The Athens Exemplar: An Olympic Promotion Effort Pays Off for “The Networks of NBC”

Abstract

This study examines the on-air promotion within the high-profile Summer Olympics telecasts on NBC in 2004 and, for the first time, its co-owned cable networks. NBC made a number of adjustments to the promotion practices compared to previous Olympic coverage and utilized the cable networks to extensively cross-promote the broadcast network lineup. September 2004 ratings results indicated that many programs received a substantial bump following the Olympic broadcasts. Surprisingly, every new series increased ratings over its time slot in the previous year, and three of the five new shows increased by more than 2 ratings points—as did more than one-third of returning shows. Only one primetime program promoted during the Olympics suffered a significant ratings drop. NBC's revised promotion approach during the Olympic telecasts and strategic decision to move several premiere episodes earlier in September appears justified.

KEYWORDS:

• olympics
• promotions
• sports
• television programming

Notes

1. Spanish-language Telemundo and the separate HDTV feed were not included.

2. Olympic coverage actually began with soccer matches on MSNBC in the two days prior to the Opening Ceremonies on Friday, August 13.

3. The overnight repeat of the primetime broadcast that aired each night on NBC was not included.

4. Five hours of morning programming on USA and Bravo on August 15 is missing due to a VCR malfunction.

5. Although NBC made substantial use of these live methods for promoting additional Olympic coverage—indeed, the TV listing graphic was an hourly feature during most coverage—this analysis focuses on promotion for subsequent non-Olympic programming.

6. Most of the data came from the weekly ratings chart in Broadcasting & Cable magazine. However, a production error at B&C left data for the third week following the Olympics (week of Sept. 13, 2004) missing. Ratings for that week were compiled from various sources including tvtracker.com and the Associated Press. The researchers were eventually able to find household ratings for all of the promoted programs, although some lead-in data remain missing, and we have been unable to obtain complete cable network ratings, limiting our ability to do a full quantitative analysis.

7. Individual measures of agreement were promoted network: .98; genre: .98; location: .80; position: .96; construction: .99; type: .94; familiarity: .98.

8. The cable networks’ cross-promotion reported here was all for primetime programming on the broadcast network. However, promos for upcoming Olympic coverage frequently included events airing on both the cable networks and the broadcast network, and aired on all of “the networks of NBC.