By Paul J. Gough

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - Ten days out from the Beijing Olympics, and an NBC executive says things are A-OK.


"The infrastructure here is really sound. We feel very good about our build, our plans, our sales," NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel said from Beijing Tuesday. "We feel great about the indications we're getting about (viewer) awareness and intent to view. We feel good about these Games."

Later on Tuesday, NBC gave another reason to feel good about the Olympics: On the ad sales front, the company has sold 96% of its inventory. It reiterated that it likely would be a sales record with $1 billion in revenue, a bit higher than its haul from the 2004 Athens games.

Zenkel said that Beijing organizers' cooperation and responsiveness have been good.

"They've made tremendous progress," he said. "There are issues that they continue to tackle, (but) there certainly isn't a volume of issues any different than any Olympics at 10 days out. They're knocking them off left and right, and we feel very confident that these Games will go off in very good shape with the organizers organized and everybody ready."

He said that NBC hasn't been impaired at all moving around the countryside.

"We've been able to access what we've wanted to access," Zenkel said.

Although Chinese officials have taken steps to cut down on pollution, Zenkel acknowledged that for most of the week that he's been in China, it's been difficult.

He said there were thunderstorms and rains overnight Monday, followed by a sunny Tuesday, which has helped clear the skies.

Also on Tuesday, ESPN announced its coverage plans for the Olympics. It's not an Olympics rights holder in the U.S. -- though it does have the rights in Brazil through ESPN Brasil and ESPN -- but it's offering Olympic-related coverage to U.S. viewers, including live "SportsCenter" coverage from reporters Jeremy Schaap and George Smith plus other material on "Bottom Line," "Outside the Lines" and elsewhere. ESPN also has pre-Olympic basketball games, all featuring Team USA.

Reuters/Hollywood Reporter
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