Miscellaneous Uses for a Blog

The Olympics are an event I’m always thrilled about. During these 2 weeks every 4 years, you can sense the unity of the world. Our family loves to watch Olympics coverage. While swimming takes center-stage in our house, we have looked forward to watching some of the less covered events online this year via NBCOlympics.com .  NBC has publicly stated that their online coverage would serve as a gauge for where their online offerings should go in the future.

As the replay of the awesome opening ceremonies rolled on broadcast television here in the states, I decided to see what events were kicking off online. With China 13 hours ahead of use in Kansas City, we knew the first events were just getting started. One of the first questions you are asked is your zip code and what TV provider you use. This makes perfect sense, because the website can use this information to find your TV schedule.

We still use an antenna for TV. We don’t watch enough TV to justify paying money for cable or satellite TV. Over-the-air television is great, and having access to the digital enhancement channels is more than enough for us. As a result, I added “Antenna” to my credentials on NBC’s Olympics website. Ok! I’m ready to go!
At the time, the only event broadcasting live was Equestrian. While I had no interest in watching horses trot around, I figured that I’d test the video none the less. Unfortunately, when I opened the video, I was greeted with this graphic:

Apparently, because I’m “not a subscriber to an approved TV service provider” NBC feels I shouldn’t be able to view live coverage online. While I understand contracts and other such things, the fact that NBC tells me that I am unable to view online coverage because I don’t pay for TV is ridiculous. If people are unable to view extended coverage on MSNBC , USA Network , etc. but have high-speed internet, they are probably MORE likely to look online for their coverage. As a result, NBC is loosing out TWICE on ad revenue from these people: through their cable broadcast entities, AND online.

Of course, all I needed to do was to change my “localization preferences” to a cable TV provider to get all the coverage I wanted (which NBC makes blatantly obvious). Unfortunately, many people will get turned away after the first “you’re not authorized” message. If NBC wants to get a true gauge of online viewership, they need to remove as many walls as possible to people watching online. While I understand that the percentage of people with high-speed internet with no cable or satellite TV is small, it’s significant enough that NBC needed to create this barrier to entry.

Sad.

… All that said, NBC’s online coverage is pretty good. The quality of their live stream is amazing. It also appears that the online coverage hasn’t hampered their broadcast viewership . I look forward to seeing how NBC evaluates their online coverage and the value it has in their future product offerings.