Slashdot Mirror
US Cord Cutters Getting Snubbed From NBC's Olympic Coverage Online
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?"
And why is it that you are owed free content?
Not with a bang, but with a beta.
...and all online. There's just the minor issue of geolocation to circumvent.
i dont watch it, dont care.
the Athletes are awesome... buts its too political and commercial now.
and now the Olympics are being limited to certain media outlets....
It's not a typo if you understood the meaning!
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.
That 9% is pretty used to having reduced access to licensed, live television content as a direct consequence of not paying a subscription for licensed, live television content.
For a while not, the Olympics has been nothing but a money making and redistribution system. When I was a kid, we had amateur athletes that worked hard for their few minutes of fame. The money for them came after their competitions, so it was a bit less corrupt. Sure, we had steroids back then and people were getting busted. At least they tried to give a sense of fair play back then.
Today's Olympics is like watching any other televised sport (NBA/NFL/Baseball). It's a sham to make money. Most participants do have some natural talent, but anything that makes TV is well.. treated differently. Athletes are "trained", "fed", given exceptional medical care, and pampered for the spotlight. Their sponsors abuse them to make money, media outlets do the same, and Governments use them for clout (see how much money we spent on _our_ athletes!).
I'm sure part of my bias is becoming older and more cynical. Not that much though, because we have an internet that lets us compare today to the 70s and see the difference. Pro Hockey players are what make the Olympic teams today, and Pro basket ball players, and Professional skaters are what's on the ice. The US claims to have done this because others do, which may or may not be true. Two wrongs won't bring back the original spirit of the games however.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
"Freedom" would be if anyone receiving NBC's broadcast signal had the right to retransmit it (over the Internet or otherwise).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
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.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
NBC paid $4.38 billion.
There are 2,850 athletes.
That's about $1.5 million for every single athlete competing.
Just like slash BETA the world wouldn't really be affected one way or the other if the Olympics just up and went away. The worst effects would be felt by the corporate sponsors who would be deprived of a way to market their garbage to teh sheeple consumers.
Let the Olympics die. The International Olympic Committee and a large percentage of the national committees are some of the most corrupt organizations in the world. Fuck 'em.
And if someone who doesn't subscribe to cable television can't see online video of the games then I consider that a GOOD thing. It leaves more bandwidth for the rest of us.
Considering that real-time programming, particularly sports, is why many people hold onto their CATV subscriptions to begin with, I'm not expecting a whole lot of overlap between those who cut their cord and whose who are particularly interested in live Olympic coverage.
1. Ignore the whole fiasco to start with
2. If it hurts their ratings because people can't get to the content, they'll learn...eventually
Did you read what that new link says?
It says they'll keep classic around "until we're confident that the new site is ready", thus implying they do plan to remove classic. It states that they "have work to do in four big areas", and accurately lists what people have been complaining about (the accuracy and non-contradictoriness of the list makes Soulskill's assertions that much of the feedback is contradictory look questionable, to say the least), but carefully refrains from actually saying that any particular improvements will happen before they roll out the beta and execute classic.
In short, once you run it through a corporatespeak filter, it says they didn't expect this much backlash, they're going to postpone the rollout (but not necessarily change it in any other way), and they're trying to pacify us by repeating back what we've said. And if you read between the lines, you might get the impression they're not going to give us this much warning next time...
#1--why watch NBC? CBC, BBC, and if you don't care about perfect English--the list gets a heck of a lot longer. But why even bother with streaming from a website--why not grab one of the usenet or torrent postings?
.x264-2HD
Winter.Olympics.2014.Team.Figure.Skating.Pairs.Short.Program.720p.HDTV
Winter.Olympics.2014.Ladies.Moguls.Qualification.1.720p.HDTV.x264-2HD
Winter.Olympics.2014.Mens.Slopestyle.Qualification.HDTV.x264-2HD
You get the point--if you are going to cut the cord--I'd hope you know how to get content before you made the move...
One last link: Instructions on watching live: http://deadspin.com/how-to-wat...
You could try streaming from a different country as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O...
And then, of course, all the special interest stuff is available online, including on the NBC and MSNBC sites. And you get to read and watch without all the talking head commentary.
I use to live in a town that was 70 miles away from the nearest NBC station. You can't easily pick up content from that far away.
I doubt most of the people complaining about the beta are people who would really care if facebook broke their crap, on account of we probably mostly don't actually use facebook. I haven't used facebook since it basically *was* a beta (back when it was new and exciting, and notably, only for college kids), for anything other than liking some random crap in exchange for a contest entry.
I'm basing this post off of my previous experience watching the summer olympics online. I don't expect it will be any different this time around, but perhaps NBC will surprise me.
Two years ago, as I am now, I'm "borrowing" my sister's login and password for her paid TV subscription. Why doesn't NBC allow non-subscribers to buy online streaming access? I would pay some amount of money (maybe $30?) to get access to the online coverage and they aren't letting me. I can't think of a reason why they don't make this an option...
That is, I would pay for it if the online coverage wasn't terrible in several different ways. First, spoilers are EVERYWHERE on the website and cannot be avoided. Unless I stay up until 3am to watch an event live there's no way I can watch the event the following day without inadvertently seeing the results on the website while trying to get to the recorded stream. Sometimes the spoiler is even part of the video itself ("Watch Bode Miller win gold!")!
Second, many or most of the broadcasts online are commentator free. Even IF you know all the ins and outs of curling rules, commentators are very helpful in conveying exactly what it is that you're watching (e.g. who is the player or team being shown? What is the significance of this match in the tournament? Who are they playing next? etc.). The prime-time TV broadcasts that are heavily edited to show the most interesting bits are completely unavailable online.
Third, high profile medal events cannot be watched until the DAY AFTER the prime-time TV broadcast has occurred unless you stay up until 3am to watch it live. Not only do you then have to impossibly dodge the spoilers on the website, but also radio, TV, co-worker conversations, etc. the following day.
Talk - action = nothing.
Slashdot is a conversation site. The talk IS the action.
Here's some more of it: FUCK BETA.
Breakfast served all day!
The reaction to these changes demostrates the issues "nerds" have with change.
Change is neither inherently bad, nor is it inherently good. The problems people have been raising with the Beta are many and are legitimate concerns: tone-deaf forcing upon the users, reduced information density and poor use of space, loss of features, more development emphasis on articles (a top-down feature) rather than the comment system (a community-driven feature), etc. Dismissing these concerns as just a "fear of change" is intellectually dishonest and insulting.
I suddenly feel sory for GNOME Designers.
Don't. They are terrible for very similar reasons. A high-handed notion that their "cleaner" design trumps the need for any features that they removed that others might have actually used to work more efficiently. Plus, both cases had an existing community that did not like the changes and were ignored in favor of hopefully appealing to newer users.
Kind of like Spike TV (designed from the beginning to target 18-35 single males) trying their damnedest to get women to stop watching the network, so they could sell ads to the right people. As my sig says, it's because it's the advertisers who are viewed as the "real" customers. We're just the product, and product doesn't get much of a say in how it's used.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Good Riddance. Us cord-cutters miss out on a lot of things. Ice skating, curling, and copious amounts of commercials will not be mourned here.
The fools are shooting themselves in the foot:
Here's an idea: Lets get the entire next generation disinterested in the Olympics by making it impossible to see it over their preferred method unless they bug their parents for cable bill info! Lets remind those kids who is in-charge.
This will also exclude some Americans and totally exclude all those fit country people so they won't join the games out of spite. Now the US won't participate as well or be interested as much. And we know how well America watches international sports they do poorly in. Soccer anyone?
This media event is unrelated to the ancient games except by name. It's about 20 years before irrelevance.
Science & open-source build trust from peer review. Learn systems you can trust.
Is this a money play by Comcast/NBC to get some subscribers back?
Obviously.
Should the FCC step in and require NBC to at least provide a stream of their OTA content?
No, but the IOC should, if they want the games to be a thing Americans still watch in 15-20 years. The FCC already failed when they allowed the anti-competitive Comcast/NBC merger in the first place.
0 1 - just my two bits
NO. You are already being "given" (in exchange for advertising that you can easily, and legally, skip with a DVR) the broadcasts OTA. (and you can already easily use a Tivo & iPad app, or Slingbox, etc., to get your own recordings to your phone/tablet)
Why should someone run expensive servers for stuff they paid for, if they think they won't make money from it?
Words to remember. If you are getting something for free, you are not the customer. You are the product.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/