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Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

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Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#71

Post by lotsofpulp »

bko wrote: post #20
h2odragon wrote: post #2

If you're good enough at blocking competition, it doesn't matter how poorly you do the actual job. The "AT&T" philosophy. Last Olympics I paid any attention to was because I had a C band satellite dish and could browse the backhauls and unattended camera feeds. Must have been '96 in Atlanta.

The "competition" isn't other broadcasts of Olympics. It's netflix, xbox, twitter and other sports options. It definitely does matter how well they do their actual job, and right now they're failing.

ATT is not comparable to NBC. ATT has a structural monopoly, without which society cannot communicate.

NBC is a glorified ad broker, and they could fall off the face of the earth and no one would notice. Of course, they are owned by Comcast, who is in similar position as ATT, so I assume Comcast is just milking these legacy companies for all they are worth.

My solution is to simply not watch. If consuming entertainment content is not as simple as search, click, pay, watch, then I simply do not get enough utility from watching TV.

And if I am paying, I do not want to see ad breaks, another dealbreaker.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#72

Post by teorema »

fireball_blaze wrote: post #51

On the modern Olympics: it helps to remember that it is now an advertising event that happens to have sports competitions.

There's so many ethical problems constantly overshadowing the Olympics that it's hard for me to enjoy watching them. I have some excitement for the athletes but no longer make a point of watching them. It's a shame because it's a good idea, but there's a lot if changes that need to happened; coverage is just the tip of the iceberg.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#73

Post by matheusmoreira »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #19

Just let me send you $20 for an Olympics "pass" and give me access to multiple streams so I can pick which events to watch — without commercials. Is that bad business? Because I'm afraid I am sitting out the Olympics this year. :-(

Paying $20 to watch something that should be freely viewable anyway just makes advertisers pay even more to get your attention. They won't ever go away until advertising literally becomes illegal.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#74

Post by dairylee »

legitster wrote: post #55

I don't understand why the Olympics have to be so fast. Build an insane amount of infrastructure, have dozens of events simultaneously all of the time, then ship everyone home. I end up missing just about everything. If I want to catch some of the storylines, I really need them spoon fed to me. If they stretched out the events over a month or two we would get double benefits - we could actually consume more of the ev…

I believe one of the reasons for this is that in general the sporting calendar is pretty full and this two week period in July/August is always empty.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#75

Post by lotsofpulp »

supportlocal4h wrote: post #61
sizzzzlerz wrote: post #42

You must be a youngster. NBC has been fucking up the Olympics broadcasts since they started back in 1988. They've always been overly USA-centric, they refuse to air the broadcasts when the events happen, insisting on time shifting everything, and loading so many commercials into the thing, it is impossible to watch. I pretty much quit watching 3 or 4 olympics ago. Today, as I tune through the channels, I always see t…

NBC has held the Olympics hostage in the USA. But the last time I made an effort, a few Olympics ago, I did try to watch the gold medal round of women's judo to see the American. I couldn't watch it because NBC was showing a qualifying round of women's handball: Poland vs Lithuania or some such. So much for USA-centric. I guess you'll never please everyone.

With the internet, you can please everyone.

Search, pay, click, watch whatever you want.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#76

Post by enumjorge »

sizzzzlerz wrote: post #42

You must be a youngster. NBC has been fucking up the Olympics broadcasts since they started back in 1988. They've always been overly USA-centric, they refuse to air the broadcasts when the events happen, insisting on time shifting everything, and loading so many commercials into the thing, it is impossible to watch. I pretty much quit watching 3 or 4 olympics ago. Today, as I tune through the channels, I always see t…

NBC's coverage is especially bad if you compare it to coverage from other countries. NBC mostly focuses on sports where the US will do well, so if you care about a sport in which the US doesn't have a strong foothold then you're out of luck. Last Olympics I thought maybe they could treat this as back catalogue content that you could watch online, but I could only find heavily edited highlights. And they not only fill the feed with tons of commercials, but they also add little features about certain athletes' journey to the Olympics or some other thing that take time away from watching something else.

It's bewildering that they make it so hard to watch the event, the coverage is bad, and then they bemoan the fact that viewership is at an all time low.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#77

Post by te_chris »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #70

NBC's Olympic coverage ... the only reason I've ever found to pay for an IP proxy in the UK so that I could watch the BBC coverage instead. ps. I did try to pay for a UK TV license too but they don't seem to have the concept of someone outside the UK paying for this.

Oh that’s gone and got cocked up too. Discovery have paid a fortune for the europe-wide individual streaming rights, so BBC can only broadcast two streams at a time. You can only watch the individual sports streams on Eurosport/Discovery plus. This is a kafkaesque mess though - e.g. PS only has Eurosport app, but to sign up and subscribe, you have to go through discovery+, whose credentials can’t log you in to Eurosport; obviously a huge improvement over just having it all on the BBC….

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#78

Post by giarc »

dairylee wrote: post #74
legitster wrote: post #55

I don't understand why the Olympics have to be so fast. Build an insane amount of infrastructure, have dozens of events simultaneously all of the time, then ship everyone home. I end up missing just about everything. If I want to catch some of the storylines, I really need them spoon fed to me. If they stretched out the events over a month or two we would get double benefits - we could actually consume more of the ev…

I believe one of the reasons for this is that in general the sporting calendar is pretty full and this two week period in July/August is always empty.

But aren't most sporting calendars built around the Olympics? I'm not talking MLB, NBA etc, but all other sports (athletics, swimming, gymnastics etc) have their World Cups and qualifying etc scheduled specifically to prepare for the Olympics.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#79

Post by lotsofpulp »

enumjorge wrote: post #76
sizzzzlerz wrote: post #42

You must be a youngster. NBC has been fucking up the Olympics broadcasts since they started back in 1988. They've always been overly USA-centric, they refuse to air the broadcasts when the events happen, insisting on time shifting everything, and loading so many commercials into the thing, it is impossible to watch. I pretty much quit watching 3 or 4 olympics ago. Today, as I tune through the channels, I always see t…

NBC's coverage is especially bad if you compare it to coverage from other countries. NBC mostly focuses on sports where the US will do well, so if you care about a sport in which the US doesn't have a strong foothold then you're out of luck. Last Olympics I thought maybe they could treat this as back catalogue content that you could watch online, but I could only find heavily edited highlights. And they not only fill…

> It's bewildering that they make it so hard to watch the event, the coverage is bad, and then they bemoan the fact that viewership is at an all time low.

I assume it would expose true numbers to advertisers, and lower the price of NBC’s ad spots.

Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?

#80

Post by wombat-man »

legitster wrote: post #55

I don't understand why the Olympics have to be so fast. Build an insane amount of infrastructure, have dozens of events simultaneously all of the time, then ship everyone home. I end up missing just about everything. If I want to catch some of the storylines, I really need them spoon fed to me. If they stretched out the events over a month or two we would get double benefits - we could actually consume more of the ev…

Yeah I just kinda turn it on when I'm home and catch whatever I can. If I'm being real I'm not THAT invested in any event. It's just fun to watch.
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