Well, today marks the final day of the Olympics on TV in the U.S. Thank goodness it’s just about over!
Let me make my biennial rant that Olympics coverage in the states sucks. I realize that NBC thinks it can maximize revenue by filling about 40% of their airtime with commercial, and including puff pieces to draw in viewers that would not otherwise watch. And yes, I realize that there is a certain amount of national pride that causes NBC to focus on Americans, to the exclusion of some of the more interesting sports and better competitors.
In the unlikely event that anyone from NBC ever comes across this post, let me make a request: For Beijing or Vancouver, why don’t you experiment with a different mode of coverage — something like this, using either one of your channels, an HD subchannel, a special satellite broadcast that DBS and CATV operators can add for the event, or even just internet video streaming….
- No commercials; instead draw advertising revenue from an on-screen “bug”, or a bottom-of-the-screen banner.
- Either no commentary, or limit the banter to what’s going on on screen. There is a non-trivial group of us who, when we watch sports, prefer to turn the TV sound down, and listen to the audio over the radio.
- No puff-pieces, please! If you have commentators, you can allow them to drop-in human interest trivia. If you’re doing this via internet streaming, puffy stories would be an excellent “click here to learn…” feature.
- Live coverage, please! Yes, when the games are overseas, this poses an added challenge…but it also opens an added opportunity. For Beijing, consider that afternoon/early evening events will be occurring in the middle of the night according to U.S. clocks. You could run your nasty light-and-fluffy coverage during normal viewing hours, and run this sort of a bare-bones feed overnight…probably generating more revenue than you do during those hours as it is. Yes viewership will be low, but there will be a few hardcore fans who will watch it live…and many folks will take the opportunity to Tivo the events they want to watch. (And, since you’re running advertising bugs/banners, rather than full fledged commercials, you’ll be reaching the Tivo crowd, who are currently just skipping over the ads now!)
- Perhaps it’s time to reconsider network exclusivity? There’s so much going on simultaneously that it’s got to be a challenge for one network to keep up (fueling the problem of primarily focusing on Americans). True, networks’ ability to multicast across several affiliated outlets alleviates that pressure, and more aggressive use of digital subchannels will help even more. However, what would be wrong with subcontracting rights for certain sports…or even certain specific matchups…to other broadcasters? I’d bet that OLN would pay more to carry the biathlon than you could get for the few minutes of actual coverage provided on *NBC, for example.
- And, well, if the American networks won’t listen to good sense, perhaps it’s time to figure out ways to get CBC or BBC coverage piped into the states.