July 26 2012 – Mark Lazarus is no stranger to big sports events but the 2012 Olympics trumps them all. Lazarus, the chairman of NBC Sports Group, joined NBC Universal as part of the Comcast merger,becoming chairman of the NBC Sports Group more quickly than anyone imagined when sports broadcast legend Dick Ebersol opted out just after the 2011 upfront. Ebersol is in London as an advisor but Lazarus is in charge of NBC’s Olympics. We caught up by phone Wednesday while he was at NBC Olympics headquarters in London. Here are a few highlights from our chat about digital strategy, the latest revenue numbers, authentication, metric goals, the heavy commitment to live streaming and more:
On digital revenue
paidContent was first to report NBCU’s $25 million in digital revenue for Beijing and that the network was more than doubling that revenue for 2012 to $55.5 million, based on $900 million in overall ad revenue. NBC announced Wednesday that it has passed the $1 billion mark in ad revenue and digital revenue rose with it. Lazarus told me six or seven percent of that is from digital. The new number is more than double that of Bejing, about $60 million, and if it winds up on the higher end, will be nearly triple. It’s small compared to the overall revenue number — but serious.
Lazarus calls it proof that advertisers not only want linear on broadcast and cable, but also online and mobile. The bulk of that is from desktop or laptop; mobile continues to be the least monetized, he added.
On streaming
In previous years, NBC has been both willing to experiment and uncomfortable giving full live access to the kind of events that would be in the prime-time spotlight. NBC offered 2,200 live hours from Beijing and only two events — curling and hockey for Vancouver, about 400 hours. The barrier to watching events that were being offered live in other countries drove Olympics fans crazy. For London 2012, NBC is going all in. I asked Lazarus if that was a decision he inherited or one he made.
“We made those decisions when I got into the role. They had a working plan that was not as ambitious as it sounded. We had a straw-man discussion about how people were consuming media and watching the games — and we made the decision to stream everything live.”
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