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NBC Universal says London choice fits Olympic plan

Posted on: Thursday, 7 July 2005, 00:47 CDT

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

Source: REUTERS

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