• by Wayne Friedman , July 25, 2012

NBCUniversal says it has topped the $1 billion mark for TV and digital advertising sales on all its media platforms for the London Summer Olympics. But the media company will still lose money on the event.

NBC says this tops ad sales performance of the Beijing Summer Olympics, which landed at around $850 million.

NBC will probably lose around $180 million -- this after spending nearly $1.2 billion on the London games. By way of comparison, this is a bit better than the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, which cost NBC around $820 million, but brought NBC $223 million into red ink.

Company officials say the financial picture will dramatically improve with upcoming Olympics.

NBC notes that London Olympics digital media platforms hit $60 million in advertising revenue -- which it says it roughly three times more than the total for Beijing. This factors in that Beijing numbers includes just the NBCOlympics.com Web site -- no mobile or tablet -- and that it live-streamed 2,200 hours and 25 sports, far less than for the London Games.

NBC plans to air all events -- more than 3,500 hours, including all 32 sports and all 302 medals.

When looking just at national television ad sales, the London Games will account for more than $950 million in advertising sales, $100 million higher than results from Beijing, according to the company.

The current 2012 London Olympics sales effort totals are from the NBC Television Network, NBC Sports Network, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, NBCOlympics.com, the NBC Olympics Live Extra mobile and tablet app, two specialty channels, and the first 3D Olympic channel. This comes from an overall presentation of some 5,535 hours of programming

Seth Winter, executive vice president of sales and sales marketing for NBC Sports Group, stated: “No other property has such a diverse group of sponsors, which can target the broadest range of demographic and psychographic audiences. We are not done yet and will continue to sell during the Games."