NBC Standing Firm on Policy

Unbowed by critics calling for the live broadcast of the Summer Olympics, NBC’s Olympic production team reiterated Wednesday that the Sydney Games will be broadcast entirely on tape delay because most American viewers want and expect captivating, heartwarming, soul-satisfying stories--not merely results.

NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol also said that the network fully anticipates that delivering the Games as packaged entertainment will generate solid ratings and, according to the latest estimates, a profit.

Echoing comments made with increasing frequency in recent weeks by other Olympic insiders, Ebersol added that NBC expects to see little or no impact on the Sydney Games from the corruption scandal that shook the Olympic movement last year. Strong advertising sales have provided more than enough reason for NBC to proclaim, in Aussie style, no worries.

“The only big worry I have is how many of our employees won’t want to come back,” Ebersol said with a smile, his mood at a lengthy news conference underscoring the emerging belief and welcome relief at the network that NBC--which bet big on the Olympics--may have bet shrewdly.

The Sydney Games mark NBC’s first installment on a five-part, $3.5-billion deal. In the summer of 1995, NBC bought U.S. broadcasting rights to the Summer Games in Sydney and the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City for $1.2 billion; a few months later it paid $2.3 billion for U.S. rights to the Games in 2004, 2006 and 2008.

When the first deal was struck, NBC executives originally believed the Sydney portion of the deal would be a loss leader or perhaps break even. The idea was to recoup the investment--and more--in Salt Lake.

Expectations have changed.

The Sydney part of the deal cost NBC $705 million. NBC suddenly finds itself closing in on $900 million in advertising sales. Ebersol said Wednesday, “We’re still selling,” and, “We are already assured of a small profit.”

The reason expectations were originally so dim for the Games in Australia is simple: In September, Sydney is 18 hours ahead of Los Angeles, 15 ahead of New York; when it’s evening in Australia, meaning finals time in many marquee events, it’s early morning in the United States.

Fewer than 10% of the television sets in the United States are turned on during those hours, Ebersol said, and it’s far from clear that a set that’s turned on at 3 a.m. is being watched.

“There’s nobody watching,” he said.

Given the realities of time and distance, Ebersol had announced May 9 at an internal production seminar in Salt Lake City that NBC would be showing the Games on tape delay. The Times was among a handful of newspapers invited to that seminar.

“The decision was made early on,” he said again Wednesday, to reach “the largest possible audience,” meaning prime-time in the United States, when families-- women, in particular--can be lured to the TV.

Roughly one of every two U.S. viewers--48%--of NBC’s Olympic programming is female, network research indicates.

At the Utah seminar, NBC also outlined a three-pronged coverage plan--using NBC itself, cable networks CNBC and MSNBC and the NBC Olympic Web site.

In all, according to revised figures available Wednesday, NBC is planning 441 1/2 hours of coverage, with 162 1/2 on the network and 279 on CNBC and MSNBC. The Web site will feature results and analysis.

The Utah seminar also made plain that American viewers can expect to see a lot of swimming during the first week of the Games and steady coverage during the second week of track stars Marion Jones and Michael Johnson.

The decision to show such stars on tape, meantime, drew criticism from purists and from fans mystified that results of a particular event would be known for hours, particularly in Los Angeles and the rest of the West Coast, before being aired on network TV.

The reality is, however, that NBC--which has televised every Summer Games since 1988--has relied, often extensively, on tape in prior Games.

The key difference: In Barcelona in 1992 and in Atlanta in 1996, NBC had resorted to the fiction of calling some events “plausibly live.” It pretended to show live coverage when in fact it was working from tape.

That term invited--and drew--severe criticism. It “really hurt us,” Bob Costas, NBC’s chief studio host at the Games, said Wednesday.

In Sydney, NBC will say time and again that events are being shown from tape. The “most important thing,” Costas said, “is to come clean.”

Ebersol also stressed that NBC never asked Australia organizers to switch event times to suit the American network. NBC had pushed for the rescheduling of key track and field events in Seoul in 1988 so they could be shown live in the United States.

Meantime, the indicators of a coming financial success have served among NBC executives to reinforce their long-held notion that the network best serves American viewers by showing the Games--unlike many of the other sorts of sports programming it shows live--as a series of stories specially packaged for viewer consumption.

To do otherwise would be folly, Ebersol said. Track and field draws miserable ratings when it’s not the Olympics, he said. So do gymnastics and swimming.

But what frequently makes the story of, for example, a gymnast so compelling is that he or she has trained for years for an event that is over in seconds--frequently with no second chance.

Ergo, the familiar “up close and personal” approach, which establishes what David Neal, NBC’s head of production, called a “vital human connection” with viewers.

The features, Ebersol promised, won’t be quite as sappy as in years past.

“We’ve gone out of our way to downgrade asthma as a major story of sacrifice,” he said.