Bolt Of Lightning Doesn’t Fall Anywhere Near NBCOlympics.com
Michael Phelps who? In what is probably the greatest moment in this Olympics, Usain Bolt of Jamaica won gold 100m dash in 9.69 seconds, a new world record…and he didn’t even have to try after the first half of the race. But you wouldn’t know it if you were here in U.S…well, if you were not online actively searching for a video clip of it. NBCOlympics.com has a lame text story online, and with a lamer *Getty* Images-supplied photo slideshow. Not that we were expecting anything different from NBC today, but it does add up to the growing frustration with the “bottled-up” (not my phrase…Jeff Zucker used it in a CNBC interview yesterday) coverage by the network.
If you want to watch the clip, don’t go to YouTube…the “illegal” copies are being squashed every second by the regulators there. Go to DailyMotion, the French site, and search for “Usain Bolt: and sort by “Most Recent”…plenty of French language clips from Canal Plus, in decent resolution. The best way: use a proxy server to log into BBC’s sports site, which has the full race and interview with Bolt in high res.
On Zucker, he said this yesterday on CNBC: “One of the great things to come out of these Olympic games is that the tremendous use of our digital properties online and the great viewership online and the tremendous number of page views is really teaching us a tremendous amount about what people want to consume great content. And so we
what a bunch of jerk offs. it's only thebiggest event in the history of the olympics.
The event happened at night Bejing time, not the normal mid morning period most of the major events have been run at (I'd assume to make them easier for the US to see). So of course NBC isn't going to run the clip on nbcolympics.com as the pre-recorded clip has yet to be seen on NBC itself. The clip will undoubtably be posted later tonight / early tomorrow morning US time, as that will prevent the majority of people from watching it online and not tuning in to the pre-recorded broadcast on NBC. I don't blame them for holding the clip back, as the recent data has shown that the primetime showcase has draw a lot of traffic.
BCK is right …. according to NBC, the video will be posted soon after the west coast broadcast as has been the case with all video held back until prime time and with video of live prime time events.
@BCK
In my opinion, you just illustrated basically the entire point of the article and for sure the biggest problem with NBC's strategy in covering these Olympics. What we hoped NBC would learn is that the days of spoon feeding people clips on their own artificial timetable was a thing of the past. People want content real time, not 12 hours after it happens and they'll find a way to get it if NBC doesn't give it to them…
I think NBC really missed the boat with these Olympics. They could have given us all the ability to see amazing things like Bolts run the SECOND it occurred regardless of the timing issues with the US market. Instead they decided to hold it for later (if ever) and in the end the people looked to alternatives to get what they wanted.
Another opportunity lost!
It was pretty irritating knowing for the last 15 hours what was going to happen… but still, I'm floored having just watched it on TV. That was ridiculous.
BCK/Staci
You're missing the point…I don't care when NBC shows it a day late..that I already know.
Trust me, the point isn't missed. I was referring to the bit about when it would be posted, trying to give information for people wondering when it would be online. At the same time, not everyone is as dismayed or even dismayed at all and that's the part of the equation NBC is counting on.
As for the race itself, truly impressive until he got carried away with winning.
Chris, you're incorrect. Viewership for the event tonight wouldn't decrease if they put the video online. If they were concerned about that, they wouldn't have put pictures of the event online. They wouldn't have written the results of the event on their site. The truth is that NBC is incompetent and don't understand how to leverage technology to provide customer satisfaction and maximum monetization. It's a shame they are so clueless, I now get my Olympics info solely from Yahoo. NBC has proven how completely pathetic they are through their Olympic coverage and God-awful Olympics website.
Haha, biggest event in the history of the Olympics? and Michael Phelps who?
You guys have got to be kidding me. Michael Phelps just won 8 gold medals with 7 of those being world records and you guys are making a bigger deal out of this? Don't get me wrong – this is an incredible accomplishment and is one of the biggest moments in Olympic history. And I completely agree with your points on NBC's dismal coverage. But to act like this is a bigger moment is ignorant.
nowhere in the world can you see the olympics in a decent way, and yet we think we are sooo global, so plugged in. not at all.
i am stuck with the indian broadcast, you are stuck with the american, both completely unsatisfactory.
will it be different in 2012? what do you think?