Commentary

NBC's Grip On Olympic Gold Slipping

When it comes to benchmarking stuff, nothing holds a candle to the quadrennial sports-apooloza we call the Summer Olympics. After 3 years, 11 months and 13 days of not giving a crap about sports like team pursuit cycling or half heavyweight judo, we suddenly get into fist fights over 3 one hundredths of a second, or an unawarded Yuko. 

But it’s not just sports that are thrown into comparative focus by the Olympic games. It also provides a chance to take a snapshot of media consumption trends. The Olympics is probably the biggest show on earth. With the possible exception of the World Cup, it’s the time when the highest number of people on the planet are all watching the same thing at the same time. This makes it advertising nirvana.

Or it should. 

Over the past few Olympics, the way we watch various events has been changing because of the nature of the Games themselves.  There are 306 separate events in 35 recognized sports that are spread over 16 days of competition.  The Olympics play to a global audience, which means that coverage has to span 24 time zones.  At any given time, on any given day, there could be six or seven events running simultaneously. In fact, as I’m writing this, diving, volleyball, men’s omnium cycling, Greco-Roman wresting, badminton, field hockey and boxing are all happening at the same time.

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This creates a challenge for network TV coverage. The Olympics are hardly a one-size-fits-all spectacle.  So, if you’re NBC and you’ve shelled out 1.6 billion dollars to provide coverage, you have a dilemma: How do you assemble the largest possible audience to show all those really expensive ads to?  How do you keep all those advertisers happy?

NBC’s answer, it seems, is to repackage the Olympics as a scripted mini-series.  It means throttling down real-time streaming or live broadcast coverage on some of the big events so these can be assembled into packaged stories during its prime-time coverage.

NBC’s chief marketing officer, John Miller, was recently quoted as saying,  “The people who watch the Olympics are not particularly sports fans. More women watch the games than men, and for the women, they’re less interested in the result and more interested in the journey. It’s sort of like the ultimate reality show and miniseries wrapped into one.”

So, how is this working out for NBC? Not so well, as it turns out.

Ratings are down, with NBC posting the lowest prime-time numbers for the Olympics since 1992. The network has come under heavy fire for what is quite possibly the worst Olympic coverage in the history of the games. Let’s ignore for a moment the network's myopic focus on U.S. contestants and a handful of superstars like Usain Bolt (which may not be irritating unless you’re a international viewer like myself). NBC's heavy-handed attempt to control and script the fragmented and emergent drama of any Olympic games has stumbled out of the blocks and fallen flat on its face.

I would categorize this as a “RTU/WTF” The first three letters stand for “Research tells us.”  I think you can figure out the last three. I’m sure NBC did its research to figure out what the audience really wanted in Olympics game coverage. I’m positive there was a focus group somewhere that told the network what its strategists wanted to hear: “Screw real-time results. What we really want is for you to tell us -- with swelling music, extreme close-ups and completely irrelevant vignettes -- the human drama that lies behind the medals.” And, in the collective minds of NBC executives, they quickly added, “…with a zillion commercial breaks and sponsorship messages.”

But it appears that this isn’t what we want. It’s not even close. We want to see the sports we’re interested in, on our device of choice and at the time that best suits us.

This, in a nutshell, is the disruption that is broadsiding the advertising industry at full ramming speed. It was exactly what I was talking about in my last column

NBC may have been able to play its game when it was our only source of information and we were held captive by this scarcity. But over the past three Olympic games, starting in Athens in 2004, technology has essentially erased that scarcity.

The reality no longer fits NBC’s strategy.  Coverage of the Olympics is now a multichannel affair. What we’re looking for is a way to filter the coverage based on what is most interesting to us, not to be spoon-fed the coverage that NBC feels has the highest revenue potential.

It’s a different world, NBC. If you’re planning to compete in Tokyo, you’d better change your game plan, because you’re still playing like it’s 1996.

7 comments about "NBC's Grip On Olympic Gold Slipping".
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  1. Rick Simmons from SimmonsOnlineSolutions, August 16, 2016 at 10:56 a.m.

    We don't agree on everything but this post is RIGHT ON. The coverage is not good and the packaging is not what I had hoped for. Disappointing since it only happens once every 4 years. I would love to see one channel dedicated to the lesser known sports so I can experience them but this coverage has not done that - I hope others will give constructive critisim so they see it is not the media picking on them - sorry did I move into politics?

  2. Joshua Simons from yours LTD, August 16, 2016 at 11:35 a.m.

    Sad but very true. This Summer Olympics lacks energy, excitment, realism and determination to see the win. I am on DirecTV, so there are a minimum of four channels [NBC 4 + MSNBC 356 + DirecTV 205 [1-3] for a combined 5 channel options. But the level of presentation is flat and just not engaging. I have access to a BBC sports channel on another system and it gets it right immediately. Its about the compeition, the effects of this competition, and the win and lose of this competition. As for Streaming services alternatives beyond the big screen, yes it exists, but it too is too controlled. And then the advertising interruptions at the very wrong time. Group the ads together and at only twice per hour for a 4 minute pod break for no more than 8 minutes in the hour. There are many creative ways to do this. Just ask.

  3. Rick Thomas from MediaRich Marketing, August 16, 2016 at 2:05 p.m.

    We all just have way too many options to entertain ourselves these days.  The Olympics just aren't as important today as they have been in the past when there was no Netflix, Hulu and all of the other outlets for entertainment.  Then throw in that you can access these outlets anywhere, and any time of the day even at 35,000 feet the Olympics are just another option and not the standout as the Games used to be.  

    And it it's about the journey and not the results...I don't know about that strategy as an audience builder.  The stories are emotional maybe but the Games are supposed to be exciting not a soap opera.  After the decline of viewers I might re-think that approach or might use one of the NBC owned networks for such content.  Seems a bit boring to me but I'm a guy.    

  4. Rick Thomas from MediaRich Marketing, August 16, 2016 at 2:05 p.m.

    We all just have way too many options to entertain ourselves these days.  The Olympics just aren't as important today as they have been in the past when there was no Netflix, Hulu and all of the other outlets for entertainment.  Then throw in that you can access these outlets anywhere, and any time of the day even at 35,000 feet the Olympics are just another option and not the standout as the Games used to be.  

    And it it's about the journey and not the results...I don't know about that strategy as an audience builder.  The stories are emotional maybe but the Games are supposed to be exciting not a soap opera.  After the decline of viewers I might re-think that approach or might use one of the NBC owned networks for such content.  Seems a bit boring to me but I'm a guy.    

  5. Terry Wall from First Impressions VIdeo, August 16, 2016 at 5:30 p.m.

    Gord, you are right on so many counts. But I think MY biggest beef is with the broadcast talent itself. We've heard them drone on for so many countless hours, that I think we just tune them out. The NBC personalities have worn out their welcome with the audience, and the way they try to "craft" a personal interest story comes off as ham-handed and smarmy. Now that's just me, but I am one that hasn't paid much attention this year, and I don't think I'm alone.

    The other comments about there being "too many options" is true, as well. 

    My $0.02, YMMV

  6. Chuck Lantz from 2007ac.com, 2017ac.com network, August 16, 2016 at 6:56 p.m.

    I must be living on another planet, since I'm able to watch any event I want, either live or in replay, using NBC's coverage on DirectTV and at NBC's website.  Yes, some of the commentary really sucks, but most of it has been excellent, especially the "lesser" events. 

    And I'll be happy to debate anyone who thinks NBC's 2016 coverage is the "worst ever", since the title for providing the all-time worst TV coverage of an Olympic games is held by ABC's "coverage" (sic) of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, where it was wall-to-wall "USA!USA!USA!"  It was so bad that ABC shut-down their incoming phone complaint lines. 

  7. Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, August 16, 2016 at 8:44 p.m.

    Wonderfully expressed. I just called it lack luster. Broadcasters have been horrid and in some cases downright nasty. I remember as a kid watching gymnastics from every (or most) country compete. Now a rare few from a rare few athletes. As for ratings, other networks or even stations have bowed with reruns, except for a few programs, so live choice is more limiting and enhances ratings. 

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