• by Wayne Friedman , Staff Writer, August 11, 2008

How did both Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain buy seemingly high-priced Beijing Olympics commercials on NBC at such under-market rates?

It surely didn't have to do with the federal rules mandating political candidates buy TV commercial time at the lowest possible price during a 60-day period leading up to an election. The respective Presidential candidate Olympic media buys were outside the 60-day time period.

For months the press has been touting that average prime-time spots on NBC's Olympic broadcast have been sold for a whopping -- and perhaps, record -- $750,000 for a 30-second commercial. Now a story from David Goetzl in MediaPost says each of those candidates bought NBC prime-time spots at a drastically reduced price, averaging around $250,000.

What? Either the candidates' respective Washington, D.C.-based media agencies are silent geniuses, out-performing the best and biggest New York media agencies -- or something else is afoot.

We all know media plans are packaged to the hilt -- in other programming, as part of other upfront deals, as part of other non-broadcast TV media deals that include cable, Internet, and the rest. So it's hard to get actual details.

But with Obama and McCain NBC had no choice but to disclose prices concerning these deals, according to federal law.

The answer comes down to this, according to media executives: Contrary to some earlier reports, NBC did indeed have trouble selling the last of its Beijing Olympics spots - and so drastically reduced pricing.

According to one veteran media agency executive, "This has almost always been the case for virtually every Olympics." The tremendous number of TV commercial spots during the 16-day, virtually all-day event has always been a problem.

All this means that some major advertisers like General Motors, AT&T, Ford Motor Co, or any other big name advertiser may have paid two or even three times that of the two presidential candidates, or perhaps some other lucky marketers as well.

No surprises here. It's all part of the modern TV advertising market.

"I've been on both ends of it," says the media buying executive. "I've paid rate card while someone else bought for much less." Typically the marketer who comes in late, and gets a great deal, has an agreement with the network not to blab about it. "It's just part of the business."

But with two presidential political candidates making rare and major network TV deals, all that changed. It's now public knowledge, which means many marketing executives now sitting in Beijing's 'Bird's Nest' stadium may be looking at one too many testy messages on their BlackBerrys from their bosses asking why they paid so much to NBC.

What do we get from NBC publicly concerning the Olympics? That they are 96% sold and that they have sold $1 billion in advertising, top line numbers which really tells us little, especially for those who follow the TV advertising market so closely.

This means there is more to dig through.

Don't show me TV business advertising stories that, for example, tells me a sports or entertainment program is 90% sold out. Show me stories where programming has only sold 27% or 42% of its intended goal, and cost per thousand viewer prices have only inched up 3%.

Right there, you have a real TV advertising story, and perhaps an honest-to-a-fault media company.