Comcast/NBC Tone Deafness, Not 'Millennials' To Blame For Olympics Ratings Drop

from the we'll-adapt-when-we-damn-well-feel-like-it dept

Olympics watchers repeatedly begged Comcast for live opening ceremonies, more live events, less host prattle, and fewer ads ahead of the recent games in Rio. What did Comcast deliver instead? A smorgasbord of abysmal bloviation, tape delays, and so many advertisements that many people stopped watching in disgust. As a result, the Rio Olympics were the lowest rated Summer Olympics since 2000, with average viewership down 17% and an overall audience that was 25% smaller than 2012 in the 18-to-49 demo.

We've already noted how a big reason was Comcast/NBC's absolute refusal to actually listen to paying customers and heed lessons from the cord cutting era. But a Bloomberg headline this week proudly crowed that Millennials were somehow to blame for the slide. Amusingly, the piece cites a comment from NBC exec Steve Burke, who last June described a scenario he said would be a "nightmare":

"We wake up someday and the ratings are down 20 percent,” the chief executive officer of NBCUniversal said at a conference. “If that happens, my prediction would be that millennials had been in a Facebook bubble or a Snapchat bubble and the Olympics have come, and they didn’t know it."

That is, so we're clear, an NBC exec predicting that if NBC's Olympics ratings dropped, it would be the fault of Millennials living in a bubble -- not possibly due to anything NBC did. And with ratings dropping from 17 to 25%, Burke's nightmare scenario effectively came true. NBC is quick to point out that streaming was actually up, but that wasn't able to help an overall dive in ratings. And while Comcast/NBC is quick to insist it's adapting to consumer demand, people young and old found Olympic streaming to be an annoying and cumbersome experience littered with paywalls, delays, authentication issues, and other headaches:

"I’m sure NBC were patting themselves on the backs for how easy it would be to watch online this year, but that’s only true for cable subscribers, a slowly shrinking percentage of the US population, especially for Millennials. The reason NBC is losing Millennials to other platforms for entertainment is because all of those platforms have lowered the barriers to enjoy the programming. I can sign up for Hulu, Netflix, and HBO nearly in an instant. Oh, and did I mention they’re all ad free (with a premium on Hulu)?

Had NBC offered the entire Olympic Platform for a small fee (less than $10), they probably would have seen their Millennial numbers skyrocket. Hell, they could have charged $5 more for an “Ad Free” presentation and padded their pockets even more. But instead, they relied on the old dying models of traditional broadcast network and revenue models of years past, and it bit them in the ass.

Why is streaming so clunky and difficult? Because most cable industry streaming efforts are designed to give the illusion of innovation, flexibility and adaptation, without actually providing any of these. Why? Because offering a truly easy, inexpensive online streaming service (Olympics or otherwise) would cannibalize the traditional cable TV cash cow. As such, easy, flexible and inexpensive streaming remains an intentional afterthought, and will until cord cutting finally reaches critical mass. In short, like so many legacy industries, pay TV won't truly adapt until the house is fully engulfed in flames.

Filed Under: coverage, millenials, olympics, ratings, time delay
Companies: nbc universal

Comcast/NBC Ignores Lessons From The Cord Cutting Age, Buries Olympics Under An Ocean Of Annoying Advertising

from the you-will-like-what-we-say-you'll-like dept

It's becoming abundantly clear that the lessons of the cord cutting age are not sinking in at Comcast/NBC Universal headquarters. Last Friday night, NBC aired the Olympic opening ceremonies, but spent the weekend being mercilessly ridiculed on social media for a broadcast that was not only showy and hollow, but absolutely slathered with not just ads -- but the same ads shown over and over again. Viewers, many of whom were already annoyed by NBC's refusal to show the opening ceremonies live, made their displeasure abundantly clear: In 2011, Comcast agreed to pay $4.4 billion for exclusive US broadcast rights to air the Olympics through 2020. It shelled out another $7.75 billion for the rights for the games until 2032. To begin recouping the costs of this deal, Comcast/NBC was quick to brag about how it nabbed $1.2 billion in national advertising in the games. But lost in this conversation, as usual, was what paying customers actually wanted. What consumers repeatedly told NBC they wanted was less blathering, more live events, and a live broadcast of the opening ceremonies. They got none of those things.

What they got was a one-hour tape delay so NBC could try and shovel as many advertisements at consumers as possible (under the guise of needing to add "context"), and some incoherent rambling from hosts who often went hysterically out of their way to avoid addressing any of the volatile realities surrounding the games in Rio. Previously, NBC execs tried to justify this tone-deafness with all manner of excuses, ranging from absurd to relatively insulting:

The people who watch the Olympics are not particularly sports fans. More women watch the Games than men, and for the women, they’re less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. It’s sort of like the ultimate reality show and mini-series wrapped into one. And to tell the truth, it has been the complaint of a few sports writers. It has not been the complaint of the vast viewing public.

As the complaints bubbled over among the viewing public, NBC started playing defense, telling industry news outlets like Ad Week that the Rio games ad load is "very similar" to the 2010 London Olympics; it's the public perception that's to blame:

"As we did for London, we inserted a few more commercials earlier in the show so that we can afford time later in the show to present as much of the ceremony as we can, including every single country in the Parade of Nations," said an NBC Sports spokesperson. "Given that the commercial load was very similar to London, we believe that consumption habits, such as binge-watching and 'marathoning,' have changed perceptions among the viewing audience regarding commercials."

That's NBC admitting that modern consumers are finding over-advertising and other legacy cable habits more annoying than ever. Something NBC should have already known as consumers slowly but surely either cut the cable cord or trim back on their viewing packages because the game has changed. And what did NBC do armed with this information? It doubled down on being annoying. The result was a 30+% decline in the 18-49 demographic, with people trying harder than ever to explore Olympics streaming alternatives (or even use a VPN to watch live international streams if necessary).

This isn't just inflexibility and tone-deafness, it's almost a celebration of them. And it's just one more example of how the traditional cable and broadcast sector isn't just ready for real disruption, it's absolutely begging for it.

Filed Under: advertising, olympics, opening ceremonies, tape delay, time delay
Companies: nbc universal

NBC's 'Most Live Olympics Ever' Will Have A One Hour Broadcast Delay For The Opening Ceremony

from the late-to-the-party dept

It's Olympics season again. What is normally an expose of how the IOC and the USOC become the biggest IP bullies on the block has had a little spice added to it this year in the form of a host country that by all reports is woefully unprepared for its duties while simultaneously being rocked by a pest-spread disease with the delightful symptom of shrinking the brains of fetuses. And if that doesn't make you believe that some combination of a god and/or the universe wants the Olympics to cease to be, perhaps the fact that the whole fiasco will be broadcast by NBC will.

Yes, running in parallel with our posts about IOC bullying, you will find a history of posts about NBC's strange attempts to turn back the clock on its broadcast of the games. Historically, this has meant limiting the live streaming of most of the events, making it as difficult to find and watch any event as possible, and delaying all kinds of event broadcasts until NBC deems that the public wants to watch them. But have heart, dear friends, for the NBC overlords have listened and have declared that these Rio Olympics will be the "most live Olympics ever."

For Rio 2016, NBC says this will be its "most live Olympics ever" with 4,500 hours of coverage streaming on NBCOlympics.com and the recently renamed NBC Sports app. Also new this time around is that the NBC Sports app is on connected TV devices (it launched on Roku and Apple TV last year), not just mobile.

Now, I'll just go ahead and note here that while NBC has been very busy patting itself on the back for how much more live coverage there will be of the Olympics in Rio compared with previous broadcasts, the fact that there is a time difference of exactly one hour between East Coast time and Brazil means that all the live coverage is probably just happenstance rather than any concerted effort by NBC. But, hey, the company has still gotten the message that live coverage only makes sense in a hyper-connected world where view-on-demand can be achieved by the devices we carry around in our pockets at work and while in transit, right?

Sure! Except for the opening ceremony, because you idiots aren't smart enough to be able to watch that live.

The Rio Olympics formally begin August 5th with the opening ceremony from the Maracanã stadium. Proceedings start at 7 p.m. Eastern Time, only you won’t be able to watch them on NBC until at least an hour later. At a press conference yesterday, NBC execs announced plans to broadcast the ceremony at 8 p.m. Eastern Time and 7 p.m. Central Time, each on one hour delays, and at 7 p.m. Mountain Time and 8 p.m. Pacific Time, on two and four-hour delays respectively.

So why the need for anywhere between a one and four our delay to watch the opening ceremony? Two reasons. First, forget all of that hyperconnectivity thing we just talked about, this shit has to only air during prime time. Also, without post-production and planned narration of the ceremony, you viewers won't get all of the great story lines NBC wants to feed you.

By doing a short tape-delay of one hour, it allows us to put it in a time period when more people are home to watch, because it is a Friday night and they get out of their commute or home from wherever they are. And it allows us to curate it with the narrative and storytelling of our announcers to explain what’s going on. And it allows us to put in commercials without cutting out large chunks of the show.

Also, the opening ceremony is really for all of the penis-less viewers out there. And we all know how the ladies don't really like sports but do like their soap operas, amirite?

The people who watch the Olympics are not particularly sports fans. More women watch the Games than men, and for the women, they’re less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. It’s sort of like the ultimate reality show and mini-series wrapped into one. And to tell the truth, it has been the complaint of a few sports writers. It has not been the complaint of the vast viewing public.

Now, to the point about the prime time coverage. Look, hyperconnected or not, it is certainly true that many adults only have certain hours of the day to which they can dedicate some couch-time and watch a bunch of people from a bunch of countries walk around in a circle for a while. But that doesn't mean NBC couldn't also stream the ceremony live for those that want it live. The commentary might be pared down and perhaps we wouldn't get all of the juicy narrative NBC wants to inject for lady viewers, who we all know universally hate sports and all that, but there is value to live coverage that many people want. It's not just a small number of sports writers.

As for that context it claims it needs to inject, that's not the whole story. What the delay really allows NBC to do is inject commercials wherever it wants without omitting any countries from the ceremony while also being able to cut out any undesirable content (i.e. political content) that shows up in the ceremony.

NBC has an incentive to air the ceremony live, but by delaying, they are sacrificing the chance to be first so they can tailor the coverage, cut out any shenanigans, and pick the best places to cut away to commercial. And, of course, cut anything controversial. As Gary Zenkel, NBCSG’s president, pointed out, it’s a show, not a competition.

Which, fine, if NBC wants to act as the speech filter for its viewers, so be it. But who is going to be surprised when NBC also screams bloody murder at people seeing results, highlights, and even coverage of the opening ceremony that will be available on other streams from other nations' broadcasts, on Twitter and Facebook and the like? NBC can't seriously delay its coverage and get mad when all the customers whose demands it ignores move on to other options.

But that's exactly what will happen. We've been here before, after all. And no matter how "live" these Olympics are this go-round, delaying the broadcast and stream of the opening ceremony leads me to believe I know exactly how it will go this time too.

Filed Under: ads, commercials, olympics, opening ceremony, time delay
Companies: nbc