Moonves Defends NBC’s Non-Live Olympics

COMMENTS (17)

• yes, but then why say spoilers right before your primtetime coverage? it’s just stupid and annoying.

  Comment by MzJones — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 11:47am PDT  Reply to this post

  • AGREED!!!! Way too much leaking of results going on.

    Also severe lack of graphics for the competitions telling you (AS they race) what race you are watching. The whole thing is either a let down or confusing.

    Get it together NBC!!

    Comment by Anon — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 1:14pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Seriously, this argument is a non-issue…NBC is a network, and they make the money used to finance these Olympics broadcasts by selling ad space…good luck convincing anyone to spend tens of thousands on ad space on big events aired live in the wee hours of the morning, or even those spending for primetime olympic ad space when it;’s just highlights and human interest stories…think, people…it’s a business decision, and has to be handled accordingly…

  Comment by Jeff — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 11:51am PDT  Reply to this post

• When you pay a few billion to air the Olympics, NBC had little choice. They need the audience to aggregate during primetime hours for advertising revenue. They already lose money airing the Olympic. Take away primetime advertising revenue and the whole thing isn’t even financially viable.

  If NBC paid substantially less for the olympics, then maybe Nikki’s proposals for a free for all might have been more realistic.

  Comment by sparced — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 11:57am PDT  Reply to this post

• So you must ask yourself…..you don’t need a a degree from Harvard or Phoenix school….How many people would get out of bed to watch at 5am? Then ask yourself how much you would spend to air your commercials at 5am. Generally if you can’t figure this Sesame Street questions out you’re an idiot.

  Comment by Randy — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 12:23pm PDT  Reply to this post

• “When you pay a few billion to air the Olympics, NBC had little choice. They need the audience to aggregate during primetime hours for advertising revenue.”

  And yet, somewhow, this isn’t the case in the rest of the world which gets to watch the games live? Or is the BBC (etc.) just more able of a negotiator vs. those nincompoops at NBC?

  Sorry, but it’s 2012. One can’t help but laugh when NBC tries to hype events for primetime later that night when I can’t login to Facebook/Twitter without learning the results.

  This may come as a shock to the non-internet-using, network-running octegenarians out there who try to justify tape delay with the revenue argument… if the internet if bombarding me with the fact that Lochte’s lost the 200m, why in the heck would I then watch it on NBC later that night?

  Furthermore, I’ve now shunned all NBC coverage in favor of the BBC. The inability to watch the opening ceremonies in full was the straw that broke the camel’s back. For anyone else like me — who didn’t Tivo the opener, under the assumption that someone/anyone would have it available for viewing online — found themselves utterly unable to watch it. NBC only offered 3:00 snippets of the ceremonies, which didn’t even work on the iPad app (note NBC’s Olympics app on Apple’s App Store has an average rating of 1 whole star).

  That’s right, 3:00 clips… which didn’t even work! I couldn’t even get the famously panned truncated version, with the excised 7/7 tribute and Lauer’s/Viera’s inane commentary.

  Thank goodness everyone in a similar position has discovered that VPN’ing into a British IP address gets you BBC access. Hooray for bypassing NBC completely!

  I don’t want to pull a haughty “sorry NBC, but I’ll be taking my viewership elsewhere” since I’m obviously nothing in the scope of total viewership… but hopefully, many of us will (one only needs to note the frequency of #nbcfail updates on Twitter) such that it will actually make a small impact financially.

  If you think that tape delaying for prime time makes any sense from a revenue perspective, there’s a good chance you’re out of touch. There’s a reason why the Super Bowl isn’t shown on tape delay on the West Coast.

  Comment by JohninLA — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 12:52pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • You also can’t visit NBC.com to check the schedule without seeing the results. At least put a tab to push. You’re just hurting yourself NBC!

    Comment by Anon — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 1:16pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • The BBC is publicly funded, just FYI.

    Comment by Micah — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 1:49pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • And so you’d think that in the U.S. with private competition, someone would be able to negotiate better rates.

      Nonetheless, you can sub in CTV, or any of the dozens of worldwide private broadcasters who have Olympic rights and yet aren’t so dunce-happy with their coverage.

      Comment by JohninLA — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 3:45pm PDT  Reply to this post

• FAIL! Only minor events (qualifications or exotic sports) take place at 5am. The swimming finals are scheduled from 7 to 10PM in the UK which is 2 to 5 PM ET / 11AM to 2PM PT. The same goes for athletics next week.

  Comment by Christophe — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 1:06pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Am I missing something, since the results are so readily available, why can’t they air events live and then AGAIN in Primetime? Seems like the best compromise. (I realize this would only work for select events as there is likely not enough time).

  Comment by Anon — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 1:19pm PDT  Reply to this post

• well i can tell you how they are hurting the financial “gain” they think they have by broadcasting in primetime. with all of the spoilers during the afternoon i have no interest in watching during primetime. so they have yet to catch me as a viewer during primetime, whereas if i didnt know the results i would definitely be watching during primetime every night. so far, i have watched no olympics coverage because of the spoilers.

  Comment by blehblehbleh — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 1:33pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Maybe he’s prepping for the next Olympics, just in case the Network lands the deal to air it? Hmm.

  Comment by HS — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 2:03pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • NBC’s got winter and summer through 2020.

    Comment by Micah — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 4:35pm PDT  Reply to this post

• What a load of garbage, a little backwater called Australia (population 23 million) has 10 Olympic channels, 9 of them in High Defintion, 8 of which are running 24×7.

  Our major broadcaster of the Olympics, Channel 9, is running in SD and HD from 5.30pm to 11am the following morning. ALL of the finals are aired in the wee hours of the morning, and you don’t hear our broadcaster complaining.

  It’s just outdated thinking by NBC and shows why they are the #4 broadcaster in the US. Either show the damn thing live, or give it to someone who will, like ESPN.

  Comment by Mark — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 2:05pm PDT  Reply to this post

• March Madness, international golf, World Cup…. all things that are broadcast LIVE in America and off of peak hours, often times early in the morning. The Olympics at least deserve the same dignity as those events.

  Comment by CC — Monday July 30, 2012 @ 3:26pm PDT  Reply to this post

• In the future, Google will own the rights to the Olympics, and you will be able to see them at any time, on any platform.

  Old Media that insists on operating as if they are in the dinosaur age will eventually be left behind.

  Comment by Karen — Tuesday July 31, 2012 @ 8:00am PDT  Reply to this post