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US Cord Cutters Getting Snubbed From NBC's Olympic Coverage Online

Posted by Soulskill on from the all-about-the-benjamins dept.

Monoman writes "The Washington Post reports, 'The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics start tonight. But if you're among the 9 percent of U.S. households who have broadband but don't subscribe to paid television, it will be nearly impossible to (legally) watch the games online this year. ... That's because while NBC is streaming all of the events live online, full access to the livestream will only be available to paying cable subscribers. And thanks to a $4.38 billion exclusive deal NBC struck with the International Olympics Committee (IOC) in 2011 for the privilege of broadcasting the Olympic games in the U.S. through 2020, cord-cutters don't have a lot of options.' Is this a money play by Comcast/NBC to get some subscribers back? Should the FCC step in and require NBC to at least provide a stream of their OTA content?"

4 of 578 comments (clear)

  1. Use an antenna. by GerbilSoft · · Score: 4, Informative

    Pretty much all HDTVs support receiving over-the-air TV stations using an antenna, and considering NBC is one of the largest broadcast networks in the US, it shouldn't be that hard to get NBC if you don't have cable.

    1. Re:Use an antenna. by OzPeter · · Score: 5, Informative

      Pretty much all HDTVs support receiving over-the-air TV stations using an antenna, and considering NBC is one of the largest broadcast networks in the US, it shouldn't be that hard to get NBC if you don't have cable.

      Do you really think that all the content is on the OTA NBC station? In my case NBC is broadcasting on 5 different channels in my Comcast region. Only one of these is OTA.

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  2. Move to Canada! by tom229 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Canada, despite having a population of only 30 million, has the second most athletes competing, and by far the best coverage of any developed nation.

    If you're Usian or from the UK i'd recommend getting an unblock subscription and setting your country to Canada.

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  3. Re:Why? by TsuruchiBrian · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's a 118 year old tradition that happens to have copied the name from a 2790 year old tradition that ceased to exist about 1600 years ago. The ancient olympics have been gone 16 times longer than the modern olympics have been going.

    It's a tradition. It's just a bit of a stretch to say it's a 4000 year old tradition.