NBC Universal says London choice fits Olympic plan

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – London’s selection to host the 2012
Summer Olympics was widely seen as an upset, but NBC Universal,
which holds U.S. media rights to the Games, said the choice was
an expected fit for its billion-dollar investment.

NBC Universal executives have long insisted they had no
preference among the five cities vying for the 2012 Games –
New York, London, Paris, Madrid or Moscow — though industry
observers said New York would clearly have been NBC’s first
choice.

NBC Universal acquired rights to the 2010 Winter Games and
the 2012 Summer Games two years ago, paying $2 billion for the
package, based on the assumption that one of those events would
be held in North America and the other in Europe, NBC Sports
spokesman Mike McCarley said.

With the 2010 Olympics now set for Vancouver, British
Columbia, any of the five cities in the running for 2012 would
have satisfied NBC, he said.

“So we’re right on target as far as our business model for
these two Games,” McCarley said.

Added Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports &
Olympics, “We offer our sincerest congratulations to the people
of London on being selected to host the 2012 Olympic Games.”

NBC Universal’s corporate parent, General Electric Co, is
an International Olympic Committee sponsor through 2012.

From NBC’s perspective, there was otherwise little
practical difference between London and Paris, which was widely
seen as the front-runner, industry observers said.

London was the closest of the four overseas candidate sites
to the United States — a five-hour time difference from New
York, versus six hours for Paris. But as with all four would-be
Olympic host cities, none of the Olympic events from London
could be carried live on U.S. prime-time television.

By the time 2012 rolls around, advances in video-on-demand
and other time-shifting broadcast technologies may render
physical proximity to the Games largely irrelevant for U.S.
audiences, experts said.

During the Athens Games last year, NBC Universal’s family
of broadcast and cable networks brought U.S. viewers
unprecedented round-the-clock coverage, airing a combined 1,210
hours of Olympic programming across all platforms for 17
straight days. The 2004 Summer Games generated total
advertising sales of about $1 billion for NBC Universal.

The broadcaster paid some $820 million for rights to the
upcoming Winter Olympics and another $1.18 billion for the
London Summer Games.

NBC said about 203 million U.S. viewers tuned in to some
portion of the Athens Games, making it the most watched Summer
Olympics in history for an event outside the United States.

Reuters/VNU