Today on the Menu: NBC Won’t Make Money From Olympics, But Not Due to Advertising

It was a tough weekend for NBC, which was caught by the ever-watching eye of the media on two fronts. First in the cross-hairs were the network’s many, many late night programs. The bottom line: Jay Leno’s on at 11:35 pm now, but only for a half hour. Conan O’Brien is on at 12:05 am, because his contract maybe says ‘The Tonight Show’ can’t start after that. Jimmy Fallon’s pushed back to 1:05 am and no one seems to care about Carson Daly. But he just signed a deal to get back to his radio roots, so no big whoop.

Every few years, NBC wows us with their coverage of the winter and summer Olympics, and 2010 is no different with the winter games in Vancouver. That’s cool. But NBC Sports Chairman Dick Ebersol &#151 whose name sounds like a product males use to clean their man-parts &#151 said the network will lose money on this year’s games. But! But! But! Not due to a lack of advertising, says he, “‘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.'”

Also mentioned: Sasha Grey’s porny Peta ad, Ashley Greene’s semi-nude Sobe ad, the first-ever exclusive Kindle distribution deal, and you should probably read this even though we didn’t talk about it.

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