NBC's Crippled Online Olympics Coverage Attracts Small Audience
from the surprise! dept
NBC apparently got about 72 million video streams during this Olympics season, and is touting this as a great success. It's true that this is a lot more than any previous Olympics, but I don't think NBC has anything to crow about. Remember, this is the most famous sporting event in the world, and it got non-stop media coverage for close to a month. Yet in a country with 300 million people, they only got a total of 72 million streams? That's less than one stream for every 4 Americans. And as Ben Worthen points out, YouTube streamed 4.2 billion videos—60 times as many—in the month of May. So people are clearly watching a lot of videos. Most of them just aren't NBC's Olympics videos.
Amazingly, NBC is "using the Olympics to assert that TV is the preferred medium of consumers," with 93 percent of all viewing. I think this says less about consumers than about NBC's own marketing decisions. The problem is that despite its protests to the contrary, NBC wasn't serious about web-based coverage of the Olympics. They held back the most popular coverage for television audiences, forcing online viewers to wait until later (sometimes much later due to a desire for tape delays) to watch the stuff they were really interested in. It looks like they also forced anyone who wanted to watch the video to download and install Microsoft's Silverlight plugin. And of course they've gone out of their way to make embedding impossible, cutting off one of the most popular ways of expanding the reach of content. Not surprisingly, when NBC makes the Internet a second-class medium for Olympics coverage, most people watch TV instead.
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Filed Under: olympics, online coverage
Companies: nbc universal
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I tried to watch it
I was actually really annoyed by the dependence on silverlight. I found that to be an incredibly dumb move. I wonder how much microsoft paid NBC for that.
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Re: I tried to watch it
It has had problems in the past, but NBCs implementation was perfect.
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Re: I tried to watch it
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Re: I tried to watch it
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nbc coverage
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Re: nbc coverage
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Re:
1. The articles mention 72 million *streams*, not 72 million unique users. The actual number of viewers was probably a lot less, so it's not really a major achievement.
2. Even if it was, the argument isn't that the numbers were low in an of themselves. It's that NBC are trying to pretend that the numbers indicate that people want to watch TV more. The counter-argument here is that there were a number of silly moves (delayed broadcast, requirement for an unpopular and undesirable plugin, no embedding) that reduced the number of potential online viewers greatly. The figures mean pretty much nothing other than people prefer TV to an unnecessarily delayed and restricted online stream - no surprise there.
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Still tunning in
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Re: Still tunning in
So, hush about this, we don't want to give the networks any funny ideas that they could be filthy rich.
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the problem I saw with NBCOlympics.com was:
a) results right on the home page - many hours before TV coverage in most cases due to the overnight events, blowing any element of surprise. They should have had a splash page cookie: do you want results or suspense?
b) terrible layout - it was often hard to find video. Full video was jumbled with recap/highlight video. Also, it was as if video was NOT the focus of the site. Go figure. There was a 'LIVE' text link next to sports that were live online at that time.
c) no commentary on many live streams. I noticed NO NBC commentary - thus giving no context of what I was watching. Graphics seemed limited to what was provided by the official feeds, so again, little context. There was some commentary available on highlight videos.
No wonder NBC claim people watched TV. The website stunk.
Most pre-roll ads I saw were for NBC parent GE, who supplied China heavily with infrastruture for the games.
I will give NBC props for the all HD footage on the various TV Channels (except Telemundo, which despite having an HD channel in LA, chose to use SD format)
My grades: TV: A- website: C-
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Not Limited to NBC
And because London is hours ahead of even the East coast, I saw many events before NBC aired them. It's sad that many of us Americans still believe the major networks when they claim to have a monopoly on coverage.
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YES,
I can Easily prove that 20% of the USA didnt have/want access.
I can also show that out of the 60% saturation of internet access, that about 20% of that is DIAL UP, WHIch wont work with their movie data.
Their Demographics are WAY OFF. And they wont have FINAL data for AT LEAST 1 month. This is a wish list.
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Re: YES,
BTW, your info about dialup vs broadband is not entirely relevant. Statistics and probabilities don't apply the way you might think in the real world since the game is changed if, for example, someone with dialup, or no home access at all, decides to go to the public library to watch them.
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NBC coverage was so sorry
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Re:
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Re: Re:
What are you on about? As far as I know, only the BBC had the right to broadcast to other countries in English. (I am not sure if these were only digital rights, though.)
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TV go bye bye
Right now, I'm just using rabbit ears to get tv. When it all goes digital, my tv becomes merely a box for watching dvd's. On the dozen or so channels I can get semi-regularly, I'm still not seeing anything that makes me say "I wish I had cable". Quite the opposite in fact. The extra $85 per month is being well spent on other forms of entertainment now.
Sorry TV networks, you pooped in your own nest. Enjoy the reek.
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Wouldn't work for me
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Re: Wouldn't work for me
You could have cheered along, you could have seen it life. I am stunned that no one on your base had that figured out. USA men I know are quite on top of those kind of things.
You had all the luck and wasted it. So sorry.
An American Girl
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Re: Not limited to NBC
Their site had a large number of live streams as well as streaming video almost immediately after initial event. Only problem, the streams were taken from their TV broadcasts so they were frequently interrupted by commercials (way too often and the ads were much too long! - the recorded video streams had blank spaces instead of more ads). The French version of CBC had far superior commentary etc (it often has better programming). Tried RFI but had problems with their streams. ABC (Oz!) radio could only broadcast the Beeb during the Olympics - Beeb obviously bought the int'l English Rights
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Underwhelmed too
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NBC Coverage?
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NBC coverage sucked
Did I choose instead to turn the TV on? Ah, not likely. NBS execs, you're about as stupid as McCain and his new running mate.
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NBC is Retarded and Microsoft is Malicious
I was at work when most of the Olympics were going on. I work at a computer. I would have loved to see streaming video of the Olympics that wasn't on Silverlight.
Everytime I've installed Silverlight, it stops any of our D-Link products from working. This bug is well known about and still hasn't been resolved (http://silverlight.net/forums/p/7452/77779.aspx) considering I have lots of D-Link cameras that I deal with, this isn't right.
Sometimes I think MS just does things to piss others off.
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Are all Mac users as arrogant as this guy?
I was actually really annoyed by the dependence on silverlight. I found that to be an incredibly dumb move. I wonder how much microsoft paid NBC for that."
First, I doubt Microsoft paid NBC anything. NBC wanted a viewer with a lot of features and so they chose silverlight. It is actually a decent video viewer.
Second, instead of whining like a bratty 2 year old...
Install Silverlight, enjoy the olympics, when it's over uninstall it. It only takes a couple minutes to download and install. I guess you missed out because you are an arrogant SOB.
Third, by your logic, the iPod would have failed. Nobody would have purchased one because "they would never install iTunes on a PC. It's against all principles."
My hell. What an idiot.
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Re: Are all Mac users as arrogant as this guy?
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Re: Re: Are all Mac users as arrogant as this guy?
Sorry, Microsoft, you lose again. And now that I'm running Linux on all my machines, I know there will never be any point in installing your latest attempt to lock everyone in to your monopoly.
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Re: Are all Mac users as arrogant as this guy?
I tried iTunes when I had a MacBook Pro at work and was amazed at how awful it was. I would never install it on a PC either.
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Re: Are all Mac users as arrogant as this guy?
Hehe, a bit naive? I'm sure there was some collusion, even if you found the results to be fine.
Anyway, whatever the reasons, Microsoft have a very well deserved reputation for poor quality software and have many competitors in the online video market. Silverlight is a relatively unproven and unpopular piece of software, even if you found it to be OK. It's not unreasonable to question the safely and stability of this software, nor to question why this software was chosen.
I bet you also install any software that comes from Sony because you never have any problems, too?
"Second, instead of whining like a bratty 2 year old...
Install Silverlight, enjoy the olympics, when it's over uninstall it. It only takes a couple minutes to download and install. I guess you missed out because you are an arrogant SOB."
Do you do this with any piece of software you're asked to install? Do you really never question the reason for or safety of such software? If so, don't whine when the backdoor installed in your PC gets compromised...
"Third, by your logic, the iPod would have failed. Nobody would have purchased one because "they would never install iTunes on a PC. It's against all principles.""
You don't need iTunes to use an iPod. Many people use other software, including on machines (e.g. Linux) where Apple haven't decided to make a version of iTunes available. You *did* need Silverlight to see NBC's Olympic coverage.
So: analogy FAIL.
"My hell. What an idiot."
By the looks of things: Pot. Kettle.
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Seriously, NBC, what made you think I wanted to watch in prime time BMX over track and field? What is next? Monster Trucks over coverage of the marathon?
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Re:
The BMX coverage lasted all of 3 minutes. It lasted less time than the commercial breaks! Are you seriously complaining about that?
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CBC's coverage
I have to applaud the CBC coverage of the Olympics. There was 9 channels available from the main page and it was a simple streaming video of the event. You had to endure a 30 second commercial before the video but who the heck cares since you can mute it. No other commercials were visible till you started it again. There were limited ads on the site (I turned adblocker off) and when there were they did not interrupt the coverage. It was simple and worked great. I only hope that CTV continues the high level set by the CBC in 2010.
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NBC is probably right
Also, consider that a majority of online video streaming is likely to take place when a television isn't an option (school, work for example).
I think NBC is correct in stating that most people would rather watch the Olympics on television. You have to look beyond the raw numbers and examine the content as well.
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they wouldn't let me watch
And I was annoyed enough by this that I didn't bother going back and lying. What a waste of time.
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Re:
Incidentally, broadcasting the Olympics is not a profitable enterprise. The rights are extremely costly (NBC paid $2.2 Billion!!!), as are the production costs (flying equipment and crews around the world, leasing satellite and fiber capacity for backhaul) and despite some passionate fans, it is generally not a well-watched event in the US. This year's Olympics is an anomaly due to the Michael Phelps phenomenon. I predict a similar anomaly in registration for swim team ;-).
So is NBC's claim that people still like to watch TV on TV that far fetched? Check out this report from Nielsen released this summer. They found that while growth in broadband consumption of programming is strong, people are spending more time than ever watching traditional TV.
So 93% of viewers watched the Olympics on TV. Does the poster really believe that if NBC had used different video viewing software, this would have dropped below 50% in favor of online? This is difficult for me to believe.
EG
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Silverlight sucks
Every single time I go to a website that requires silverlight, it tells me I need to install it when it is already installed. I even went as far as manually downloading the executable and installing it rather than installing it in the browser, and I still get messages telling me to install it. Issues like that need to be addressed before silverlight should appear on any major websites.
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Re:
- People who don't watch / own a TV, or whose TV is broken
- People wanting to watch from work and/or a place where a TV is not available, or via a mobile device on the move.
- People wanting to watch games or sports not shown on the TV channels.
...for starters. Just because you don't use something doesn't mean nobody else does. Also, just because it's not something a lot of people do right now, does that mean that it shouldn't happen, or mistakes should not be fixed for next time?
I mean, not so long ago no "normal" person used a computer in their job or watched TV in colour or recorded TV shows or played videogames. All of these are now mainstream activities. Who's to say that by the next Olympics, watching video online is not a more "normal" activity? Is it OK for the same mistakes to be made then?
"No one cares about you only about what you can do for them."
So, NBC shouldn't care that a lot of people were motivated to bypass their coverage (and therefore advertising, and therefore profits) because they failed to meet the customers' needs? Interesting...
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Re:
lets see, those who aren't taken in by the utter GARBAGE that people like you seem to be happy with on mainstream TV?
BTW, the number of people who prefer to watch web content over TV is larger than you think and growing daily. Just because you don't have the depth of mind to watch something that isn't spoon fed to you by the suits doesn't make people "nerds".
LOL..."Nerds". What year is this, 1993?
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NBC sucks
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Re: NBC sucks
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Didn't work for me...
BitTorrent fixed that.
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Re:
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stop pissing
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TV was okay... screw MSNBC et al
I echo the complaints about requiring intel-based chipsets to install a crap piece of software. the website was so incredibly slow that it took me enough time to navigate to where I finally learned of the system requirements, I just said screw it. This at 15mb/s.
As far as TV coverage, I was usually able to get 2-4 different channels with coverage, depending upon time of day (Cox AZ). This made catching the women's soccer events easy, since they were live at 6AM (much easier than that Korea world cup). Telemundo was great with classic commentary for all the soccer and boxing events (the latter were not of interest).
Overall, I'd say I logged more than 100 hours of couch time during the event, thankfully missing both the opening and closing ceremonies - though I will probably try to watch them on utube.
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Olympics?
1) silverlight. Sorry ms, I use Linux and NO WAY I am installing Mono/moonlight/silverlight on any PC I own or control. NO CHANCE.
2)I only have an interest in one sport out of all the various ones available. I am want to be able go to that sport select the particular person, and get a video of their performance MINUS the IDIOT COMMENTARY by washed up athletes. I don't need your commentary, thank you.
#1 is a total deal breaker as I WILL NOT install that crap on any PC even winslop ones.
So buy a clue NBC and others.... If you want me to see your content you will need to be Linux compatible.
And oh yeah, don't bother with flash either. I don't allow that either!
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Web offerings?
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Silverlight is ghey...
I hate Microsoft and NBC becuz of stupid moves like this that they tend to make every single time, then they miss the real reason why people chose TV over their site so much... it was so lopsided and NBC is confused and led astray thinking their site was a success :
So now I go ahead and uninstall Silverlight, but wow I didn't think large well-funded companies like NBC and Microsoft were so stupid when it comes to technology and making viewers happy.
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NBC Olympics Banned Here
I was able to receive online Olympic coverage from other nations overseas.
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Bob Costas interviews
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Bob Costas interviews
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Visat Media Center Plugin
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Arr
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If you took your head out of your ass, you'd find Silverlight to be a much more advanced video player.
And if that wasn't enough, there's a version of quake that runs on it at 60 fps, (what a horrible browser embedded platform, i'm sure)
http://www.dev102.com/2008/11/14/play-quake-online-with-quakelight-silverlight-quake/
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hi
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