NEW YORK -- As the Summer Olympics sprint to the finish line Sunday, NBC Universal will have reason to do a victory lap over its winning performance with viewers and advertisers.

The company will clear an estimated $60 million-$70 million in profit from the 2004 Athens Games, well above the $50 million predicted before the Olympics began, NBC executives said Wednesday.

NBC Universal stands poised to break the aggregate 200 million-viewer mark by week's end, surpassing not only the 2000 Sydney Olympics but also viewership in 1992, when the broadcast networks didn't face nearly as much competition from cable/satellite channels as they do today. It will fall slightly behind the 209 million viewers who tuned in eight years ago when the Olympics were in Atlanta.

Ratings are up over the 2000 Sydney Games in NBC primetime and have shattered records on NBC's cable properties. That has allowed NBC to orchestrate last-minute scatter-market sales of Olympics ad inventory that had been set aside for make-goods in case ratings fell below NBC's advance guarantees to advertisers.

NBC executives also enjoyed the Olympic "halo effect" that has powered the ratings on all of its platforms. CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Bravo totaled 60 million viewers, up 62% during the coverage compared with analogous dayparts a month ago. "NBC Nightly News" and "Today" have expanded leads against competitors.

Viewers not only navigated their way through the various NBC Uni-owned outlets with Olympics coverage but then also found their way to NBC primetime, NBC Universal Network Television Group president Randy Falco said Wednesday from Athens. A total of 54% of Bravo and CNBC viewers turned to NBC after the cable channels' Olympics coverage ended, compared with 1% who made the primetime switch to the peacock during the week before the games. The cable outlets' coverage ends at 8 p.m., when NBC's primetime coverage begins in the Eastern and Pacific time zones.

"That proves that the strategy of putting (the Olympics) on as many different platforms and exposing as many different Americans worked," Falco said. "It added to the overall viewership in primetime and on the network."

Falco said several factors led to NBC's success, including the fast-paced primetime coverage, its strategy of constant coverage and winning performances by U.S. athletes.

Now that the Olympics are heading into the final stretch, NBC wants to keep those viewers. The mothership broadcast network is heralding many of its new and returning shows next week in an effort to hang on to its Olympics momentum, and there has been heavy promotion for programming on other NBC Uni-owned channels throughout the games.

"I think that you'll find that after these games, because we have great programming on all of these different platforms, that the overall viewership will continue to be higher than it was before the games," Falco said.