What really went wrong for NBC Olympic Game Coverage

Plenty of people have bashed NBC Olympic Coverage. I was one of the millions who live in America but could not find live broadcasting of the opening ceremony. I was beyond pissed.

Then I read “shut your pie-hole NBCs Olympics coverage is perfect” article. I was surprised to discover that I, as a comcast cable suscriber, have full access to ALL of the NBC live broadcasting stream at nbcolympics.com: all I need to do, is obviously login using my comcast account and bam – I can watch any live streaming of any sport anytime, apparently anywhere.

So what really went wrong for NBC’s Olympic coverage?

I believe NBC made critical decision making mistakes on program offering and how they offer.

1. NBC uses traditional campaign ROI as the baseline for decision making. Because NBC spent $1 billion plus on broadcasting rights in America, traditional campaign ROI model tells them not to live broadcasting anything (almost) until prime time (aka 8pm local time) onward. Had they broadcast everything as it happens, NBC think they might risk much lower ad revenue.

2. NBC doesn’t understand, hence, severely discounted people’s emotional attachment to Olympic game. Olympic happens once every 4 years, it’s a BIG emotional happy moment for people. Think about it: kids love it, so parents have to love it, so families have to love it. Families are the backbone of society and economy. The entire economy is closely, happily tied to Olympic games. Without NBC’s live coverage, people still can know the results IF THEY WANT in real time at their finger tips. Social media and technology already made it that easy. People watch NBC simply because TV is still the EASIEST way, and so far, the ONLY way a whole family can enjoy the game TOGETHER. And because of that, even NBC live broadcasts opening ceremony and every game, people still prefer to enjoy watching the game with their family: and when can that happen? Mostly at prime time. In fact, I bet NBC will see surge of watched hours in total because more people will watch same game more than once. That means, by not live broadcasting, NBC is bleeding ad revenue.

3. NBC made huge mistake not telling the whole wide world openly that ALL GAMEs are live streamed on its website. The condition to watch them is: you have to have a subscription to local TV program. It is what it is. But once I found out the fact, I found myself often the only one in my busy local cafe basting open the live stream.

In summery:

1. Aside from critical failure to live broadcast the game, I thoroughly enjoy the quality of NBC Olympic hosts and how they package the game to make it a “SHOW”. This is what NBC is good at.

3. NBC should, totally, completely, aggressively tell everyone EVERY game is rightfully live broadcasted on their website, and how people can access. Don’t make people jump through so many hoops to watch it.