On Mon, Jul 30, 2012 at 9:25 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > > I don't disagree with this, except that, by making so much coverage > available on the cable (and broadcast) networks during the overnight and day > hours, I think NBC is approaching a reasonable compromise. Non-primetime is > treated significantly (not completely) like sports coverage, which helps me > tolerate the entertainment treatment they give to the primetime show. I will > also say that I notice they are doing their up close and personal pieces > mostly in much smaller bites, which allows them to be squeezed into the > (artificially elongated, thanks to their pre-recorded nature) natural breaks > in the actual competition. The longer pieces seem to be mostly introduced > from the main anchor desk by the "correspondent" who worked on them, which > cues me to hit the ff button.
I disagree that it's a compromise, because for what the big three sports (gymnastics, track, and swimming/diving), there's no compromise: you're watching it when NBC tells you you're going to watch it, with all their crap shoved in the middle of it. A compromise would be to air it live on nbcolympics.com for people who are dedicated to watching it live. The people that NBC want to declare their prime audience are not going to be logging on in the middle of the day to watch this. They truly are the people who want their pablum served up prechewed and ready for easy digestion. Here's what I'd say to NBC: try it for one day. See if the ratings really do drop off a cliff like you fear. If they do: congratulations for proving us all doofuses. But I'd bet a significant amount of money that the sports fans who want to watch it live will watch it live, and what I'll call the "Olympic Core" audience will still tune in at 8:00 PM, and your ratings will stay close enough to even that no one will mind. Hell, if you're really that paranoid, charge people $5 to watch it early! Or find some price point: I'm assuming there's still at least a couple people in your market research department. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
