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The Summer Olympic Games will be held
in Athens, Greece between August 13th and August 29th,
2004. In addition to coverage on NBC, several of NBC’s sister cable
networks will be offering separate feeds of Olympic programming to cable
systems. Accordingly, our reporting of Bravo, CNBC and MSNBC will vary
slightly for the month of August 2004. The purpose of this communication
is to outline these reporting changes.
Collection and
Reporting
All but a few of the cable systems
that regularly carry Bravo, CNBC and MSNBC have agreed to carry their
special Olympic programming. For the period of August 14th
through August 29th, those few homes not receiving this special
coverage of the Olympics will be removed from the audience estimates we
provide for these three cable networks in our software systems and
syndicated reports. As MSNBC will be offering additional coverage of the
pre-Olympic games trials between August 11th and August 14th,
their audience estimates will exclude homes not receiving their Olympic
programming on these days as well. Please keep in mind that Bravo will be
airing the Olympic programming live, so its program estimates won’t be
comparable to its time-period estimates (dual feed).
Universe Estimates
The August 2004 coverage area universe
estimates for Bravo, CNBC and MSNBC will be adjusted to reflect only those
homes that will be receiving their Olympic coverage.
Olympics Coverage on
USA Network
The USA Network will also be offering
coverage of the summer Olympic games. USA will be providing this
programming to all of its regular subscribers through its existing feeds.
No reporting changes or coverage area UE adjustments will be made for
USA. As the Olympic programming on USA will be live as well, it will not
compare to its time-period estimates (dual feed).
Reporting Commercial
Activity via Monitor Plus/Ad*Views
During this period, Monitor Plus will
monitor the Olympic East feed for each of these networks. We will thus
capture commercials that air during Olympic events as well as those airing
during non-Olympic programming at other times. We will not monitor the
alternate feeds of these networks.
Local Reporting
In our local samples and reports, we
will report “blended” audience estimates comprised of viewing to the
Olympic and alternate feeds of these networks. Program titles
shown in our local systems, however, will reflect the names of the Olympic
programs only.
Audience Estimates
for Homes Not Receiving Olympic Cable Feeds
During the latter part of August, our
syndicated estimates for these networks will be limited to those homes
that are able to receive their Olympic coverage. Ratings for the
additional homes receiving only non-Olympic programming (on Bravo, CNBC
and MSNBC), during these days, will be available via custom analysis.
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