Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/28/please-dont-watch-nbc-tonight-or-any-night/

by jpadilla_ • 14 years ago

157 92 14 years ago

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.

pavel_lishin• 14 years ago

I want to say that they just found a local optimum, and that they're sacrificing long-term viewership for a short-term profit.

But who am I kidding? Nobody's going to stop watching NBC permanently because they won't air the olympics in a timely manner.

mattbirchler• 14 years ago

Exactly. People are not going to stop watching NBC because of this. It's really not a big deal to most people. Most people want to be able to come home from work and watch the biggest events of the day.

InclinedPlane4• 14 years ago

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 Unfortunately for them and for their potential customers they are constraining themselves to a business model that is obsolete.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.

notJim2• 14 years ago

I don't think it's as clear cut as all the armchair CEOs on the internet say.

By making this stuff available online, the amount of money they can get for the primetime TV spots is reduced, because fewer people will watch the primetime stuff, and it has less cachet because it's no longer exclusive. They will recoup some of that loss by charging money for internet access and having ads on the internet stream, but the ads online will be even cheaper, because that's just how internet ads work. Not only that, but they have to have a platform that they can use to deliver and charge for this content at scale (they might already have such a platform, but it may not be up to this kind of scale, I'm honestly not sure.) So that costs money, too. It's likely the folks at NBC did this analysis and found that it didn't work out in their favor, or there was too much uncertainty.

Meanwhile, most people will be at worst annoyed by the lack of internet coverage, but they'll just record it on their DVRs, or miss out on an event here or there. A very small number of people will go the trouble of pirating it, but those people are likely a margin of error in the grand scheme of things.

fiesycal• 14 years ago

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.

jonknee• 14 years ago

They do. I watched the swimming race in question today live in HD with NBC's iPad app. It's a shitty app, no true full screen (there's an ad) and I can't send it to my Apple TV, but it was free with my TV subscription and provides a dozen or more live feeds in very high quality.

wtn• 14 years ago

I could see this argument for a Tuesday, but who the Hell wants to watch TV on a Saturday night—especially when the events happened 5 hours (± whatever) earlier?

AznHisoka• 14 years ago

I do.. not everyone goes out to get drunk or party on a Saturday night. Watching the Olympics was actually something I was looking forward to yesterday.

pasbesoin• 14 years ago

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.

kevinburke4• 14 years ago

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_• 14 years ago

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.

philh• 14 years ago

> everyone wants to get stuff, lots of stuff without having to lift a finger.

We don't know how to make such a world exist. The claim is not, "if we could snap our fingers and make the world look like anything we wanted, the happiest world we could create would also be the world with the most massive profits". It's closer to, "if we want to optimise for happiness going forward from the world we have, then we should also optimise for allowing companies to make profits".

(Not to say I agree with the claim, but that particular argument is missing the point.)

kevinburke4• 14 years ago

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.

drivebyacct2• 14 years ago

Do... people... really believe this?

_delirium2• 14 years ago

There's a certain pop-libertarianism that does take this Panglossian view that we live in a perfectly tuned universe, where market dynamics, unless interfered with by the state, always produce the best outcomes, recognizing value and allocating resources. It reminds me a bit of some new-agey environmentalism, which believes that ecosystems always work optimally in a harmonious balance, unless humans interfere with Nature's dynamics.

(To be fair, I would say most hardcore libertarian philosophy is based on natural-rights type views, and doesn't make arguments about maximizing outcomes at all.)

JonnieCache• 14 years ago

If you believe, clap your hands and say, "I believe in the market economics fairy!"

locopati• 14 years ago

Coming to think? Here, let me help you along. A mining company or an oil company can ensure highest profits by cutting corners (on worker safety, on disposal of toxic waste, on the rights of those around them). Those profits come at the expense of the workers, the people who live near the facilities, the environment around those facilities. Examples are almost too numerous, so I'll give a few recent ones: Massey Energy in West Virginia, BP in the Gulf of Mexico, Royal Dutch Shell the Niger Delta of Nigeria.

kevinburke4• 14 years ago

Oil companies have reputations, and are playing repeated games, not just one off games... in addition they have incentives not to behave this way, such as the large fine and giant loss in shareholder value after BP spilled oil into the Gulf.

kevinburke4• 14 years ago

Realizing now that this comment came off as way too sappy.

Some companies make products that make people happy, and profit as a result. Examples: Apple, Southwest, Uber, Sonic.net, Flip etc. I would like more of these companies to exist, and for companies to focus more on customer satisfaction.

To my chagrin it's not clear these companies are any more profitable than their competitors who focus less on customer satisfaction.

cvp• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.

netmau5• 14 years ago

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?

dkrich2• 14 years ago

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.

melling• 14 years ago

I'm not sure why people don't get this. It's pretty obvious that companies need to make money, and that it's big business.

I haven't had a TV for almost 3 years and I suffer through missing out on lots of stuff. However, until the economics change (e.g. cable companies die) it's going to be like this for several more years. At least I got a real streaming Superbowl this year.

Rather than complain, let's change the economics and help to make the transition faster. Btw, http://justin.tv is a going place to start in a pinch. :-)

notatoad• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.

mseebach2• 14 years ago

> The tv industry is not disruptable.

Of course it is, think out of the box. Netflix is already doing it, see the discussion elsewhere in the thread. Apple/Google might buy the Olympics rights and put it in iTunes/Play.

astrodust• 14 years ago

Just because the barrier to entry is high doesn't mean you can't disrupt the industry.

eapen• 14 years ago

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

dinkumthinkum3• 14 years ago

I had this reaction too. :) Although, I haven't had any kind of problem of the Adbuster type with NVC.

bridanp• 14 years ago

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.

jes5199• 14 years ago

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

ck2• 14 years ago

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

majormajor• 14 years ago

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.

dinkumthinkum3• 14 years ago

Exactly. I just find this whole view ridiculous. The whole "cable is evil, I would never have that" or all the "cord cutter" stuff is just on a spectrum that ranges from sensationalism to Adbuster level hysteria against "the Man." It's like this weird, vague, sort-of-reverse-Luddite situation.

reaganing• 14 years ago

I wouldn't mind the requirement to have cable so much if that was all it was.

I have cable, but my cable provider does not offer a package with MSNBC so I'm out of luck.

Retric• 14 years ago

IMO, they can easily give people an online only option and still make more money. 500$ for the entire Olympics seamed to any device for the next 2 years. Bean counters say that's not enough, fine 1000$ or whatever, but there is nothing for NBC to gain from not even having the option.

PS: Then again I have cable and I have yet to watch any of the Olympics this year, but I assume some people care.

InclinedPlane4• 14 years ago

It's a small minority, but it's growing: http://www.businessinsider.com/uh-oh-new-nielsen-data-says-p...

More and more people no longer channel surf, and more and more people no longer watch tv (even if they have it) even at a rate of once per month. Increasingly people are watching other content or consuming tv content differently (through netflix, for example). And just as the trend of going without a landline telephone started with the younger, more tech savvy folks and spread from there so has the trend of going without traditional cable tv.

The writing is on the wall. It will likely be a good while before the decline in subscriptions makes a big impact, but it's very much on the horizon, and the networks and the cable companies ignore it at their peril.

mattacular• 14 years ago

Things are in transition, and it is going to be a slow grind. Why would you expect cable companies to start acting before they have to? They're still making plenty o' money on the 'old' model.

They won't change until the absolute last second, if even then.

fingerprinter2• 14 years ago

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.

smharris65• 14 years ago

What is the direct link to subscribe to NFL live video feeds?

FireBeyond• 14 years ago

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?

radicalbyte2• 14 years ago

We haven't had TV for three years now, and don't miss it at all.

Funnily enough we dumped it because at the time Desperate Housewives was a season behind the US, and by the time we'd get to see it the ending was already spoilt.

We've only this year got Breaking Bad.

Instead it's a subscription to an NNTP provider. High quality, we can choose where and when we watch, and we don't have to wait for some high authority to decide if/when we get to see it.

jebblue• 14 years ago

NNTP? for TV? Is this legal?

notJim2• 14 years ago

> 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• 14 years ago

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

Negitivefrags• 14 years ago

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.

tedchs• 14 years ago

If you are a cable subscriber, you are both NBC's customer (that gives them subscription fees via your cable company) and NBC's product (eyeballs sold to advertisers). As NBC's customer, you are already receiving the Olympics.

If you are not a cable subscriber (i.e. over-the-air broadcast receiver), you are NBC's product only, and not their customer.

thebigshane• 14 years ago

I don't think anyone (or many at least) are arguing that NBC shouldn't be able to make any money off of the olympics. But, really, how shitty is it that the only ways to watch the olympics is to pay out of your ass or do things that aren't totally legal. And we aren't talking about some latest blockbuster, or NBC's sole source of income, this is watching our nation competing in the most popular international games. The BBC offers the games online because they are being subsidized by their gov't right? And why would the gov't subsidize that? Because most people that is the right thing to do, and they're willing to pay the taxes to support it.

Anyway, the core of your argument seems to be that it is okay for a company to do what it can to make money but even ignoring legal/illegal activities, companies are supposed to provide value and people are supposed to give them money for that exchange of value. This is a company milking money because they can. This isn't price gauging; this isn't stores in flooded areas selling doubly marked-up bottles of water and flashlights. In those cases there is a real cost and shortage of those goods. In this case the olympics could be put on the internet for pocket change (relative to gov't or NBC spending).

And what about this "exclusive content" defense? The line is fuzzy for sure but surely it exists somewhere separating what kind of content companies should be allowed to have exclusive rights over. Moon landings? Presidential addresses? Presidential debates? Emergency alerts? Emergency news? Weather?

Money isn't bad. But abusive monopolization is.

(the critics at 4chan must be on to something when this blind loyalty to raw capitalism and wannabe entrepreneurship gets 2nd in this thread)

woobar• 14 years ago

But, really, how shitty is it that the only ways to watch the olympics is to pay out of your ass or do things that aren't totally legal.

This is not true. They broadcast about 20 hours/day of olympic programming for free OTA. Most of it live, they delay high ratings events. I know it so 20th century, but they provide you free and legal option to watch Olympics.

swanson• 14 years ago

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!

emiliobumachar• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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.

wensing• 14 years ago

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

b3b0p• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

> 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.....

bluedanieru• 14 years ago

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

slowpoke4• 14 years ago

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• 14 years ago

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?

dt7• 14 years ago

Possibly more effective to boycott the sponsors?

benevpayor• 14 years ago

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.

swang• 14 years ago

According to this article from 2011: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/06/...

> 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.

ddon• 14 years ago

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 :)

nhangen• 14 years ago

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.

pbreit5• 14 years ago

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

The BBC thing is neat but quite unwatchable.

pbreit5• 14 years ago

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.

Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

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