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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

#51

Post by kevinburke »

kitsune_ wrote: post #7
kevinburke wrote: post #6

Like many people here I would like to believe that the state of the world that ensures the highest profits and the state of the world that makes the most people happy are one and the same. I am coming to think that isn't true.

How could that ever be true? As an example: most people would prefer everything to be free, and a company would like to have a monopoly on a necessity and thus the ability to charge arbitrary prices. Or even shorter, everyone wants to get stuff, lots of stuff without having to lift a finger. Out of this, every company-customer relationship has to be dysfunctional. The idea that the economy is a perfectly fair system…

I was thinking about a service like Uber, which people love, even though it's more expensive. When I take an Uber I don't complain about how I should be getting cab rides for free (although that would be nice) - I revel in how much better the experience is than waiting around for a regular cab.

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

#52

Post by kevinburke »

kevinburke wrote: post #6

Like many people here I would like to believe that the state of the world that ensures the highest profits and the state of the world that makes the most people happy are one and the same. I am coming to think that isn't true.

Realizing now that this comment came off as way too sappy.

Some companies make products that make people happy, and profit as a result. Examples: Apple, Southwest, Uber, Sonic.net, Flip etc. I would like more of these companies to exist, and for companies to focus more on customer satisfaction.

To my chagrin it's not clear these companies are any more profitable than their competitors who focus less on customer satisfaction.

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

#54

Post by bridanp »

eapen wrote: post #19

This coming from TechCrunch? I ended up turning on NBC (because the enemy of my enemy must be my friend).

Just seems like someone trying to make a story out of nothing to me. I'm enjoying watching the German men in their gymnastics routine and this women's weight lifting is pretty cool. But I wouldn't have watched it this morning or afternoon live on any device. Sunny Saturdays are not meant for watching television.

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

#55

Post by lmm »

emiliobumachar wrote: post #34

Maybe it's not entirely strategy. I don't know much about web protocols, but I suppose broadcasting a couple dozen live events to millions of people is much easier and cheaper than making recorded events available, which would require sending each of the million viewers an almost unique package in a given instant. Did I assume correctly, or is sending cloned packages not much harder than sending unique ones?

Multicast is pretty much dead, it doesn't go through consumer routers. So unless your library is large enough that storing it becomes an issue, it really doesn't make any difference.

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

#56

Post by InclinedPlane »

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…

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 telephone started with the younger, more tech savvy folks and spread from there so has the trend of going without traditional cable tv.

The writing is on the wall. It will likely be a good while before the decline in subscriptions makes a big impact, but it's very much on the horizon, and the networks and the cable companies ignore it at their peril.

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

#57

Post by bzbarsky »

b3b0p wrote: post #43

I do not see any issue here. They are broadcasting the Olympics when the majority of people can actually sit down and watch them instead of in the early hours of the morning when most of us are sleeping. Some people could probably DVR what they want, but not everybody can (the majority?). I have not looked thoroughly, but from what I have read and seen briefly, NBC is working hard to make it easy to view and access o…

> I could be wrong though on actually how easy it truly is.

It's impossible, unless you're already an NBC cable subscriber. If you _are_ an NBC subscriber already, it's only pretty painful (involves passwords you basically never use otherwise and so forth).

But yes, they're working hard to make it as easy as they can within the "you can't get this if you're not already one of our customers" constraint.....

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

#58

Post by swang »

According to this article from 2011: http://content.usatoday.com/communities/gameon/post/2011/06/...

> In a break with predecessor Dick Ebersol, new NBC Sports chief Mark Lazarus promises to show all events live rather than saving the best for tape-delayed coverage in prime time.

So I guess they figured it's not profitable. But I wonder how many people have been pissed at missing the live coverage, see the results on twitter or the rest of the Internet and then just not bothering to tune in during prime-time?

How about charging $X to watch it live online? And if you don't want to pay that money then you can just wait until Prime Time.

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

#60

Post by fingerprinter »

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 Ticket is $199. No brainer.

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