NBC to lose money broadcasting winter Olympics

NBC will lose money broadcasting the Winter Olympics, Dick Ebersol, chairman of the network’s sports division, said today. The cost of broadcast rights to the Vancouver games will exceed the network’s advertising sales, Ebersol said at a television critics conference in Pasadena, California. Sales slowed in the middle of 2009 and picked up in the past four months, he said. “We are on track to do the same numbers that we did in Torino and Salt Lake City games,” Ebersol said. “Rights have gone up and this will be the first time in my doing these Olympics that NBC will lose money, but it’s not because of the ad sales.”