," he said.
WPP expects the "mini-quadrennial" events of the winter Olympics, the World Cup and the U.S. midterm elections to drive an increase of at least 4 percent in 2006 ad spending. Continued...
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