I can't believe how harsh people are being to the IOC and NBC on this one. Perhaps people ought to consider the following:
The same rule applies to all professional sports. The NFL, NCAA and NBA prohibit the rebroadcast or retransmission of descriptions of the events contained within the broadcast. Yes, that's right, if Tom Brokaw wants to tell us about Monday Night Football, he must ask the NFL, who will ask ABC, and they will say no. Many of the articles on the web describing a game are from the Associated Press, and the rest come from ABC and ESPN, a wholly owned subsidiary of ABC (who is owned by Disney...don't even get me started on them).
NBC has a vested interest (about $1 billion dollars in advertising revenue) in keeping webcasts off the air. The IOC has a vested interest in keeping NBC happy (about $700 million worth). Next time you spend $700 million, see how happy you are when you find out your goods are available for free. No, a webcast is NOT the same as a diary, but it's all covered in the contract.
All of you bitch and moan about the coverage, but if you find a way to get 22.3 million people to watch Baseball at 2am, you deserve to own NBC. The Olympics this year have been regarded as the best-covered despite the 15-hour tape delay. There are over 1000 hours of events, when you consider the games are open from 8am to 10pm, with 10 or 11 events running simultaneously. Even much of Atlanta's games were tape-delayed, because certain events were at the same time as other events...you think the IOC schedules events when it's convient for Americans to watch? Given the fact that nobody would watch Gymnastics outside of the Olympics, NBC obviously knows what they are doing. The "sob stories" may seem dumb to you, but since they've appeared in Barcelona, the games are up in ratings in the most coveted advertising category, 18-49 women. Sorry guys, but we're outnumbered and we don't watch TV nearly as much as they do (on the average, at least).
The low ratings aren't as bad as they appear on the surface. Yes, they could be better and are below what they expected. But if advertisers spent $4 million on a 30 second spot last night (buying a spot on ABC, CBS, Fox and UPN during every hour) they wouldn't have reached half the number of viewers as their $700,000 bought on the Olympics. Ask any media buyer (like I did) and you'll hear things like "well, it's better than buying ad time on the competition". Which is all that matters...the bottom line.
Uh, yah. Nobody picks on Apple because they are small. Would I care if the DOJ spent $20M pursuing an anti-trust case against a company the size of Apple? Damn straight. Against Microsoft, Ma Bell or Standard Oil? No problemo. A monopoly is defined legally by 7 outlining factors, among which is market share, nitwit . FYI, among the others are: * barriers to market entry-can we say "so how much can you buy my company for?"-Bill can) * detrimental to consumers in long term AND short term financial outlooks AND competition outlooks (Micro$oft seems to think choice is bad, for some reason. Not to mention their brilliant plan to charge people a yearly fee for Windows). I'd go on but I'm tired. The rest are in my notebook somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
- The same rule applies to all professional sports. The NFL, NCAA and NBA prohibit the rebroadcast or retransmission of descriptions of the events contained within the broadcast. Yes, that's right, if Tom Brokaw wants to tell us about Monday Night Football, he must ask the NFL, who will ask ABC, and they will say no. Many of the articles on the web describing a game are from the Associated Press, and the rest come from ABC and ESPN, a wholly owned subsidiary of ABC (who is owned by Disney...don't even get me started on them).
- NBC has a vested interest (about $1 billion dollars in advertising revenue) in keeping webcasts off the air. The IOC has a vested interest in keeping NBC happy (about $700 million worth). Next time you spend $700 million, see how happy you are when you find out your goods are available for free. No, a webcast is NOT the same as a diary, but it's all covered in the contract.
- All of you bitch and moan about the coverage, but if you find a way to get 22.3 million people to watch Baseball at 2am, you deserve to own NBC. The Olympics this year have been regarded as the best-covered despite the 15-hour tape delay. There are over 1000 hours of events, when you consider the games are open from 8am to 10pm, with 10 or 11 events running simultaneously. Even much of Atlanta's games were tape-delayed, because certain events were at the same time as other events...you think the IOC schedules events when it's convient for Americans to watch? Given the fact that nobody would watch Gymnastics outside of the Olympics, NBC obviously knows what they are doing. The "sob stories" may seem dumb to you, but since they've appeared in Barcelona, the games are up in ratings in the most coveted advertising category, 18-49 women. Sorry guys, but we're outnumbered and we don't watch TV nearly as much as they do (on the average, at least).
- The low ratings aren't as bad as they appear on the surface. Yes, they could be better and are below what they expected. But if advertisers spent $4 million on a 30 second spot last night (buying a spot on ABC, CBS, Fox and UPN during every hour) they wouldn't have reached half the number of viewers as their $700,000 bought on the Olympics. Ask any media buyer (like I did) and you'll hear things like "well, it's better than buying ad time on the competition". Which is all that matters...the bottom line.
RyanUh, yah. Nobody picks on Apple because they are small. Would I care if the DOJ spent $20M pursuing an anti-trust case against a company the size of Apple? Damn straight. Against Microsoft, Ma Bell or Standard Oil? No problemo. A monopoly is defined legally by 7 outlining factors, among which is market share, nitwit . FYI, among the others are: * barriers to market entry-can we say "so how much can you buy my company for?"-Bill can) * detrimental to consumers in long term AND short term financial outlooks AND competition outlooks (Micro$oft seems to think choice is bad, for some reason. Not to mention their brilliant plan to charge people a yearly fee for Windows). I'd go on but I'm tired. The rest are in my notebook somewhere.