NBC's OIympics Triumph: Not Losing $200 Million

NBC's ratings for the 2012 Olympics have been great, in spite of the complaints about its delayed coverage, and on Wednesday the network announced perhaps its biggest triumph yet: It's going to break even broadcasting it. That sounds like a fairly modest success, but seeing as how the network had expected to lose up to $200 million, in spite of selling a billion dollars in ads, it counts as a win. NBC paid $1.2 billion for the U.S. rights to the games, The Associated Press' Peter Svensson reports. "It has said that it sold more than $1 billion in ads, breaking the record of $850 million set during the Beijing Olympics in 2008." Ratings are up 9 percent over Beijing, the network said, and Adweek's Anthony Crupi pointed out earlier this week that local and digital ad revenue could hit another $200 million. During a conference call on Wednesday morning, CEO Steve Burke said the company was "'over $100 million,' ahead of its advertising revenue goal right now," according to  The Hollywood Reporter's Georg Szalai. That's got to be a relief after the 2010 winter Olympics, in Vancouver, which cost the network $223 million.