It also did nothing for their fall lineup as you mentioned. I’d call the Olympics for NBC a giant failure.

But given the federal governments rules around finacial disclosures, I don’t think listening to what Zucker says is “silly”. Now whether a billion is 900 million or 1.1 billion is another story. You can make a case for even rounding 800 million up to a billion! But since NBC is on record saying it generated more than a billion in revenue for the games, I think that it isn’t silly to assume that’s true. But any profit analysis, even if the $894 million games is correct, is silly. Because we have no idea what those games cost to produce! It wasn’t nothing, that’s for sure.

Interestingly though — and this hasn’t been written much about is that were I at NBC I wouldn’t look at cost and profit analysis so simply, I’d prattle on about what a wonderful promotional opportunity it was for NBC and how much better off all the other shows are as a result of that promotion.

Except…that doesn’t seem to have remotely happened. For all the good it has done NBC’s fall lineup, the Olympics might as well have aired on CBS!

Now on to Heroes- I say get rid of half of your cast and force yourself to tell stories that engage the viewers and make them care!

I believe the NBC profits include The Olympics- that was their cash cow along with a lot of Nascar.

We disagree on the relative importance of the ratings data. While it’s true many factors drive bottom line profits, the only thing really driving *top line revenue* is the number of viewers and what kind of viewers they are.

The Biggest Loser is cheap to make, and it does reasonably well in the demos and I’m sure its profitable. But it has zero syndication and DVD potential. More expensive shows that do have such potential may not yield the same first run profits, but may be more profitable in the longer term (at least if the network’s own studios are producing it — and if not, I don’t imagine they pay the full freight of production beyond the first years of shows anyway).

I agree that ratings are not obsolete. Nielsen ratings, in their current form, are en route to obsolescence though. TNS/DirecTV are offering second-by-second DirecTView data on every DTV channel, no matter how small. Advertisers are buying. The system is clearly in its infancy, so it’s a “wait and see” as to whether DirecTView can be catapulted into a cable/satellie STB data system on a competitive level with Nielsen. Still, it’s proof positive that advertisers are asking a for a little more detail before they plunk down the hard cash.

And as network television is a business, returns and profits are the true bottom line. Nielsen ratings are one of many factors that affect that bottom line. What’s more successful to the network – a show that garners 5 million viewers and costs next-to-nothing to produce (Big Brother springs to mind), or a show that garners 15 million viewers and costs, say $8 million per episode? Judgment calls must be made – dollars over viewers, and vice versa.

So I guess that’s what I meant by “somewhat agree;” I wasn’t taking the comments 100% literally.

Ben’s tour at NBC make’s Jeff’s tenure look like the Golden Age, despite its rapid descent from #1.

The real problem, as I see it, is that Ben has no real ideas going forward — except to cannibalize old or foreign shows, get upfront money from advertisers for embedded plugs, and make shows more cheaply.

That will have an effect on the bottom line for a while. Until virtually no one has any reason to tune in to NBC any more.

One of the major reasons for the multi-billion dollar Olympics buy was to showcase NBC programming — especially to women. Well, NBC accomplished that, and to what purpose?

It will be interesting to see if Charlie Rose asks Silverman any tough questions tonight on PBS.

Heroes is SAFE!

There may certainly be a division at the networks between old guard and new and it may play out in public, but in private it does not matter. That’s just background noise and drama for folks like us to ponder. Realistically, the only place an old guard and new guard would matter is if it happened with the advertisers themselves. And as always, there will be a new guard and old guard even among advertisers, but the chances of either guard declaring that measurement doesn’t matter? I have them at zero.

still, even if both the licensing fees and the revenue were booked in the current year, I think Mikey’s point that it’s hard to believe NBC’s profits are up 50% (or at all) with the Olympics taken out of the equation is valid.

I read a while back that despite a licensing fee of around $650 million, NBC was looking at a net profit of around $90 to $100 million from airing the Olympics in 2008, so if that is the case, it is very possible that 2008 could have seen a 50% jump in profits.

I guess the question here is, how do they account for the Olympics?

Is the rights fee amortized over several years? Are sales are all booked to 2008?

I find it extremely hard to believe that NBC profits are up 50% (or at all, for that matter) if the Olympics are taken out of the equation.

And of course, in an article about Ben Silverman, factoring out the Olympic impact would be entirely appropriate.

YAY.

… Sorry, had to get that out there. I’m burdened with school work at the moment so any small ounce of hope/happiness needs to be celebrated.

She is claiming “they aren’t canceled,” and is pulling a push for pickup. Kind of like how a certain ABC producer is doing.