In India Doordarshan is airing the games and the situation is very different. As reported earlier by Indiantelevision.com, while DD will net Rs 80 million from the games, the acquisition costs were substantially higher at Rs 240 million.

Coming back to the US, an NBC Sports spokeswoman Cameron Blanchard was quoted in Newsday saying that the network, which is broadcasting 1,210 hours of coverage across six channels which is nearly three times the amount it aired from Sydney in 2000, sold out its inventory before Friday's Opening Ceremony. NBC paid $793 million for the rights. It is airing Olympic programming on NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, the USA Network and Telemundo.

Trade magazine Television Week added that NBC charged $700,000 per 30 seconds for broadcast prime-time spots, $250,000 for weekend day air time and $75,000 for late-night and weekday spots.

Visa, Mazda, AT&T Wireless, BMW, Allstate and McDonald's are among the marketers that have launched new campaigns tied to the Olympics. US Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps who has so far won three Gold medals, tennis players Venus and Serena Williams and weight lifter Shane Hamman are among the athletes starring in the ads.

Earlier the parent NBC Universal had stated that it expected to make a profit of about $50 million from the Olympics. This figure is less than it was two years ago, when NBC raked in $75 million from broadcasting the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympic Games. NBC had to pay more for the rights to carry the Athens games compared to Sydney. It also had to absorb higher security costs.