Olympics Ring Up Gold for NBC

For someone who has been putting in 20-hour workdays every day since Aug. 13, Dick Ebersol, speaking on the phone from Athens Thursday, sounded pretty chipper.

“It has gone better than we could have ever expected,” said the man in charge of NBC’s Olympic coverage. “You know about all the numbers -- the ratings and the profits.”

NBC says 193 million people in the U.S. have watched at least a portion of the Olympics through Wednesday, Day 13. That represents 70% of the population.

The number of average viewers per night, 25.9 million, is up 14% from the Sydney Olympics four years ago. And the average national prime-time rating of 15.8 is up 9% from Sydney.

With the ratings up, NBC reportedly has been able to sell an extra $80-$100 million worth of advertising originally reserved for “make-goods,” commercial spots given to sponsors if the ratings fall below expectations.

“But the most wonderful part of this whole odyssey,” Ebersol said, “is that, after so many thousands of hours were devoted to our concerns over the readiness of the Games and the security, neither has proved relevant.

“Of course security remains a concern, even as these Games wind down.”

Ebersol said that because of security concerns for his staff, he decided two years ago he would live in the massive International Broadcast Center during the Games.

He arrived at the IBC, which houses the world’s broadcasters, at 11 a.m. Athens time Aug. 13 and hasn’t left.

“I’m the IBC’s only resident,” he said.

The chairman of NBC Sports and Olympics has a bed, bathroom and shower in his office. He sleeps from 7:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. each day, he says, and the first thing he sees when he awakes is a wall with five television monitors showing the world feed Olympic coverage.

On another wall in his office, opposite his desk, are 20 television monitors that allow Ebersol to see what is happening at each venue.

“I’m no more than 20 seconds from our two main studios,” he said. “So if something were to happen, I could be up out of bed and there in less than a minute, although no one wants to see me with how my hair looks when I wake up in the morning.”

The plan from the beginning has been that, in case of a terrorist attack or another big news story, Ebersol would switch from sports producer to news producer.

Also, Ebersol said, sports personnel would handle the brunt of the reporting on any news story, with assistance from the 250 NBC News staff members in Athens.

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Holding the Audience

Although NBC’s coverage of the Athens Olympics has been generally well received, there has been some criticism. One complaint is that the biggest stories of the day are held until the end of the prime-time telecasts, which means viewers must stay up until midnight to see them.

“That’s an age-old criticism, vocalized for three decades,” Ebersol said. “Ever since the rights fees exploded in the 1970s, it is our job to hold the largest possible audience.”

But what about running the prime-time telecasts from 7 to 11 instead of 8 to midnight?

“More people watch from 11 to 12 than 7 to 8,” Ebersol said.

Prime-time telecasts from Sydney in 2000 ran five hours, from 7 to midnight, and that proved too long to produce decent ratings. Ratings for Sydney were the lowest for a Summer Olympics since the Mexico City Games in 1968.

“There are three things we learned from Sydney,” Ebersol said.

“One, never have an Olympics in September, after people have gone back to work and back to school.

“Two, you need success in swimming and gymnastics right from the start. The U.S. had no gymnastics medals at Sydney and nine at Athens. Three, cut the number of feature profiles by about 60% and have the play-by-play announcers tell more of the stories.”

Research has shown that women, generally speaking, like the profiles. And, as with other recent Olympics, more women than men are watching the Athens Games.

“An Olympics is more family entertainment than it is a sporting event,” Ebersol said.

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Olympic Notes

NBC, although usually showing soccer commercial-free, was away at a rare commercial break and missed the first goal of the U.S. women’s semifinal victory over Germany. As a result, Ebersol insisted Thursday’s gold-medal game against Brazil be shown commercial free.... NBC has been criticized for its limited high-definition coverage and the 24-hour delays. But HD customers may have been misled by ads from television manufacturers urging customers “to buy HD sets in time for the Olympics.”

Tom Brokaw had an outstanding feature about an Olympic competition held at a Nazi prison camp in 1944 that aired at the end of Wednesday night’s prime-time show. Ebersol said a longer version would be shown tonight at 6:45 on Bravo.... Dan Hicks and Mary Carillo will serve as co-hosts for Sunday’s closing ceremony.

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Short Waves

USC makes its first appearance on ESPN in more than a decade Saturday when it plays Virginia Tech in the Black Coaches Assn. Classic.... The game will also be on ESPN2, but mainly to show how a college football telecast is produced.

USC has added Ontario’s KSPA (1510) to its radio network in hopes of reaching some areas not covered by flagship KMPC (1540).... There will also be Spanish-language coverage on KMXE (830), with John Laguna and Laker commentator Pepe Mantella announcing

On the English broadcast, John Jackson joins the announcing team of Pete Arbogast and Paul McDonald as the new sideline reporter. Jackson replaces Petros Papadakis, who is now the lead commentator on Fox Sports Net’s Pacific 10 package. Jackson will also join Suzy Shuster, Harvey Hyde and Mark Willard for KMPC’s pregame coverage.

Because the Dodgers and Angels are top attractions these days, Fox found a way to show both of their games Saturday in Los Angeles. The Angels’ home game against Minnesota is the regular Fox game of the week at 1 p.m. on Channel 11. The Dodgers’ 10 a.m. game against the New York Mets, originally scheduled to be shown only in other parts of the country, is now being farmed out to News Corp.-owned Dodger flagship station Channel 13. The announcers will be Fox’s Kenny Albert and Tim McCarver.... The Dodgers’ contract with Channel 13 doesn’t expire until 2009, but there are already talks about extending the deal.

Sports anchor Derrin Horton is leaving Channel 9 to join NFL Network. His last day at Channel 9 is Saturday and he starts his new job Monday.... CBS sideline reporter Lesley Visser underwent hip-replacement surgery this week and will miss part of the football season.... CSTV announced Thursday that it had acquired rights to Mountain West Conference football and basketball, beginning in the fall of 2006. Mountain West games have been on ESPN since the league’s inception in 1999.

FSN2 begins a 10-week series featuring classic high school football games Sunday night at 8. First up is the 2002 Hart-Los Alamitos game.... NBA TV will show 50 hours of classic games and other programming beginning today at 3 p.m. with Magic Johnson’s first game as a Laker -- against the San Diego Clippers in 1979. Ten Laker games will be part of the marathon.