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NBCU calls Pyeongchang Olympics 'more dominant' than ever

NBCUniversal Media LLC wrapped up its coverage of the Winter Olympics and even if the viewership was not exactly golden by past standards, Comcast Corp.'s programming arm finished its presentation from Pyeongchang in the black.

Mark Lazarus, chairman of NBC Broadcasting and Sports, said in a release on Feb. 25, the final day of coverage from South Korea, that the 2018 Winter Games "will be the fourth consecutive Olympics that we make a profit, starting with London in 2012."

When Olympic competition began Feb. 8, Dan Lovinger, executive vice president of advertising sales at NBC Sports Group, announced the company had set a Winter Games record by reaching its goal of $900 million in national ad sales across linear coverage on NBC (US), NBCSN (US), USA (US) and CNBC (US) and digital offerings via NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app. After five days of coverage, Lazarus, speaking from South Korea, told reporters that NBCU had met its games’ guarantees to advertisers and was re-entering the ad market with inventory it had set aside for make-goods for potential audience under-delivery.

With the rise of digital and streaming platforms, traditional viewing patterns have been changing significantly in recent years, taking a major bite out of linear audiences. To that end, NBCU was able to sell the Olympics under Total Audience Delivery, or TAD, measuring average-minute watching on NBC, NBCSN and digital platforms, NBCOlympics.com and the NBC Sports app in prime time. With NBCU lowering its audience guarantees from the Sochi Winter Games, the TAD measurement allowed NBCU to stay close with the prime-time performance from Russia in 2014 and the strength in other dayparts also enabled the programmer to return to marketplace.

"We finished Pyeongchang with more than $920 million in national ad sales, a Winter Games record," Lazarus said in the Feb. 25 release. "We added more than $20 million once the Games began due to viewership exceeding our advertiser guarantees."

In addition to national ad sales, NBCU derives Olympic revenues from a number of other sources, including ad sales from its owned stations, as well as fees from cable, satellite and telco distributors licensing the content, including on-demand rights. The broad viewership also supplies promotional and sampling support for the programmer’s other shows and holdings.

NBCU allocated $963 million to the International Olympic Committee for multiplatform U.S. rights to the action in South Korea, plus production and personnel costs, both on the ground in Pyeongchang and NBC Sports headquarters in Stamford, Conn.

Through the first 14 nights from Pyeongchang, TAD averaged 20.8 million viewers, an 11% boost above NBC’s 18.5 million average. Still, the Pyeongchang coverage trailed the 22.6 million NBC-only average from Sochi concurrent cable and streaming coverage was not in play during prime-time coverage in 2014 by 8% over the first two weeks. With the games winding down, viewership has been falling further. NBCU is expected to make the final viewership and TAD numbers available on Feb. 26.

"In today’s media environment, to average approximately 20 million viewers over 18 nights which is essentially the number of hours for a full season of three prime-time shows is a tremendous accomplishment," Lazarus said in the release. "When compared to the competition, we were more dominant than any Winter Games ever."

NBC Olympics President Gary Zenkel further noted the games connected with users on different platforms.

"We will continue to evolve the way we reach viewers as they change the way they consume content," he said in a release. "By utilizing Snapchat, Buzzfeed, Google, Apple News, Uber, Peleton, and many more partners, we were able to successfully reassemble the fragmented audience by reaching viewers where they consume media."

In particular, Zenkel said the company’s partnership with Snapchat owner Snap Inc. was "a resounding success."

"By creating custom content for their large and media savvy user base, including the first-ever presentation of live Olympic content on a non-NBCU platform, we reached more than 40 million users, 90% of whom were under the age of 35," he said.

Looking ahead, Lazarus expects NBCU to continue to benefit from the upcoming competitions.

"Our long-term Olympic rights agreement through 2032 is the best in all of media," Lazarus said. "With Tokyo, Beijing, Paris and Los Angeles coming up as hosts and coming off four consecutive profitable Games we are very bullish on our investment."