Downloads:

NBC Looks to Lose Sweeps, but Avoids Olympics Makegoods

Through Saturday night, NBC’s Winter Olympics averaged a 12.3 household rating, putting the programming just within the 12 to 14 rating range promised to advertisers, which means that NBC is off the hook when it comes to providing makegoods to advertisers, Media Life writes. While the network won the three weeks in primetime for the 16 days of Olympics coverage, it looks as though it will finish behind ABC for the February sweeps, according to the most recent numbers.

ABC’s aggressive strategy of scheduling first-run programming against the Olympics - along with the strength of the Super Bowl - will help the network beat NBC in the key adults 18-49 demo in the sweeps. Fox is also expected to beat NBC, thanks to the continuing popularity of blockbuster program American Idol, Mediaweek writes.

On Thursday, for example, when NBC aired the women’s figure skating finals (typically the most popular event in winter games), ABC aired an original Dancing with the Stars and Fox aired a special American Idol, while CBS scheduled a first-run Survivor.

Media buyers say NBC did a poor job with promotion and presentation of the Games. If NBC can’t fix those problems before the Beijing Summer Games in 2008, the network may have a difficult time achieving more than a nominal price increase for those games.

But a study by IAG Research that monitored the effectiveness of ads run during the Olympics hints that advertisers may indeed be getting a good deal with Olympics advertising, even when ratings are low: the study showed that ads in the Olympics generated 17 percent higher brand recall, 35 percent higher message recall, and 36 percent higher likeability than ads run during the average prime time show.