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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

#91

Post by cdcarter »

slowpoke wrote: post #88
cdcarter wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

>for every viewer I know, it's about national competition between incredible athletes That's like asking people in China about how the government treats dissidents, because hey, they watch TV. Surely that will be on TV, yes? And yes, the comparison with China is apt. The IOC is a bunch of corrupt, corporate prostitutes who will do anything for their corporate overlords. London is in a state of military lockdown for t…

> Yes, and that's more than enough reason to boycott the games, and loudly demand their abolition [.]

No, that's reason to loudly demand their reform.

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

#92

Post by astrodust »

notatoad wrote: post #35
dkrich wrote: post #14

Just a thought- NBC is a for-profit company. Because of that they are able to pay hundreds of millions for the rights to cover the Olympics. Because of that, they want the largest viewership. That occurs during primetime. If the tv industry is so "disruptable" as many keep saying, why hasn't it happened? Clearly people want the ability to watch as much shit, wherever, whenever they can, preferably for free. Apparentl…

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.

Just because the barrier to entry is high doesn't mean you can't disrupt the industry.

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

#93

Post by InclinedPlane »

beedogs wrote: post #75
mattacular wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Here's the way I view it. If any industry or business can be potentially disrupted by a tech company in the next decade or two, they will. I think to bet otherwise is naive. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that all currently entrenched interests are going to go away, obviously not, but most of them are going to end up in a fight for their lives at some point, and many of them will end up losing.

So many businesses today are profitable because they have a monopoly or oligopoly on some aspect of a supply chain. The onset of ubiquitous computing, network connectivity, automated manufacturing (3D printing et al), and so forth will disintermediate damned near everyone. A lot of those intermediaries have become fat, lazy, and myopic due to how easy it has been to hold onto their business up until now, for the most part they won't know what hit them until it's far too late to do anything about it.

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

#94

Post by thebigshane »

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…

I don't think anyone (or many at least) are arguing that NBC shouldn't be able to make any money off of the olympics. But, really, how shitty is it that the only ways to watch the olympics is to pay out of your ass or do things that aren't totally legal. And we aren't talking about some latest blockbuster, or NBC's sole source of income, this is watching our nation competing in the most popular international games. The BBC offers the games online because they are being subsidized by their gov't right? And why would the gov't subsidize that? Because most people that is the right thing to do, and they're willing to pay the taxes to support it.

Anyway, the core of your argument seems to be that it is okay for a company to do what it can to make money but even ignoring legal/illegal activities, companies are supposed to provide value and people are supposed to give them money for that exchange of value. This is a company milking money because they can. This isn't price gauging; this isn't stores in flooded areas selling doubly marked-up bottles of water and flashlights. In those cases there is a real cost and shortage of those goods. In this case the olympics could be put on the internet for pocket change (relative to gov't or NBC spending).

And what about this "exclusive content" defense? The line is fuzzy for sure but surely it exists somewhere separating what kind of content companies should be allowed to have exclusive rights over. Moon landings? Presidential addresses? Presidential debates? Emergency alerts? Emergency news? Weather?

Money isn't bad. But abusive monopolization is.

(the critics at 4chan must be on to something when this blind loyalty to raw capitalism and wannabe entrepreneurship gets 2nd in this thread)

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

#95

Post by slowpoke »

cdcarter wrote: post #91
slowpoke wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>for every viewer I know, it's about national competition between incredible athletes That's like asking people in China about how the government treats dissidents, because hey, they watch TV. Surely that will be on TV, yes? And yes, the comparison with China is apt. The IOC is a bunch of corrupt, corporate prostitutes who will do anything for their corporate overlords. London is in a state of military lockdown for t…

> Yes, and that's more than enough reason to boycott the games, and loudly demand their abolition [.] No, that's reason to loudly demand their reform.

You can't fix what's fundamentally broken. It's better to start from scratch.

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

#96

Post by woobar »

thebigshane wrote: post #94
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…

I don't think anyone (or many at least) are arguing that NBC shouldn't be able to make any money off of the olympics. But, really, how shitty is it that the only ways to watch the olympics is to pay out of your ass or do things that aren't totally legal. And we aren't talking about some latest blockbuster, or NBC's sole source of income, this is watching our nation competing in the most popular international games. T…

But, really, how shitty is it that the only ways to watch the olympics is to pay out of your ass or do things that aren't totally legal.

This is not true. They broadcast about 20 hours/day of olympic programming for free OTA. Most of it live, they delay high ratings events. I know it so 20th century, but they provide you free and legal option to watch Olympics.

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

#97

Post by FireBeyond »

fingerprinter wrote: post #60
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…

Just an FYI, I pay for nhl.com, nfl.com and nba.com live video feeds for the seasons. It is TOTALLY worth it, cheaper and easier than DirecTV or cable. My total bill for the year is about $250 for all three sports. Sports was the only reason I still had cable/satellite a while back. No need anymore, and a better product. Just as a comparison, NFL Sunday Ticket Max on DirecTV is $299 for the season. Standard Sunday Ti…

NBA League Pass is $170… NFL, Season Rewind alone is $70, NHL's GameCenter Live pass is $170… How are you paying $250/yr for all three?

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

#98

Post by fingerprinter »

FireBeyond wrote: post #97
fingerprinter wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just an FYI, I pay for nhl.com, nfl.com and nba.com live video feeds for the seasons. It is TOTALLY worth it, cheaper and easier than DirecTV or cable. My total bill for the year is about $250 for all three sports. Sports was the only reason I still had cable/satellite a while back. No need anymore, and a better product. Just as a comparison, NFL Sunday Ticket Max on DirecTV is $299 for the season. Standard Sunday Ti…

NBA League Pass is $170… NFL, Season Rewind alone is $70, NHL's GameCenter Live pass is $170… How are you paying $250/yr for all three?

NHL - https://gamecenter.nhl.com/nhlgc/secure/vaultsignup?cmpid=vl... $5/month = $60/year

NBA - http://www.nba.tv/nbatv/subscribe $5/month = $60/year

NFL - http://www.nba.tv/nbatv/subscribe from $110/year, $130 or $200/year (depends on what you want)

So, range for the three would be $230/year, $250 or $320/year. I went for the season pass in NFL, so $250/year.

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

#99

Post by radicalbyte »

jebblue wrote: post #78
radicalbyte wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes, in The Netherlands it's perfectly legal. We have to pay a considerable fee for our blank media (it's twice UK price) but in return downloads are accepted.

That's why NNTP "sharing" is so popular here.

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