Internet Ruling The Olympics

Before I get into today’s topic; I must confess I really don’t care too much about the Olympics. Don’t get me wrong, the whole ‘let’s bring the nations together to compete’ ideal is fine and dandy, just don’t expect me to care too much about the sports they’re playing. I tried to watch fencing, and an average match lasts all of 5 seconds (how am I supposed to be entertained by that?). How about sword fighting like you see in pirate movies?

Ok, before I get too far into my tangent let’s discuss viewership of the Olympics. I seem to be in quite a minority for not watching the world games, as the ratings have sky rocketed since the opening ceremony. This year’s Olympics are at an all time high, eclipsing viewers from the previous two Olympics in the past decade. You could rack this up to the controversy of having the games in Beijing, or people needing something to rally around because of the economy/War In Iraq/Miley Cyrus gossip. Whatever the reason, people are paying attention; but how are people watching the games?

NBC has exclusive rights to broadcast the Olympic games in the United States. While they have “official” rights, that’s not to say some person at the games can’t stream live coverage from the games themselves. This has been a conundrum for NBC, because how do they stop pirated coverage of the games? Well, NBC is taking an odd approach in scaling back their own online coverage of the events. Actually, over 75% of their coverage isn’t being shown online at all. I find this to be quite an odd decision, because some people prefer watching video online. So your response is to limit the legal coverage that you provide? (and people wonder why some resort to illegal means for their media)

Here’s a tip NBC, if you want people to watch your coverage then provide the most you can on all available outlets. As profits increase for online advertising, you’re still going to be making money whether people watch it online or the TV.