

Tape Delay by NBC Faces End Run by Online Fans - echair
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/sports/olympics/09nbc.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

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noonespecial
FTA _As dancers and acrobats whisked across the National Stadium in Beijing,
anonymous users uploaded more than 100 video clips of the ceremony to YouTube,
but the site, owned by Google, swiftly removed as many as it could. Similarly,
some live video streams on Justin.tv, a popular source for international
video, were also removed. According to International Olympic Committee
guidelines, the television networks with the local rights to the Games are the
only legal sources of video in each country._

I think its time we grew out of the idea that companies can buy the Olympics.
Its supposed to be for everyone. All that BS about unity rings pretty hollow
when its for sale for $900 mil.

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akd
Someone has to pay for it. The Olympics must be an expensive operation. What
do you recommend?

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noonespecial
We could start with the tiniest bit of grace about the thing. JustinTV is not
a threat to televised olympic coverage. Whats going on here is just plain
bullying.

The games are for everyone, form every nation. That means some people might
want to watch it on ARD, auf Deutsch, but live in California. Some people will
catch some interesting stuff on their cellphones and want to share. Its about
the _world_ now, and its not 1960. I'm not saying we shouldn't have
advertising sponsors, I'm just saying we should grow up a little about it.

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Hexstream
"But NBC, which paid $894 million for the exclusive rights to the Olympic
broadcast in the United States, intends to show some premier events like
swimming live on television only to reach a wider audience and charge higher
rates for advertising. "

Hum... _Don't ask what advertising can do for you, ask what YOU can do for
advertising!_

Seriously, I don't get it sometimes. So much effort expanded on advertising...
for what? For bugging people, mostly. Why are we even bothering with all this
shit? When everyone (ok, mostly big corps) has "high visibility" because of
advertising, then nobody has high visibility.

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wave
It is true that watching something on computer doesn't give you the same
experience as watching it on TV, but it wrong to assume that everything on the
Internet will be watched only on computers. I don't watch movies/shows from
the Internet (example from Hulu) on a computer, rather I watch them by
connecting my computer to a TV.

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pongle
I'm surprised the IOC didn't put a requirement for a live broadcast into the
contracts with the broadcasters.

Putting it out live on a separate channel would probably make sense in terms
of segmenting their audience for advertising purposes. I guess since they
depend on raw volumes of viewers, instead of necessarily on quality of
viewers, they have to push people to all watch the same thing at the same
time.

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jrockway
Why would the IOC ever do anything good for the "end user"? They solely exist
to make lots and lots of money. NBC offered them lots of money, so why would
the IOC turn that down?

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pongle
I was surprised because I believe that a large portion of the excitement of
sport is its event nature and viewing a live-event live enhances that
experience, improving the Olympic brand. I guess the IOC was willing to
compromise the brand for the bundle of cash from NBC.

