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NBC Aims For Stability Through Redundancy In Athens

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the more-feeds-please dept.

Darren writes "With the Athens Olympics just 27 days away NBC is gearing up for a massive 1210 hours of coverage (that's enough to watch TV over 50 days of Olympics 24/7). The infrastructure needed to provide such coverage is huge, and the potential for problems is significant. As a result NBC are taking all precautions possible and over the 17 days of competition they will utilize three satellite network linkups and three land-based connections to ensure they always have a connection. The mind boggles at what it is all going to cost - but I'm sure their advertising revenue will make it worth their while."

3 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. NBC has the backbone by toetagger1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    NBC is owned by GE, which in turn owns GE Energy. With the resent history of power outages on July 13 in Grece, I wonder how they back up against that?

    --
    who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
  2. Advertising revenue will skyrocket... by crashnbur · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...because everyone will be watching hoping to be glued to their TV when/if a blackout or terrorist attack hits. There's no news like bad news, and nothing can replace the ego of an American who can say he/she "saw it as it happened".

    (I don't think I will intentionally watch any of the Olympics, because I'll be out looking for a job and preparing for grad school.)

  3. Olympics not profitable for television by Jayfar · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The mind boggles at what it is all going to cost - but I'm sure their advertising revenue will make it worth their while.

    The networks generally lose millions on the olympic broadcasts - it's a prestige thing for them. Maybe they gain some small advantage in viewership for subsequent sports programming.