“It’s a dream assignment with very little sleep” — that’s how NBC4 Southern California weekend co-anchor and reporter Robert Kovacik views his mission at the 2012 Summer Olympic Games. Kovacik is London-bound today, July 23, along with a contingent from the Burbank studio, where he is based, and nine other NBC-owned stations across the country. The team will blanket London for the next three weeks with Kovacik zeroing in on Southern California athletes. While each reporter has his own geographic market to cover, the communal goal is to find stories that engage viewers and boost the network’s ratings in each local market. That has been Kovacik’s focus since he got the Olympic assignment in February, and he immediately set upon devising a way to draw in the L.A. viewership. Given the stakes, he knew he had to be inventive. As with the Superbowl, ratings and revenues are the name of the Games, and NBC has been gunning to maximize them since committing nearly $1.2 billion for the London 2012 broadcast rights. Last year the network entered a separate $4.4 billion deal to broadcast the four Games after London. In terms of ratings, the most recent Olympics will be an undeniably tough act to follow. With 211 million viewers, Beijing 2008 was the most-watched televised event in U.S. history. It generated $850 million in national advertising revenue for NBC. As of July 16, the network’s national ad revenues were approaching $1 billion, nearly 20 percent higher than Beijing. Still, NBC is keenly aware that broadcasting an event of this magnitude is always a gamble, particularly given that it lost $200 million at each of the last two Games. At a recent media event, NBC Sports Group Chairman Mark Lazarus said he doesn’t “necessarily expect” the London Games to turn a profit for NBC. “We’re not going to measure ourselves on whether we achieve (Beijing’s) ratings,” he said. “We’re going to measure ourselves based on whether several hundred million people experience the Games across our platforms, and we feel very good that we can achieve that goal.” Preparing for the Olympics Hence the importance of the Olympic experience Kovacik and his team deliver, from traditional platforms — live and recorded television programming — to every aspect of nouveau social media. The instantaneous nature of internet coverage, reflected in London 2012’s popular moniker as the “First ‘Social’ Games,” has called for a paradigm shift in reporting practices. “I’m going to take L.A. with me to London. I want you to experience the Olympics and London as though you are standing right there beside me,” Kovacik said in a recent interview at NBC4 in Burbank. “Whatever happens to me happens to you.” That instant karma may be just what the network needs to capitalize on its Olympic investment. Logistics have provided Kovacik with a magic carpet to make that happen through new technology that didn’t exist at previous Olympics. A portable backpack camera unit will enable Kovacik to broadcast impromptu from any spot where he can get a signal, in contrast to the “old days” just four years ago when his counterparts in Beijing had to report from preassigned locations within the Olympic venue. “When I’m walking along the Thames and something uniquely British happens to me, it’s going to ‘happen’ to you as well,” Kovacik said. He will be on the air in Los Angeles twice a day as part of the network’s total planned 5,535 hours of network, cable and website coverage, which compares with its 2,000 hours from Beijing and 14 hours from the 1964 Tokyo Games. Kovacik began his Olympic preparations in earnest five months ago, immersing himself in everything London, a city he has visited and loves. He reached out to Dame Barbara Hay, the British Consul General of Los Angeles, who helped him learn as much as he could about British culture and the city that will be his home for the next several weeks. L.A. viewers will be able to experience what it is like to not just watch the athletic events but to be a Londoner during the Olympics — a phenomenon to which many Angelinos can relate from the 1984 Los Angeles Games. Kovacik has elected to remain in London for about a week after the Games end Aug. 12 to absorb “the afterglow experience.” In addition to his cultural preparations, Kovacik has spent the past several months familiarizing himself with the myriad of sports in the Olympics — there are about 300 events — and getting to personally know the contingent of Southern California athletes who will compete in London. Which sports are his favorites, given that he is a runner and a tennis player? Kovacik shakes his head and laughs. “I’ve found out that I’m a fan of sports I didn’t even know I was a fan of,” he said, dashing into the NBC commissary from an interview in Anaheim with U.S. volleyball team members earlier this month. “Every one of these athletes is so amazing. When I saw what they endure on a daily basis and the sacrifices they make to compete at this level, I became an instant fan, no matter what the sport,” he said. “I am truly in awe.” Kovacik, who is known for his no-holds-barred news reports, said he learned to be mindful of the type of questions he asks an athlete who will soon be competing on the world stage. “You don’t want to ask a question that could get inside an athlete’s head and affect his performance,” he said. If a London-bound athlete seemed reticent or uncomfortable with a question, Kovacik said he backed off, a tack the award-winning reporter rarely, if ever, takes with other subjects. “This is different,” he said. “This is the Olympics.”