

Ask HN: Is it me or does NBC simply not get the whole online thing? - johnohara

Just tried to connect to NBC USA-Canada game live. Prompted me for my cable provider then required me to drop pop-up shields and is now asking for my Comcast email address (which I never use and can't remember).<p>Following the blog instead.
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chancho
Oh they get it alright: it's a threat. If you're watching it online you're not
watching ads run by your local NBC affiliate. The network affiliate business
model is a dying model, but it's not going down without a fight.

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thaumaturgy
This has been a soapbox subject for me for a while.

I actually _like_ the Olympics. I'd love to have it on in the background while
working, I'd love to see most of the events, and I enjoy watching a bunch of
people get together in one place, from around the world, and compete at the
highest levels. It's great.

But I'm not about to subscribe to cable tv for it. I can't stand most of what
passes for entertainment on television, I don't want to pay for it, I don't
want it in my home. Nor do I want to limit myself only to NBC's coverage of
the event, with their moronic and vapid commentators and waste-of-time
interviews.

Unfortunately, the various countries are limiting viewership only to their own
country, which I think runs pretty starkly against the spirit of the Olympics.

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ErrantX
A lot of people here in the UK seem to bemoan the BBC for being overfunded
and, basically, crap.(Which I always find amusing having had to suffer US
telly at various intervals :P)

Anyway: point is the BBC have run consistent coverage of the whole of the
winter Olympics every night over here. Solid stuff.

Everyone should try the model, I think, of tax funded TV.

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anamax
> Everyone should try the model, I think, of tax funded TV.

I'm not interested in paying for your Olympic coverage. If you're not willing
to pay what it costs....

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ErrantX
That's the interesting thing; it's such a good deal you only have to be
interested in one or 2 programs and it's worth it :)

I can believe people actually pay for US cable... it's insane :(

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koanarc
I'll let you in on a little secret about tax-funded television: you're paying
for it.

The difference? If you don't like what's on cable, you can stop paying for
cable! Neat.

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ErrantX
I realise that. The thing is the model gerally works good here in the uk (note
the tax is optional. Yu can choose not to watch tv).

It might not work elsewhere admittedly. But it's worth a shot. I've travelled
quite a bit and Imo the uk easily has the best tv set up. :-)

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koanarc
>>The thing is the model gerally works good here in the uk

I can agree that some good programming has come out of British public
television, but I've been given no reason to think this is necessarily a
result of (or in spite of) it being tax-funded.

>>note the tax is optional. Yu can choose not to watch tv

I'll grant that being forced to pay for public television only when watching
TV is less bad than being forced to pay for public television regardless of
whether or not you can even watch TV would be. On the other hand, even half a
spoonful of poop ruins a whole pan of brownies. (Less-bad != Good). Why should
I have to pay a tax to watch a private broadcast? Why not tax the internet and
create a State-run intranet, on that basis?

>>It might not work elsewhere admittedly. But it's worth a shot.

No. Do not want. This is how problems start. Someone gets (or is given, and
runs with) the easy idea: "Let taxes pay for it! If it doesn't work out the
way we want, they'll just stop doing it!" But governments don't just stop
doing things simply on account of them not working. You're already paying them
to do it. Why go through the trouble of admitting mistakes and debating about
repealing stuff and, in many cases, taking away peoples' (inefficiently
allocated, needlessly created) jobs? Sure sounds like a hassle.

Next thing you know, you've got...what we've all already got. Too much fucking
government. Please stop asking for more of it on other peoples' account. Even
if you think the BBC airs a few good shows, it's the principle. It's not your
money, so quit asking them to spend it. No new taxes. No new programs. No new
agencies. We can't get rid of or fix all the crap we _already_ have.

Apologies for the zeal, but this is the appropriate reaction when people start
clamoring to take your money and use it for something you will have for all
practical purposes absolutely zero say in. This is not an efficient way to use
our resources, nor an ethical one.

Edit: typo, linebreak.

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ErrantX
> No. Do not want.

Ok fair point. But it's worth considering; if I were a US citizen I really
dont think I would sit much longer and endure the POS channels they have there
(sorry to keep picking on the US - but they are the worst offenders by far).

> I can agree that some good programming ...

Oh it's more important than that.

The BBC are meant to be politically neutral - and they do a reasonably good
job of being so. Better than anyone else by far.

It also funds the BBC website - which is easily one of the best news sites
around (note how often it gets submitted here, and upvoted, as opposed to
other general news sites :))

Additionally it funds iPlayer - HD streaming of BBC content. Again, yet to see
a commercial offering as slick.

Finally the tax funds Ofcomm which regulates all TV - I think this is one of
the main reasons we aren't suffering shoddy corrupted TV :D

There is a broader benefit as well. People are used to solid hours of content
with no advertising on te BBC - which means other channels cant get away with
as much as certain other countries cram in. Example: Channel 5 shows CSI from
9pm on Tuesdays. It has 10-12 minutes of advertising between segments and
finishes at 9:50pm. In the US that fills a whole hour timeslot - they get 100%
more advertising (20m) more than us.

So, yeh, I think it's a great deal for what you get (7 BBC channels and
guaranteed between 3 and 10 other, well regulated, free-to-air channels plus
the BBC website). Certainly I'd never consider paying for cable channels in
the way other countries do :(

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anamax
> So, yeh, I think it's a great deal for what you get

Of course you like it - someone else is paying for what you want.

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ErrantX
Huh? I pay for it too?

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anamax
> Huh? I pay for it too?

I didn't say that you didn't pay. I implied that you didn't pay what it costs.

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benologist
Nobody really understands anything but us. It's one of the best parts of being
us.

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shhhhhh
shhhhh.

<http://p2p4u.net/watch/13014/1/watch-canada-vs.-usa.html>

PS: GO USA!

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aphistic
I found the whole online coverage of these Olympics completely frustrating.
I'd be willing to pay some kind of "online access" fee to allow me to watch
the live coverage online because I spend most of my time in a room on my
computer without a TV. Early on I tried to find somewhere I could watch the
live broadcast from my area but came up empty. I agree, either NBC doesn't
"get it" or they're actively trying to frustrate people like me.

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Micand
In Canada, CTV offered access to both live video and recorded clips for these
Olympics. On Windows, the service seemed to work seamlessly -- it did not
prompt for cable providers, e-mail addresses, or any such thing. On Linux, the
experience was less smooth. As the video relied on Silverlight, I had to
install Moonlight. Through the first day or two of the Games, only the stable
v2.0 was clearly offered on the Moonlight Web site, which did not support
video from CTV or NBC (and which had the unfortunate habit of ballooning a
freshly-launched Firefox to more than a gigabyte of memory usage). Later on,
the v3.0 preview, which does support video, was prominently offered on the
Moonlight site. Sadly, it performed poorly -- video ran at only about 5 FPS on
my system, while consuming an entire CPU core.

In contrast, CBC handled Canadian coverage of the Beijing Games in 2008. All
their video was offered via Flash, which worked splendidly in Linux. Almost
every event was viewable, often without commercials and commentators. I am
saddened by this backward step.

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bugs
I don't think the olympics get it... granting exclusive rights for coverage of
well everything.

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stinkytaco
It's not you. They don't get it.

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robbed
Yep. It's weird that this is the same company that owns part of Hulu.

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ja27
I feel the same way about ESPN 360. My ISP / cable provider doesn't pay them,
so there's no way for me to get it. Even if I wanted to pay them myself, I
can't.

