
Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night - jpadilla_
http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/28/please-dont-watch-nbc-tonight-or-any-night/
======
majormajor
Despite how many people on this site and sites like it don't have some kind of
cable or satellite service... we're a pretty small minority. _Especially_ when
it comes to the group of people interested in watching sports, where live is
king, and the online options _suck_ unless you live out of your teams' TV
markets. I'm not surprised they're not going out of their way to cater to us.

For all the "the model no longer works" comments: what's the proof? The number
of people I know complaining about the model is dwarfed by the number of
people I know who have cable and have been watching stuff on both TV and
online all day long.

I've seen a lot of legitimate complaints about how they're handling the time
shifting stuff (which, surprisingly to me, has mostly been along the lines of
"it's too easy to find out what happened" instead of complaining about the
time shifting in the first place), but I don't see a big hole in their
delivery system. They don't want to give people less reason to have cable --
and for all the money they could possibly make broadcasting the Olympics for-
pay to non-cable subscribers, that's just a couple weeks every couple of
years. The real win for them is if you still want to maintain a cable
subscription.

~~~
fingerprinter
Just an FYI, I pay for nhl.com, nfl.com and nba.com live video feeds for the
seasons. It is TOTALLY worth it, cheaper and easier than DirecTV or cable. My
total bill for the year is about $250 for all three sports. Sports was the
only reason I still had cable/satellite a while back. No need anymore, and a
better product.

Just as a comparison, NFL Sunday Ticket Max on DirecTV is $299 for the season.
Standard Sunday Ticket is $199. No brainer.

~~~
FireBeyond
NBA League Pass is $170… NFL, Season Rewind alone is $70, NHL's GameCenter
Live pass is $170… How are you paying $250/yr for all three?

~~~
fingerprinter
NHL -
[https://gamecenter.nhl.com/nhlgc/secure/vaultsignup?cmpid=vl...](https://gamecenter.nhl.com/nhlgc/secure/vaultsignup?cmpid=vlt-
reg:gcl-redirect) $5/month = $60/year

NBA - <http://www.nba.tv/nbatv/subscribe> $5/month = $60/year

NFL - <http://www.nba.tv/nbatv/subscribe> from $110/year, $130 or $200/year
(depends on what you want)

So, range for the three would be $230/year, $250 or $320/year. I went for the
season pass in NFL, so $250/year.

------
notJim
> They’re doing this for a reason: m-o-n-e-y.

Uh, yeah. It's something you need in order to run a company. A company that
employs people and gives them, guess what? m-o-n-e-y. And how does it do that,
and how does it continue doing that? By being profitable, which it does by
having (among other things) exclusive content and advertisers who want to be
seen alongside that content.

But no, NBC should just put all their stuff online, where it's less clear what
kind of profit they would make, because fuck them, this is the internet, and
money is bad. We internet people can work at companies that don't have a
business model or make a profit, so why can't everyone else?

~~~
Dylan16807
The point is that they are pursuing short-term profit and sacrificing customer
satisfaction. That's a terrible way to run a company.

~~~
Negitivefrags
In order to sacrifice customer satisfaction, there is a requirement that the
person be your customer.

Not giving something to someone for free just because they demand that they
should have it is not sacrificing customer satisfaction.

~~~
axefrog
Yes but if your product is the viewer and your decisions cause the number of
viewers to decrease over time, you're damaging your product, and that will
reduce the value of that product to your customers.

~~~
pbreit
Well, the opening ceremonies had the highest US viewership ever (including
against US-based Olympics). Are you sure your contention is accurate?

In fact, broadcasting the Olympics is a massive _LONG_ term bet since NBC
loses tons of money on the games themselves.

------
dkrich
Just a thought- NBC is a for-profit company. Because of that they are able to
pay hundreds of millions for the rights to cover the Olympics. Because of
that, they want the largest viewership. That occurs during primetime. If the
tv industry is so "disruptable" as many keep saying, why hasn't it happened?
Clearly people want the ability to watch as much shit, wherever, whenever they
can, preferably for free. Apparently the problem is that unlike most internet
sites, television requires an actual business model.

The fact that this guy is literally asking people on an internet blog not to
watch what will inevitably be viewed by tens of millions of people kind of
does more to prove this point than anything I can say here could.

~~~
notatoad
Yesterday's discussion on HN had the price of broadcast rights at $1.1B, not
including production costs. The tv industry is not disruptable. Content is
expensive, and margins are not huge. People need to stop saying it is
disruptable just because they are unhappy with it. There is a ton of inertia
behind the entertainment market.

~~~
jmduke
People saying an industry is disruptable, nine times out of ten, means that
people want that industry to be disrupted -- not that such a disruption is
easy or even feasible.

~~~
dinkumthinkum
Sometimes disruption is just a case of "meet the new boss, same as the old
boss."

------
therealarmen
I understand the frustration, but NBC is just trying to optimize for primetime
viewers so they can extract maximum advertising dollars. They paid over $1
billion dollars for the right to broadcast the Olympics and now they must
recoup that investment.

~~~
InclinedPlane
That model no longer works in the modern age. Simply put, there is demand for
viewing coverage of the olympics that is not being met, thus they are leaving
money on the table. Unfortunately for them and for their potential customers
they are constraining themselves to a business model that is obsolete. They
are doing the equivalent of covering the olympics via newspaper in a
television era.

They need to provide live streaming coverage of a wide variety of events,
whether for free (with ads) or for a fee. That's the minimum bar these days,
if they can't meet that bar people will just get their olympics coverage some
other way (such as pirated bbc coverage) and NBC will still have lost out on a
massive amount of potential revenue. And in the meantime they will have
tarnished their brand as well.

~~~
fiesycal
How can you say the model no longer works? The model just doesn't fit your
view. There's no requirement to provide live streaming online. In any case
they do have online streaming if you have a cable subscription, I've heard it
could be a better service but it's there. The only people complaining about
this are tech savvy, and if they were to get free viewing online with just
some ads how many of those people would use some form of ad-block? How is that
profitable for NBC? People act like they are entitled to view the Olympics for
free when they're not. Even the British don't get to watch online for free as
they all pay taxes to BBC.

~~~
dredmorbius
Traditional television broadcasters and networks are under immense commercial
pressure now. There's no secret about that.

What's not clear, as with the newspaper industry, is what the alternative is.

Henry Blodget, tarnished prophet that he is, has been beating this drum loudly
and fairly convincingly for a few years now:

[http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-06-12/tech/30062877...](http://articles.businessinsider.com/2009-06-12/tech/30062877_1_tv-
industry-tv-companies-business-models)

<http://www.businessinsider.com/tv-business-collapse-2012-6>

------
pasbesoin
Between NBC's behavior (and I'm recalling the unwatchability of the winter
[CENSORED] two years ago, as well), the branding bullshit (including special,
specific protective legislation), the outsourcing and outsourcing fiascos, and
several other things I've already managed to consciously forget, I've already
made my decision. I will not seek out one second of coverage.

Sportsmanship left the venue, if not always the specific athletes, a long time
ago.

------
eapen
This coming from TechCrunch? I ended up turning on NBC (because the enemy of
my enemy must be my friend).

~~~
bridanp
Just seems like someone trying to make a story out of nothing to me. I'm
enjoying watching the German men in their gymnastics routine and this women's
weight lifting is pretty cool. But I wouldn't have watched it this morning or
afternoon live on any device. Sunny Saturdays are not meant for watching
television.

------
kevinburke
Like many people here I would like to believe that the state of the world that
ensures the highest profits and the state of the world that makes the most
people happy are one and the same. I am coming to think that isn't true.

~~~
kitsune_
How could that ever be true? As an example: most people would prefer
everything to be free, and a company would like to have a monopoly on a
necessity and thus the ability to charge arbitrary prices.

Or even shorter, everyone wants to get stuff, lots of stuff without having to
lift a finger.

Out of this, every company-customer relationship has to be dysfunctional.

The idea that the economy is a perfectly fair system where everyone profits
equally in a transaction is a fairy tale. It completely ignores the imbalances
of power inherent in social systems. In a perfectly free market, imbalances of
power will be compounded over time, similar to the theory of the big bang
where small imperfections of the early universe are fundamental to the large
structures that follow.

~~~
kevinburke
I was thinking about a service like Uber, which people _love_ , even though
it's more expensive. When I take an Uber I don't complain about how I should
be getting cab rides for free (although that would be nice) - I revel in how
much better the experience is than waiting around for a regular cab.

~~~
pbreit
Über appeals to maybe 10% of the population.

------
cvp
Apparently the results of today's 400M Men's swimming individual medley were
the lede for NBC Nightly News tonight... before NBC has even aired the race.
Just when you thought they couldn't make things worse....

~~~
lkbm
They live-tweeted the opening ceremonies, and today live tweeted events
including that one.

I'm quite happy to see angry @replies. I don't anticipate them changing how
they're doing things mid-games, but maybe they'll realize they made a mistake
if every "Such and such just won the blank event!" gets multiple angry
responses.

------
swanson
I can understand a tape delay during the weekdays - hell, I'd even prefer
being able to watch at night instead of at 2:30pm EST. But for weekends, it is
so stupid.

I saw the 400 IM was on at 2:30pm today, so I turned on the tv to NBC - only
to see yet another pointless interview with Ryan Seacrest (why is he doing
sports coverage??). Had to watch a stream of the race live even though NBC was
airing Olypmics coverage at the same time!

------
b3b0p
I do not see any issue here. They are broadcasting the Olympics when the
majority of people can actually sit down and watch them instead of in the
early hours of the morning when most of us are sleeping. Some people could
probably DVR what they want, but not everybody can (the majority?).

I have not looked thoroughly, but from what I have read and seen briefly, NBC
is working hard to make it easy to view and access online streams of the
individual events if you know what you want to watch. I could be wrong though
on actually how easy it truly is.

Also, the argument about money. They are a company that is in business to make
money. Is this not the one of the main reasons for going in business? To make
money. Why would they spend all that money on exclusive access if they were
going to lose it all?

~~~
bzbarsky
> I could be wrong though on actually how easy it truly is.

It's impossible, unless you're already an NBC cable subscriber. If you _are_
an NBC subscriber already, it's only pretty painful (involves passwords you
basically never use otherwise and so forth).

But yes, they're working hard to make it as easy as they can within the "you
can't get this if you're not already one of our customers" constraint.....

------
swang
According to this article from 2011:
[http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/06/...](http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/06/olympic-
tv-decision-between-nbc-espn-and-fox-could-come-down-today/1)

> In a break with predecessor Dick Ebersol, new NBC Sports chief Mark Lazarus
> promises to show all events live rather than saving the best for tape-
> delayed coverage in prime time.

So I guess they figured it's not profitable. But I wonder how many people have
been pissed at missing the live coverage, see the results on twitter or the
rest of the Internet and then just not bothering to tune in during prime-time?

How about charging $X to watch it live online? And if you don't want to pay
that money then you can just wait until Prime Time.

------
benevpayor
I put this on the IOC more than NBC. World sporting organizations like IOC and
FIFA (hell, let's throw in the NCAA while we are at it) have sold their souls.
It's just plain sad how corrupt and counter to their mission they have become.

------
netmau5
I miss journalism. How is this a monopoly? Just because I buy a meal doesn't
mean I have a monopoly over eating. Can we now construct arguments with cuss
words?

------
emiliobumachar
Maybe it's not entirely strategy. I don't know much about web protocols, but I
suppose broadcasting a couple dozen live events to millions of people is much
easier and cheaper than making recorded events available, which would require
sending each of the million viewers an almost unique package in a given
instant. Did I assume correctly, or is sending cloned packages not much harder
than sending unique ones?

~~~
lmm
Multicast is pretty much dead, it doesn't go through consumer routers. So
unless your library is large enough that storing it becomes an issue, it
really doesn't make any difference.

------
jes5199
Well, it's not like I own a television set anyway.

------
nhangen
I pay for cable, but to me that isn't the issue here. The issue is that the
results of this event were already posted, tweeted, and shared long before the
event aired. It was a Saturday, why wouldn't they just show it live and if
they wanted to increase nighttime ratings, just show it again?

The NBC Olympic coverage sucks.

------
ck2
Is it purely NBC's fault or the notoriously corrupt IOC's fault?

------
ddon
I don't know how with you guys, but on my iPad all techcrunch links are always
create trouble with safari or even with chrome... I will no longer click on TC
links :)

------
wensing
Can't wait for the article 4 years from now complaining about Twitter
logjamming fans' real-time Olympic tweets with ads from P&G.

------
pbreit
I'm not a big Comcast fan but I have 90 channels plus 30 mbps Internet for
$40/month. Seems reasonable to me, maybe even a bargain.

------
pbreit
I like watching edited, time-delayed, USA-oriented coverage. Am I lame?

The BBC thing is neat but quite unwatchable.

------
bluedanieru
How about just don't watch the Olympics at all? The IOC is an awful, awful
organization.

~~~
slowpoke
Can't agree more. There are so many reasons to actively boycott the Olympic
games, it's plain ridiculous. They should be abolished, as they have nothing
to do with sports anymore (did they ever?). It's just one gigantic corporate
whorehouse that has ruined pretty much every locality it ever was held at.

~~~
ramblerman
Interesting sentiments, I don't know the IOC but neither of you are providing
any reasoning behind your claims.

Out of curiosity, why the hate?

~~~
slowpoke
For a quick insight see this enumeration:
<http://www.protestlondon2012.com/10reasons.html>

The IOC is deeply corrupt, and the olympics have long ceased to be about
sports. They are about selling officially branded merchandise from official
sponsors and simultaneously squashing local competition with ridiculous,
speciallly drafted laws, which cricitically impacts the local economy even
after the games are long over. It's akin to a swarm of locusts, really.

Also, the branding police of the IOC puts the MAFIAA to shame - you might have
heard about their petty attempts at censorship ("you may not link to our sites
if you report negatively about us!!1!1" or banning anyone from using word
combinations such as "London 2012" and "Summer Games" - which the internet of
course spitefully ignores).

~~~
cdcarter
> The IOC is deeply corrupt, and the olympics have long ceased to be about
> sports. They are about selling officially branded merchandise from official
> sponsors and simultaneously squashing local competition with ridiculous,
> speciallly drafted laws, which cricitically impacts the local economy even
> after the games are long over. It's akin to a swarm of locusts, really.

Perhaps on the local level this is all true. But (anecdotally, at the very
least) for every viewer I know, it's about national competition between
incredible athletes. The excitement about seeing a world record broken, the
upsets when an up and coming young fencer takes gold, and the warm feeling I
get when my flag is raised and the anthem is played.

All of your reasons are why it sucks for the host city. That's a problem that
can be solved without sacrificing the best athletic competition in the world.

~~~
slowpoke
_> for every viewer I know, it's about national competition between incredible
athletes_

That's like asking people in China about how the government treats dissidents,
because hey, they watch TV. Surely that will be on TV, yes?

And yes, the comparison with China is apt. The IOC is a bunch of corrupt,
corporate prostitutes who will do anything for their corporate overlords.
London is in a state of military lockdown for the duration of the games -
heard about the missile pods on civilian houses, for example?

Besides, about those "incredible athletes" - the olympic games were never
about that, either. It's supposed to be a friendly competition between
_amateurs_. Professional atheletes have their world
championships/cups/leagues/whatever, and should have _never_ been admitted to
the games. They have absolutely _no business_ being there.

My point still stands: the very absolutely and definitely _last_ thing the
olympic games are about is sports. It's about mind-numbing commercialisation,
corporate greed and senseless destruction of local economies, all neatly
hidden behind entertainment for the masses - _panem et circenses_!

 _> All of your reasons are why it sucks for the host city._

Yes, and that's more than enough reason to _boycott_ the games, and loudly
demand their _abolition_ , instead of hiding behind "it doesn't concern me"
and mindless patriotism. It concerns millions of people. Show some compassion.
We'll lose nothing by abolishing the games that hasn't already disappeared
long ago.

~~~
cdcarter
> Yes, and that's more than enough reason to boycott the games, and loudly
> demand their abolition [.]

No, that's reason to loudly demand their reform.

~~~
slowpoke
You can't fix what's fundamentally broken. It's better to start from scratch.

