NBC banking on live Olympic events in prime-time TV

By Paul Thomasch

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - NBC Universal has sold more than $900 million in advertising time for the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing, booking nearly 90 percent of its inventory three weeks ahead of the opening ceremony, the company said on Monday.

Aiming to sell $1 billion in Olympic commercial time overall, General Electric Co.-owned NBC Universal plans to air a record 3,600 hours of coverage between August 8 and August 24 across its broadcast, cable TV and online outlets.

In addition to prime-time broadcasts on the flagship NBC network, coverage of the Games will air on Spanish-language network Telemundo, cable channels USA, MSNBC, CNBC and Oxygen, and various websites. Live audio-video streaming of the Games over the Internet will account for about 2,200 hours of NBC Universal's overall coverage.

"I think the country is really ready for this," NBC Universal Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol told a gathering of TV writers, speaking via satellite from Beijing. "It isn't exactly a joyful time; $4 gasoline, people who can't afford vacations; wild prices on food. Audiences are really looking for something to cheer."

Advertisers appear to be betting that viewers will flock to the Beijing Games in large numbers, extending a marketing trend that increasingly favors marquee events like the Olympics, the Super Bowl and Wimbledon over regularly scheduled television.

Because audiences tend to tune in for big-event sports in real time, rather than recording them to watch at their leisure, such broadcasts have grown all the more valuable to advertisers.

Despite forecasts that the U.S. economic slowdown could pinch marketing budgets, advertisers in categories like consumer electronics, movies and retail continue to show strong demand for the Olympics, NBC said.

For NBC and its advertisers, the biggest change in this year's coverage is a sharp increase in the number of events to be carried live in the United States during prime time, with fewer of the tape delays typically required in beaming distant Olympic competition to U.S. viewers.