NBC Olympics Tops $1 Billion in Olympic Ad Sales

NBC Olympics has surpassed $1 billion in advertising for the Beijing
Olympic Games. The announcement was made today by Seth Winter, SVP
Sales & Marketing, NBC Sports & Olympics. “We’ve always said that the Olympics is one of the most powerful
properties in all of television,” said Winter. “While we are thrilled
with this milestone, we still expect to write more business as the
Games begin and great stories continue to evolve.”

NBCU’s Olympic sales received a boost from its primetime coverage of
the U.S. Olympics Trials for Swimming, Gymnastics and Track &
Field, which saw ratings increases over 2004 and featured buzzworthy
performances from marquee athletes such as Michael Phelps, Dara Torres,
Tyson Gay and Shawn Johnson. Advertisers also have noted the recent
stellar ratings for the U.S. Open and Wimbledon on NBC, as well as the
Super Bowl.

The Beijing Games begin tomorrow – 8-8-08 – with the Opening Ceremony
at the recently announced early start time of 7:30 p.m. ET/PT, and
continue through Sunday, Aug. 24. For complete listings and schedule
information log onto NBCOlympics.com.

NBC Universal, broadcasting its record 11th Olympics and surpassing ABC
for the most Olympics broadcast by any network, will present an
unprecedented 3,600 hours of Beijing Olympic Games coverage, the most
ambitious single media project in history. NBCU’s unprecedented
Olympics coverage features the most live coverage in the United States
(nearly 2,900 live hours in total), across the most platforms, of any
Summer Olympics in history when the Games of the XXIX Olympiad commence
on Friday.

The 3,600 total hours of coverage on seven NBC Universal networks: NBC,
USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen, Telemundo and Universal HD, as well as
NBCOlympics.com, is 1,000 hours more than the combined coverage for
every televised Summer Olympics in U.S. history (Rome 1960 – Athens
2004, 2,562 hours). NBCOlympics.com will feature approximately 2,200
total hours of live streaming Olympic broadband video coverage, the
first live online Olympic coverage in the United States.

NBC, America’s Olympic Network, holds the exclusive U.S. media rights
to the Olympic Games through 2012, which includes Vancouver 2010 and
London 2012.