The Olympic opening ceremony was reportedly watched by "15 percent of the world's population." Needless to say, it was a heck of a weekend for NBC, which paid close to $900 million for U.S. broadcasting rights.

Despite the fact that some Olympic programming will be delayed and many viewers have turned to non-legit sources for live, streaming content, NBC will still probably turn a tidy profit from the Olympics – the network says it already sold $1 billion in ads for the events.

But one area where NBC may have lost: The teen demographic. Only 46 percent of teens surveyed by Harris Interactive showed any interest in watching the Olympics. And if teens are indeed abstaining, it's not because they think that the Olympics are a crass, greedy commercial enterprise – in fact, 71 percent of those polled "were likely to agree that the games are about more than merely medals and marketing," according to Harris Interactive. So why won't they watch? Because it's not convenient for them.

"Teens want quick-hitting videos," says Bill Carter, a partner at youth marketing agency Fuse Marketing. "They don't want the lead-up and they don't want the analysis. They just want the video. And I'm optimistic that NBC is doing delivering this better than they have before. Although, to watch the [mens freestyle swimming] relay this morning, I still had to download 11 minutes of video, and fast forward through the first 6 minutes to get to the race."

But for the sake of an argument, let's say NBC does lose teen Olympic viewers now – are they off the Olympics for good? The reason why marketers go silly-nuts over the teen demographic is that if they can hook teens on a certain product, they could be customers for life (depending on the company and product). Teens who choose a political affiliation, for example, are likely to stick with it. So if teens don't buy into the Olympics craze now, will they get excited about it later in life?

"I think NBC is just as likely – if not more likely – to get a 14- to 17-year-old to watch a 2.5 minute Olympic video online than to have that kid watch a live event at 10:45p.m. Eastern," says Carter. "NBC is doing a better job than they've done over the last two Olympics of delivering short videos that last no longer than a few minutes."

Photo: Flickr/kk+

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