NBC Cable Outlines Olympics Ad Sales
By Jim Forkan -- Multichannel News, 5/23/2001 10:53:00 AM
NBC and NBC Cable Networks executives unveiled the extensive local ad-sales kits that were shipped to cable affiliates earlier this month during a press briefing at the RCA Building in New York Wednesday.
The kits went out May 9, when operators could officially begin their sales efforts behind the Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games.
NBC Cable Distribution president David Zaslav said the fact that this will be the first U.S. Winter Olympics since ABC Sports covered Lake Placid, N.Y., more than 20 years ago 'ratchets up the excitement' among viewers and sponsors.
The Salt Lake event, which will run from Feb. 8 through 24, will also be the first domestic Olympics since the ratings-rich Atlanta Summer Olympics in 1996, he noted.
Some MSOs were late in signing carriage contracts with NBC -- covering CNBC/MSNBC carriage, as well as Olympics carriage through 2008 -- and that hurt their local sales efforts, Zaslav said. But he added, 'Many did very well' in generating local ad revenues from last year's Olympics.
NBC Cable vice president of local ad sales Brian Hunt outlined the materials in the affiliate kits, including CD-ROMs containing customizable PowerPoint sales presentations and taggable promotion spots, DVD-based training tapes and print sales guides.
The kits were shipped to 750 affiliate ad-sales offices nationwide, Hunt said. He added that AT&T Broadband and Cox Communications Inc. were among MSOs praising the support materials.
In a video clip, MSNBC's returning Olympics host, Jim Lampley, reported that the NBC cable networks will carry more than 200 hours of Salt Lake coverage and 'a little more than 80 percent' will be live.
But the executives declined to get into how much of the broadcast and cable coverage will be in primetime, indicating that it would be officially announced at a December press conference.
Hunt did say CNBC will cover hockey after the financial markets close each weekday evening, just as it did with boxing from last year's Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia.
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