NBC says it will lose money on Vancouver Olympics
General Electric Co’s NBC, currently languishing in last place among the four major U.S. TV networks, paid a record $2.2 billion in 2003 for the U.S. broadcast rights to the Beijing 2008 summer and Vancouver 2010 winter Olympics.
But NBC Olympics executive producer Dick Ebersol told TV reporters on Sunday that although advertising sales for the network’s three-week coverage of the Vancouver games had picked up, the network would end up in the red, partly due to the higher licensing fees.