You can't see all of your precious Olympic sporting events live on NBC, even though the Olympics are in North-American-friendly time zones.
The men's downhill skiing event is an
important piece of any Winter Olympics -- but it didn't run live. NBC ran it delayed in prime time.
NBC saves its best stuff for prime time -- some live, some not -- and then parcels out
events over a three- or five-hour period like crumbs for pigeons.
We're the pigeons -- and we continue to follow the trail.
I watched some live women's curling on CNBC Tuesday
afternoon. Tell me what the ratings were? Maybe a little better than what CNBC does when telling us that unemployment has risen over 10% -- or that the Dow sank 100 points.
NBC is
going to lose some $250 million on these Winter Olympics -- and you want it to run a men's skiing event
live? That means it'll lose $260 million. Who do you think you are? NBC's consumers? Better luck getting an upgrade deal from Toyota.
Everyone is pissed at NBC (Conan O'Brien fans, move
over!) - except, perhaps, TV advertisers, who have fewer high-rated TV shows overall to advertise in.
The International Olympic Committee keeps adding new events, making it harder to
squeeze in everything. If every single sport could be found on NBCOlympics.com, or some other place, from end to end with no commercial interruptions, happiness might prevail.
Social media
blogs complain about too much advertising on NBC's Vancouver Olympics.
And yet NBC has released new viewer data showing that in virtually every single category - including brand recall, engagement,
and other marketing metrics - numbers are up for advertisers who bought into the winter games.
Viewership is up right now, too: some 25% higher than the 2006 games in Torino,
Italy.
If viewers hate NBC, they have a weird way of showing it. TV advertisers take what comes these days until viewers stay away from what's showing, or demand alternatives.