Peacock plucked in Vancouver

Speaking of NBC, the Peacock network lost $223 million on its Vancouver 2010 coverage, according to the April 16-released quarterly report.

That’s $27 million better than the worst-case scenario, but $23 million worse than the original $200 million estimate of GE CEO Jeff Immelt.

NBC paid $2.2 billion for the Vancouver/London package in 2003 when the advertising market was rosier. A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to Vancouver, called the recession. The last time the Olympics were in a North American time zone was Salt
Lake 2002 when NBC made a $70 million profit.

The Games did bring $800 million in revenue to GE and the ratings were 14% higher than Turin 2006.

ESPN/ABC and FOX are readying to bid for Sochi 2014 and Rio de Janeiro 2016. Will NBC match their offers? s