Seeking 200 Million Viewers, NBC Renames Winter Olympics ‘All-Girl Hottie Hot Make-Out Time’

Story by Logan Thompson 

| Published Feb 9, 2010

While its embarrassing late-night controversy winds down, NBC Universal is trying to move forward by focusing its attention on the Vancouver Olympics.

NBC researcher Alan Wurtzel said the network expects to get 200 million viewers for this year’s Olympics by changing its name to “All-Girl Hottie Hot Make-Out Time.”

“I’m very confident we’ll do well from a ratings standpoint,” Wurtzel told reporters Monday.

He said the network expects 200 million people to watch at least parts of the Vancouver Games over the 17-day telecast, fully believing they’re about to see two or more girls “going to town on each other, PG-13 style.”

The Beijing Olympics attracted about 215 million viewers, but more than the 184 million viewers watched the prior winter Olympics in Torino, Italy. Wurtzel said the 2010 numbers wouldn’t be anywhere near those of past years if NBC didn’t do something drastic.

“[NBC President Jeff] Zucker brought in Vancouver to host the 2010 Games,” Wurtzel said, “and it looks as if it isn’t going to perform at the level we expected.”

The city of Vancouver has been openly upset about the name change, publicly mocking Zucker and NBC during interviews with the press. At this point, sources have said, the name change is a “done deal.”

“We gave it plenty of time to improve its projected numbers,” said Zucker, “but the actual broadcast begins in only three days. In the end, it comes down to ratings; it’s too late to turn these low educated guesses around.”

There is a legal issue, however. In order to have "All-Girl Hottie Hot Make-Out Time" show on posters and in DVR guides across the world, each day’s broadcast must include a certain amount of programming that fits this title, so as not to mislead viewers.

According to Wurtzel, NBC still has the option of not showing girl-on-girl necking at all. It could define ‘make-out’ as something else all together, as the term is not concretely defined in the English language. However, this loophole will likely go unused.

“The network probably won’t go that route,” Wurtzel said. The researcher went on to explain that although the bait-and-switch plan was “as bulletproof as Leno in prime time,” NBC does not want to risk having another controversy on its hands.

“We’ll probably just show shadows of some girls getting all up on each other, real sloppy like,” Zucker speculated. “Nothing too crazy beyond kissing, though. Just hand stuff.”

NBC will begin airing “All-Girl Hottie Hot Make-Out Time” on Feb. 12, with games and fondling scheduled until the end of the month.

Unless Jay Leno wants to be on.