NBC Tells Concerned Senator That Its Olympics Coverage Was Great... According To Itself

from the well,-that's-convincing dept

Fri, Apr 2nd 2010 8:43am — Mike Masnick

As you may recall, NBC was widely slammed for its ridiculous Olympics coverage, which included time delayed programming for no reason at all, extremely limited online programming, and -- in some cases -- requirements to prove you were a particular cable company subscriber to get access to the internet streams. This upset Senator Herb Kohl, who questioned NBC, and wondered if it would further restrict access to its programming should the merger with Comcast go through.

NBC has now replied, but has done so in a misleading manner -- claiming that "viewers had access to more coverage than in any prior Winter Olympics." Now, this is misleading by omission on two separate accounts. First, note the use of "Winter Olympics." Two years ago, NBC actually did provide greater access to its Summer Olympics coverage online. Four years ago, at the last Winter Olympics, broadband was more limited and you can't really compare the two. So that point is somewhat meaningless. Second, since there was no direct competition in the US, it's also a meaningless statement. However, if you look at how online coverage of the Olympics was handled in other countries, you quickly realize that NBC did a terrible job and greatly limited viewers. For example, we regularly heard from folks in Canada, who noted they could access almost everything via online streams.

NBC further makes this questionable claim:

"Without this hybrid approach to ad-supported broadcast households and (pay-TV) households, NBCU would simply not be able to bring our complete Olympics coverage to the American public."

Let's see... you took an amazingly popular sporting event, pissed off a ton of people who wanted to watch it by making it harder to watch and apparently lost hundreds of millions of dollars in the process. And now you're suggesting this was a successful strategy? Wow. Perhaps if you had provided more of what consumers actually wanted, you would have found a better business model.

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: olympics
Companies: nbc

18 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

NAMELESS.ONE, 2 Apr 2010 @ 8:49am

3rd "viewers had..."
so non views get bent you dont count.....
ya i saw that i bet others will too.
THE senator in this case is talking about somehting altogether different about the ability of people to see not those that COULD see.

I can have the greatest web online game , BUT only for people i let play does that mean its the greatest on earth for those that can't play too?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2010 @ 9:00am
  
  Re: 3rd "viewers had..."
  What?
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2010 @ 9:13am
    
    Re: Re: 3rd "viewers had..."
    I'm not completely versed in English as broken as this, but I think he is saying this:
    
    Senator: Your coverage was a failure because it lacked decent coverage.
    NBC: All the people who saw it were able to see it.
    
    So N.O's point is that, as the article states, it's a complete cop-out to reply to that critism the way they did. It completely ignores the issue being addressed and paints it over with PR spin.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
    - Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2010 @ 9:14am
      
      Re: Re: Re: 3rd "viewers had..."
      Don't bother trying to decipher that drivel. He has no point. He never does.
      [ link to this | view in chronology ]
      - Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2010 @ 9:20am
        
        Re: Re: Re: Re: 3rd "viewers had..."
        Actually, I'm starting to think that NAMELESS.ONE, RJR, and a few of the other over-the-top characters on TechDirt are just AI's created by a student at a grad program somewhere. RJR could almost pass the Turing Test.
        
        Back on topic, why did they make it harder to watch when they could have made it easier and sold more ads?
        [ link to this | view in chronology ]
NAMELESS.ONE, 2 Apr 2010 @ 8:52am

and don't worry CTV botched stuff too ( Canada )
so you able to watch stuff online were we, not really.
go ask and fnd out it wasn't much differant then nbc

after all you have hollywood north aka ctv running it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2010 @ 9:12am

Olympics ruined for me
Between the way the Olympic Commitee acts and the way coverage is handled I've essentially been forced to give up any interest I ever had in the Olympics. Those asshats can keep it all for themselves, I hope they go broke and go homeless.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
NBC, 2 Apr 2010 @ 9:14am

Everyone knows that the dirty pirates are everywhere. We used the latest technology to keep them stealers from watching our content!

Pats on the back all around.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2010 @ 9:37am

Remember Triplecast?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
- Jon B., 2 Apr 2010 @ 10:40am
  
  Re:
  I remember when there were 3 pay per view channels devoted to entire olympics coverage.
  
  Then I also remember a year when NBC, CNBC, and MSNBC were devoted to Olympics all day - I don't know if any was delayed or all live.
  
  I'd say either of these were better than this year's Olympics.
  [ link to this | view in chronology ]
  - JEDIDIAH, 2 Apr 2010 @ 10:51am
    
    So much for new technology
    Given the current state of broadcast technology, there's no good reason that the relevant network can't dedicate an entire subchannel to the Olympics. They don't have to monopolize their main channel. They can have it on 8_2 or 8_3 or 8_4 and cable providers could accomodate them.
    
    Infact, I did see some Olympics coverage on the local affiliate's subchannels before, during and after the games.
    
    With all of this magical digital TV goodness, fixating on the internet might not even be necessary.
    [ link to this | view in chronology ]
Jonathan, 2 Apr 2010 @ 10:59am

even allowed subscribers had a hard time
One of the "allowed" cable companies was Charter. I have Charter, so I was excited. After 30 minutes on the phone setting up my @charter.net email account to prove that i could watch the Olympics(TM) I ran into a problem. It still wasn't letting me watch. A 2nd call to Charter uncovered that even though i was paying for the top tier broadband, since I did not have a cable TV subscription i would not be allowed to watch the Olympics.

Why? I don't have a TV and have no use for a cable TV service. Plus, if I had cable TV, i'd be watching the Olympics on my TV rather than my computer screen.

Good game, NBC. You really got me. Unfortunately I didn't have the opportunity to watch all of your ads.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Chuck Norris' Enemy (deceased) (profile), 2 Apr 2010 @ 11:13am

Did any other American see it all?
"...NBCU would simply not be able to bring our complete Olympics coverage to the American public."

Wow! He has the gall to call their coverage complete.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
NBC, 2 Apr 2010 @ 11:40am

NBC - No Body Cares
What? We did a great job. Who cares if you see the sporting events, as long as you saw the sponsors commercials. Watch what you want when you want? What do you think this is? Dont like? Watch it somewhere else. Oh wait you cant. Ha ha.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Nick Mc, 2 Apr 2010 @ 1:18pm

Did any other American see it all?
"...NBC would simply not be able to bring our complete Olympics coverage to the American public."

Notice that he says "our complete Olympics coverage" not simply "complete Olympics coverage".

Oh and, yes, CTV weren't perfect but they had all sorts of coverage with different events on different tv channels (all owned by CTV of course) at the same time plus several other events streaming live. So at most times during the day you had the choice of maybe 6 or so live events, some in languages other than English. We are multicultural after all.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 2 Apr 2010 @ 3:24pm

Olympic coverage in Canada was good.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
DanVan (profile), 3 Apr 2010 @ 5:20pm

Who didn't love already knowing the scores of games before they were played? I know I did..... Like, if we are talking about on the other side of the world, I get holding off because it would have been shown at 3am But holding off due to 2-3 hours? What a joke
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Anonymous Coward, 4 Apr 2010 @ 7:59pm

Seems like surveys indicate they did okay...
http://www.qar.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=94&Itemid=308

http:// www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/keller-fay-study-finds-vancouver-olympics-coverage-is-stimulating-m illions-of-conversations-about-advertisers-brands-85036252.html

In addition, the ratings were phenomenally good, reversing a trend of declining ratings.

I did see an article that contrasted people who frequented the internet versus those who do not. The former seemed to be very dissatisfied. The latter seemed generally quite happy, going to their day jobs and then coming home to watch the Olympics.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]