EBERSOL RETURNS TO NBC SPORTS — AS A “SPECIAL ADVISER”

Just three months after resigning as head of NBC Sports and Olympics, Dick Ebersol is returning to the network as a special adviser, the New York Times reported today (Wednesday), citing several senior NBC executives. How his role will be different from what it was when he was officially running the unit was not spelled [...]

COMCAST: MORE TO LOSE THAN GE FROM OLYMPICS DEAL

Comcast, which now controls NBC, may have a lot more to lose from its over-the-top bid for the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and the 2016 summer games in Rio de Janeiro, than GE did when it owned the network, according to several analysts. The reason, they observed, is that GE was able to [...]

NBC’S NEW OLYMPICS BOSS: EVERYTHING WILL BE LIVE

Departing from the strategy implemented by his predecessor Dick Ebersol, who insisted on airing the most popular Olympics events during primetime, NBC Sports Group President Mark Lazarus said on Tuesday that for the 2016 Summer Games in Rio, NBC “will make every event available on one platform or another live.” In a conference call with [...]

DICK EBERSOL QUITS NBC

Dick Ebersol has resigned as head of NBC Sports and Olympics, raising speculation that the network will not be so aggressive as it has been in the past at landing NFL telecasts and bidding on rights to future Olympic Games coverage. The New York Times reported on its website that while it appeared that Ebersol [...]

NBC GETTING $200 MILLION FOR PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT

Steve Burke, the new president of NBC Universal, will be pumping $200 million of mostly Comcast money into program development for the broadcast network in hopes of making it competitive again. As reported by today’s (Thursday) New York Post, most of those funds will go towards revamping the 10:00 p.m. time period, a period that [...]

REPORT: EBERSOL AND COMCAST CLASH OVER OLYMPICS

NBC Sports and Olympics chief Dick Ebersol is locking horns with Comcast, NBC’s new owners, over the network’s bid for the 2014 and 2016 Olympics, the New York Post reported today (Tuesday). The newspaper quoted one source as saying, “This is a big test of what Dick’s role is.” Under previous owner GE, Ebersol had [...]

MONEY-LOSING FOOTBALL, OLYMPICS IFFY ON NBC

On the day that Comcast reported fourth-quarter earnings that exceeded analysts’ expectations, the company indicated that it intended to institute some serious belt-tightening at its newly acquired NBC Universal subsidiary. In a conference call, Steve Burke, the new CEO of NBC Universal, said that for now, he intends on focusing on the profitable cable channels [...]

PRODUCER DAVID L. WOLPER DEAD AT 82

Legendary TV and film producer David L. Wolper has died in Beverly Hills, CA of congestive heart failure and Parkinson’s disease at age 82. His TV career began in the early ’60s when he challenged the absolute domination of the television networks’ news divisions by producing popular documentaries using Hollywood production talent like cinematographer James [...]

NEW BRITISH GOVERNMENT WITHDRAWS BFI FUNDS

Struggling to come to grips with the country’s soaring deficit, the new British government said Thursday that it has scrapped plans to contribute $67 million to the construction of a new home for the British Film Institute. In announcing the decision, Jeremy Hunt, the new head of the government’s Dept. of Culture, Olympics, Media and [...]

NBC REPORTS STRONG UPFRONT SALES

NBC on Thursday completed its upfront sales for the fall season. Trade reports were at odds over the estimated receipts for its broadcast and cable networks, but even a lowball estimate that they were flat with last year would suggest a huge improvement, inasmuch as last year the company grossed more than $1 billion on [...]

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