Ad sales for KHNL — the Hawai'i NBC affiliate station that will air the Olympics next month — may prove a revenue winner for the station, according to John Fink, vice president and general manager of KHNL and KFVE.

"We're about 95 percent sold out," Fink said, though he declined to provide specific local sales figures. "It looks like it's going to be a record year."

In addition to national ads with Olympic tie-ins, he said, some of the local accounts are running special events. Among the more visible, he said will be a Pizza Hut/Taco Bell promotion, tied to the Olympics, where people can play for prizes.

Olympics advertising is big business nationally, with many large companies rolling out campaigns for the Beijing games to showcase their products. Among the big-name advertisers are Nike Corp., McDonald's Corp. and Visa Inc.

Many of the Olympic spots the large advertisers are airing in the U.S. are more about humanity and athletes and less about national pride.

From Visa Inc.'s "Go World" campaign to unifying themes from Coca-Cola Co. and McDonald's, major sponsors are calling for harmony and avoiding boasts of patriotism.

Visa is focusing on athletes and the glory of the Olympics. A Coca-Cola spot features animated versions of basketball stars Yao Ming and American LeBron James facing off in a basketball duel.

McDonald's has a spot airing now called "The More We Get Together" that juxtaposes a nursery-song rhyme against competitive moments featuring athletes of varied races and colors, none wearing national symbols.

Fink said Hawai'i viewers turn out for the Olympics, sometimes watching 25 percent to 50 percent more than residents of many Mainland cities.

He said viewers here like spectacle, from the global athletic contests of the Olympics to the talent-show drama of the highly rated "American Idol."

This year's Olympics will be televised Aug. 8 to 24 from Beijing. Having the games fall in August rather than September is expected to boost viewership as well.

"There will truly be nothing else going on," Fink said — compared to September, which sometimes has fall premieres of new shows.

"The smart marketers are realizing this is a great opportunity to showcase their products and services," he said.

"It's compelling human drama," he noted. "It's not the normal contrived reality TV."

And he said the time difference should help instead of hurt, with some live events occurring at 3 p.m. Hawai'i time and coverage beginning from 5:30 p.m., after the early news.

He contrasts that with the 2006 Winter Olympics from Turin, Italy, where people could learn the results hours before the nightly coverage — sometimes even reading them in the afternoon paper before the event aired.

"The events will be relatively fresh, if not live," he said.

And helping drive up interest will be the Hawai'i links to athletes competing — including decathlete Brian Clay, former University of Hawai'i women's soccer player Natasha Kai, men's volleyball player Clay Stanley, four women volleyball players and more.

"The Olympics has always done very well for us. We're heading toward a record level."

The intense Olympics schedule tends to mess with the newscasts, pushing the shows to different times, and sinking ratings. But Fink said it exposes different viewers to the news and updates.