NBC will lose money broadcasting the Winter Olympics, Dick Ebersol, chairman of the network’s sports division, said yesterday.

The cost of broadcast rights to the Vancouver Games will exceed the network’s advertising sales, Ebersol said at a television critics conference in Pasadena, Calif.

Sales slowed in the middle of 2009 and picked up in the past four months, he said.

The news comes as no surprise to Post readers, who in a lead story Dec. 28 learned the Olympics were certain to disappoint the Peacock network.

“We are on track to do the same numbers that we did in Torino and Salt Lake City games,” Ebersol said yesterday.

“Rights have gone up and this will be the first time in my doing these Olympics that NBC will lose money.”

“We are coming out of a very weak year,” Brian Wieser, global director of forecasting at Magna, part of ad giant Interpublic Group, said last month. “Advertisers have certainly been selective about how they spend their budgets.”

According to Magna, the Games will boost US ad revenue by $487.5 million in 2010, down 25 percent from $650 million during the 2006 Winter Olympics.