NBC bet big on its coverage of the London Summer Olympics, and according to NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus the network ultimately broke even on the event, despite stellar television ratings. Speaking at the Bloomberg Sports Business Summit, Lazarus said that NBC’s advertising sales for the event reached $1.25 billion, a jump of close to 50 percent compared to the previous Games in Beijing. He also revealed that the television broadcast of the Games ended up being watched by 219.4 million viewers. “We were fortunate many US teams and athletes performed very well, and that was good for our ratings,” Lazarus said. Of course, TV wasn’t the only platform NBC used to draw in visitors — the network’s Olympics site had 744 million page views, while viewers watched 159 million of its YouTube-powered Olympics streams.
NBC broke even on London Olympics coverage, had more than 219 million TV viewers in US
NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus has revealed that the network broke even on its London Olympics coverage.
NBC Sports chairman Mark Lazarus has revealed that the network broke even on its London Olympics coverage.
is an entertainment editor covering streaming, virtual worlds, and every single Pokémon video game. Andrew joined The Verge in 2012, writing over 4,000 stories.
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