By SUZANNE VRANICA
There have been plenty of negative hashtags assigned to NBC's Olympics coverage on Twitter, including #NBCFail and #NBCStinks. But on Madison Avenue the hashtag for this Olympics so far is more like: #NBC$$$$.
NBCUniversal has pulled in more advertising dollars than expected. It could even break even on its Olympics coverage, rather than lose $200 million as previously predicted, said Steve Burke, chief executive officer of Comcast Corp.'s NBCUniversal, on Wednesday during a conference call with analysts.
NBC has been been beaten up for its handling of the Olympics on Twitter, Facebook and all over the Web. You'd think the broadcaster was having a terrible moment, but it's just the opposite, as Suzanne Vrancia explains on The News Hub. Photo: AP.
"We feel very good," Mr. Burke said, "because all of the numbers...are significantly better than we projected."
Comcast says that it sold about $1.2 billion in ads for this summer's Olympics in London, up significantly from the roughly $850 million NBC took in during the Beijing Games in 2008. NBC, which is streaming all events live for the first time ever, paid $1.18 billion for the broadcast rights to the London Games.
Meanwhile, media outlets have made their own sport of chronicling NBC's production miscues. But the bulk of the U.S. TV audience seems to be tuning much of this outâ€"and tuning into the coverage.
In the first five nights of the games, an average of 35.6 million viewers tuned in, the most for any non-U.S. Summer Olympics in 36 years, according to NBC. More importantly, NBC so far has surpassed the ratings number that it had guaranteed advertisers by 5% to 20%, according to media buyers.
This came as a surprise. Going into the games, the feeling on Madison Avenue was that the prime-time ratings would suffer, particularly with all of the events streaming live on NBCOlympics.com.
On Twitter, Facebook and various blogs, fans have complained about NBC's "awful" web streams, "dreadful" commentary and misfired spoiler alerts.
"NBC, you nincompoops," one person tweeted Monday. "Your Today Show ad with Missy Franklin and her gold medal aired BEFORE the broadcast of the race. #nbcfail"
Particular anger has been unleashed on the network's tape-delayed prime-time coverage. "The Olympics should be a time I can watch sports 24/7," someone tweeted Wednesday. "Not a measly 3.5 hrs of select American sports chosen by NBC. #nbcfail"
Exactly how widespread is the disapproval? It is hard to say, but one group critical to NBC's financial standing doesn't seem to mind: media buyers and Olympic advertisers such as Coca-Cola Co. and Chobani yogurt.
"There will always be individuals who complain about everything, and now, with social media, they have a megaphone to broadcast their opinions over the Internet," said Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at Coca-Cola. "I much prefer the NBC broadcast to theirs," he said, adding that the ratings have been "stellar." Coke is one of the biggest advertisers this year and an Olympic sponsor since 1928.
Doug VandeVelde, a senior vice president of marketing at Kellogg Co., said, "Consumers are voting with their eyeballs."
"People have a right to complain on social media but that doesn't always make it relevant," said Jason Kanefsky, a media buyer at Havas's MPG SA. "What is relevant is that people are…tuning in."
"NBC ran the risk of cannibalizing its prime-time broadcast by offering it online but instead it demonstrated that digital and traditional media can complement each other," said Mike Rosen, president of activation at Starcom, a media-buying firm owned by Publicis Groupe SA.
Of course, NBC only has five nights under its belt now and buyers are quick to point out that things could change. Historically, Olympic viewership tends to soften in the back half as audiences get fatigued.
Buyers wonder if there are enough compelling story lines to carry the momentum through the rest of the 17-day Olympic broadcast.
While the social-media outcry is a public relations nightmare for NBC, keeping dollars coming in is more important to a network that has lagged behind the other major networks in ratings.
NBCU remains the smaller, weaker and more volatile part of its parent Comcast's overall business. NBCU's second-quarter operating profit before depreciation and amortization fell 15% to $982 million from $1.2 billion, due in part to increased investment in programming for its channels., which include the NBC network.
Overall, Philadelphia-based Comcast Wednesday reported a 32% increase in second-quarter profit, due in part to continued broadband growth in its lucrative cable distribution division.
Finding ways to bring in more Olympic ad dollars is critical for NBC, as sports-rights fees continue to escalate. Comcast paid a record $4.4 billion for the rights to broadcast the Olympic Games from 2014 throughout 2020.
NBC could "stand a chance to make money on future Olympics" because captive audiences in front of television screens will become "more and more valuable," said Mr. Burke.
â€"Shalini Ramachandran contributed to this article.Write to Suzanne Vranica at suzanne.vranica@wsj.com
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