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Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

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Re: Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

#71

Post by radicalbyte »

majormajor wrote: post #28

Despite how many people on this site and sites like it don't have some kind of cable or satellite service... we're a pretty small minority. Especially when it comes to the group of people interested in watching sports, where live is king, and the online options suck unless you live out of your teams' TV markets. I'm not surprised they're not going out of their way to cater to us. For all the "the model no longer work…

We haven't had TV for three years now, and don't miss it at all.

Funnily enough we dumped it because at the time Desperate Housewives was a season behind the US, and by the time we'd get to see it the ending was already spoilt.

We've only this year got Breaking Bad.

Instead it's a subscription to an NNTP provider. High quality, we can choose where and when we watch, and we don't have to wait for some high authority to decide if/when we get to see it.

Re: Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

#72

Post by dkrich »

mseebach wrote: post #66
notatoad wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yesterday's discussion on HN had the price of broadcast rights at $1.1B, not including production costs. The tv industry is not disruptable. Content is expensive, and margins are not huge. People need to stop saying it is disruptable just because they are unhappy with it. There is a ton of inertia behind the entertainment market.

> The tv industry is not disruptable. Of course it is, think out of the box. Netflix is already doing it, see the discussion elsewhere in the thread. Apple/Google might buy the Olympics rights and put it in iTunes/Play.

"Apple/Google might buy the Olympics rights and put it in iTunes/Play."

Are you sure that's better than the current model? You have to be very careful about listening to customers, because what people say they will pay for is quite different than what they will actually pay. Aggregately I might pay $80 for access to the Olympics and several other channels as well (I already do this, so this isn't really a stretch). I'm not so sure I'd pay $1.99 to watch the US Men's Basketball team play one game, and even if I would, NBC makes its money through advertisements. There is no proof that a pay-per-view model would bring nearly as much revenue as advertisements over wide broadcast would.

And this says nothing of the people who don't necessarily live in Silicon Valley and have ready access to broadband and iTunes.

Re: Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

#73

Post by mseebach »

dkrich wrote: post #72
mseebach wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The tv industry is not disruptable. Of course it is, think out of the box. Netflix is already doing it, see the discussion elsewhere in the thread. Apple/Google might buy the Olympics rights and put it in iTunes/Play.

"Apple/Google might buy the Olympics rights and put it in iTunes/Play." Are you sure that's better than the current model? You have to be very careful about listening to customers, because what people say they will pay for is quite different than what they will actually pay. Aggregately I might pay $80 for access to the Olympics and several other channels as well (I already do this, so this isn't really a stretch). I…

It could be thought of as a loss leader that would bring a lot of people to buy Apple TVs or the Google equivalent. They might sub-license the rights to transmit the SD stream live on terrestrial TV. Etc.

Note that NBC stands to lose $1-200 mio on the olympics (I think is was in this week's Economist), so it's a loss leader for them as well.

Anyway, my point was merely to react to the idea that "I can't think of a better business model off the top of my head" somehow equates "it can't be disrupted".

Re: Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

#74

Post by nhangen »

I pay for cable, but to me that isn't the issue here. The issue is that the results of this event were already posted, tweeted, and shared long before the event aired. It was a Saturday, why wouldn't they just show it live and if they wanted to increase nighttime ratings, just show it again?

The NBC Olympic coverage sucks.

Re: Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

#75

Post by beedogs »

mattacular wrote: post #70
InclinedPlane wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a small minority, but it's growing: http://www.businessinsider.com/uh-oh-new-nielsen-data-says-p... More and more people no longer channel surf, and more and more people no longer watch tv (even if they have it) even at a rate of once per month. Increasingly people are watching other content or consuming tv content differently (through netflix, for example). And just as the trend of going without a landline tele…

Things are in transition, and it is going to be a slow grind. Why would you expect cable companies to start acting before they have to? They're still making plenty o' money on the 'old' model. They won't change until the absolute last second, if even then.

I'm hoping Google Fiber will force their hand, or put them out of business entirely.

Re: Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

#76

Post by tedchs »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #47
notJim wrote: post #29

> They’re doing this for a reason: m-o-n-e-y. Uh, yeah. It's something you need in order to run a company. A company that employs people and gives them, guess what? m-o-n-e-y. And how does it do that, and how does it continue doing that? By being profitable, which it does by having (among other things) exclusive content and advertisers who want to be seen alongside that content. But no, NBC should just put all their…

The point is that they are pursuing short-term profit and sacrificing customer satisfaction. That's a terrible way to run a company.

If you are a cable subscriber, you are both NBC's customer (that gives them subscription fees via your cable company) and NBC's product (eyeballs sold to advertisers). As NBC's customer, you are already receiving the Olympics.

If you are not a cable subscriber (i.e. over-the-air broadcast receiver), you are NBC's product only, and not their customer.

Re: Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

#77

Post by AznHisoka »

wtn wrote: post #23
therealarmen wrote: post #2

I understand the frustration, but NBC is just trying to optimize for primetime viewers so they can extract maximum advertising dollars. They paid over $1 billion dollars for the right to broadcast the Olympics and now they must recoup that investment.

I could see this argument for a Tuesday, but who the Hell wants to watch TV on a Saturday night—especially when the events happened 5 hours (± whatever) earlier?

I do.. not everyone goes out to get drunk or party on a Saturday night. Watching the Olympics was actually something I was looking forward to yesterday.

Re: Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

#78

Post by jebblue »

radicalbyte wrote: post #71
majormajor wrote: post #28

Despite how many people on this site and sites like it don't have some kind of cable or satellite service... we're a pretty small minority. Especially when it comes to the group of people interested in watching sports, where live is king, and the online options suck unless you live out of your teams' TV markets. I'm not surprised they're not going out of their way to cater to us. For all the "the model no longer work…

We haven't had TV for three years now, and don't miss it at all. Funnily enough we dumped it because at the time Desperate Housewives was a season behind the US, and by the time we'd get to see it the ending was already spoilt. We've only this year got Breaking Bad. Instead it's a subscription to an NNTP provider. High quality, we can choose where and when we watch, and we don't have to wait for some high authority t…

NNTP? for TV? Is this legal?

Re: Please Don’t Watch NBC Tonight. Or Any Night

#80

Post by cdcarter »

slowpoke wrote: post #68
ramblerman wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting sentiments, I don't know the IOC but neither of you are providing any reasoning behind your claims. Out of curiosity, why the hate?

For a quick insight see this enumeration: http://www.protestlondon2012.com/10reasons.html The IOC is deeply corrupt, and the olympics have long ceased to be about sports. They are about selling officially branded merchandise from official sponsors and simultaneously squashing local competition with ridiculous, speciallly drafted laws, which cricitically impacts the local economy even after the games are long over. It…

> The IOC is deeply corrupt, and the olympics have long ceased to be about sports. They are about selling officially branded merchandise from official sponsors and simultaneously squashing local competition with ridiculous, speciallly drafted laws, which cricitically impacts the local economy even after the games are long over. It's akin to a swarm of locusts, really.

Perhaps on the local level this is all true. But (anecdotally, at the very least) for every viewer I know, it's about national competition between incredible athletes. The excitement about seeing a world record broken, the upsets when an up and coming young fencer takes gold, and the warm feeling I get when my flag is raised and the anthem is played.

All of your reasons are why it sucks for the host city. That's a problem that can be solved without sacrificing the best athletic competition in the world.

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