Winter Olympics 2010 Vancouver

hungrywing said:
Fixed.

Although TBF I'm pretty sure they didn't care so much about scheduling as they did about advertising blocks sold.
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I understand it's about money for them, but had they been smarter about this, they could've easily found a balance between pleasing as many sports fans as possible and making loads of money.

I'm not an advertising guru but say you're one of the few people that likes to watch, say, the biathlon. There's going to be camera crews at the events anyways so why doesn't NBC get the feed, put it online, and then get a few advertisers that are highly marketable to biathletes and their fans like special skiing boots or rifle manufacturers and let them pay based on who actually tunes in. Advertisers know that they're getting quality impressions because it's only being shown to people that are really interested and it's easy to track who is loading up the video window so you're not relying on estimates to gauge effectiveness. The money they make from the sponsorships is probably going to cover the cost of obtaining the feed and much more and they'll save money by not having to devote a full blown camera crew or commentary as well as not having to do those assinine side profiles that they always like to do.

I was honestly planning on watching the tv coverage, because NBC is one of the few channels I get and why watch online and tie up bandwidth when you can watch it on tv, but if it's not live, then what's the point. I'll find a stream thank you or find a backdoor way to get Canadian coverage.
 
jveezy said:
I understand it's about money for them, but had they been smarter about this, they could've easily found a balance between pleasing as many sports fans as possible and making loads of money.

I'm not an advertising guru but say you're one of the few people that likes to watch, say, the biathlon. There's going to be camera crews at the events anyways so why doesn't NBC get the feed, put it online, and then get a few advertisers that are highly marketable to biathletes and their fans like special skiing boots or rifle manufacturers and let them pay based on who actually tunes in. Advertisers know that they're getting quality impressions because it's only being shown to people that are really interested and it's easy to track who is loading up the video window so you're not relying on estimates to gauge effectiveness. The money they make from the sponsorships is probably going to cover the cost of obtaining the feed and much more and they'll save money by not having to devote a full blown camera crew or commentary as well as not having to do those assinine side profiles that they always like to do.

I was honestly planning on watching the tv coverage, because NBC is one of the few channels I get and why watch online and tie up bandwidth when you can watch it on tv, but if it's not live, then what's the point. I'll find a stream thank you or find a backdoor way to get Canadian coverage.
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Whoa. That all sounds good on paper/in theory. But say your online Biathlon deal comes out to less (which it will) than the amount of a delayed telecast block sale you could get from one of the usual suspects (Dove, Coca-Cola, etc etc). To say nothing of a Biathlon-related company having to be straight-up-out-of-their-minds to invest in producing what would amount to a one-off commercial (two week run) that NBC's ad vetters would deem fit to air even online (there's a lesser-known reason you don't see many low-budget ads on the major networks as you used to - all things being equal, the network won't accept their bids/move them to a late-night time slot as such ads 'devalue' the network image)

Basically no VP who wants to still use the executive bathroom will ever shun a TV deal for online. Even though the gap has narrowed a great deal, I'd wager that for all the networks, TV ad revenue is still at least twice that of online ad revenue, if not four or five times more. Which means that for the forseeable future, online content will remain the domain of the upstarts, proving ground for the young turks from which the old boys will cull the few to include in their sacred circle.

Also, you don't want to give your asinine side profile producers the short shift since they're valued employees i.e. union-protected and will sue your ass, which will end up costing you more than if you'd just had them work on the damn things. This goes for the camera crews who don't get work because you didn't send them to the biathlon. Ungrateful groundlings don't for a moment consider you saved their eyes from five hours of hell freezing over.
 
hungrywing said:
Whoa. That all sounds good on paper/in theory. But say your online Biathlon deal comes out to less (which it will) than the amount of a delayed telecast block sale you could get from one of the usual suspects (Dove, Coca-Cola, etc etc). To say nothing of a Biathlon-related company having to be straight-up-out-of-their-minds to invest in producing what would amount to a one-off commercial (two week run) that NBC's ad vetters would deem fit to air even online (there's a lesser-known reason you don't see many low-budget ads on the major networks as you used to - all things being equal, the network won't accept their bids/move them to a late-night time slot as such ads 'devalue' the network image)

Basically no VP who wants to still use the executive bathroom will ever shun a TV deal for online. Even though the gap has narrowed a great deal, I'd wager that for all the networks, TV ad revenue is still at least twice that of online ad revenue, if not four or five times more. Which means that for the forseeable future, online content will remain the domain of the upstarts, proving ground for the young turks from which the old boys will cull the few to include in their sacred circle.

Also, you don't want to give your asinine side profile producers the short shift since they're valued employees i.e. union-protected and will sue your ass, which will end up costing you more than if you'd just had them work on the damn things. This goes for the camera crews who don't get work because you didn't send them to the biathlon. Ungrateful groundlings don't for a moment consider you saved their eyes from five hours of hell freezing over.
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All good thoughts. I mean to reserve this type of coverage for the small sports. For NBC's Summer Olympic coverage the camera crews were already there if I'm not mistaken. It wasn't a matter of NBC deciding to cut the number of camera crews to send out. These were events that normally wouldn't be covered at all. This is a supplement to the tv coverage to fill in the gaps that are caused when you can only show one thing at a time on television.

I know it's a lot more complicated than I make it out to be, and I'm sure NBC was able to get some data from their summer coverage that played a role in shaping their upcoming winter plans. I just think that it makes a lot of sense to try to maximize the audience as much as possible, and it just frustrates me that NBC seems to be restricting it to the point where the only Americans that can enjoy the Olympics are women in the eastern half of the country. That's an exaggeration of course.
 
Any Norwegians with any idea of what our medal count might look like? I haven't really paid much attention this time around, but I do plan on watching what I can. Obviously someone like Bjørndalen can be counted on to get a gold medal or two, but what are the chances of Norway being near the top of the medal count again?
 
NRK (state-owned television channel in Norway) sure loves the Olympics.

Here's their schedule for the next 24 hours or so:

0300: Olympics
O600: Olympics
0900: Olympics (r)
1200: Olympics
1300: Olympics
1400: Olympics (r)
1435: Olympics
1715: Olympics
1800: Olympics
1845: Olympics
1900: News
1903: Olympics
1930: News
1945: Lottery draw
1950: Olympics
2035: Olympics
2150: Olympics
2350: News
2345: Olympics
0050: Olympics
0200: Olympics
0430: Olympics

They sure don't waste broadcast rights :lol:
 
hope Canada takes the gold in both womens and mens hockey!!!!!!!!
 
For those talking about NBC, they are going to lose $250m on these olympics. Honestly, I don't really care about the Winter Olympics...there's nothing that's truly interesting about them.

Also, the IOC needs to grow a pair for once and do something for the luge/bobsled course. Rogge is always a waffling bastard who never commits to anything and it's very annoying.
 
Just watch the accident again, none of the track should be covered, right when he came out of the covers is when he lost it, damn shame. RIP
 
Alex said:
Just watch the accident again, none of the track should be covered, right when he came out of the covers is when he lost it, damn shame. RIP
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The thing is, an Australian had a lesser accident and then predicted someone would die on the track, 24 hours before it happened. If the athletes themselves are coming out and saying things like that, it really does beg the question over who did the course design.
 
hungrywing said:
Who approved that course design?
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It's apparently upon video review more driver error than course design, but from the gobs of the athletes it's a little more touchy than that...

Alex said:
Who knows, sports like that and Skeleton are bound to be dangerous whatever course they are, shame this will these Olympics a black eye from Day 0
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That, on top of the opening ceremonies (Which seemed, weird?) will cast a cloud thats for sure... I guess it can only get better from here?

Alex said:
Sakic shouldve been involved in all honesty
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Amen

Alex said:
Just watch the accident again, none of the track should be covered, right when he came out of the covers is when he lost it, damn shame. RIP
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Exactly, driver error is playing a major role apparently in the investigation
 
jveezy said:
I'm not an advertising guru but say you're one of the few people that likes to watch, say, the biathlon.
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I find that comment interesting. In many countries here in Europe biathlon is very popular. I don't know how much you're into the Winter Olympics, but what's regardes as the top 5 winter sports in America? I think it's a good thing that not everybody like the same sports, I don't really give a shit about snowboard, but I know that many regard this as their favourite. How big is snowboard in America?
 
niMic said:
Any Norwegians with any idea of what our medal count might look like? I haven't really paid much attention this time around, but I do plan on watching what I can. Obviously someone like Bjørndalen can be counted on to get a gold medal or two, but what are the chances of Norway being near the top of the medal count again?
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Most of the experts are predicting about 7-11 gold medals and a total of a about 25-30 medals in all.
 
Collina said:
I find that comment interesting. In many countries here in Europe biathlon is very popular. I don't know how much you're into the Winter Olympics, but what's regardes as the top 5 winter sports in America? I think it's a good thing that not everybody like the same sports, I don't really give a shit about snowboard, but I know that many regard this as their favourite. How big is snowboard in America?
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Interesting. Snowboarding is actually quite popular here. Especially around California where some people like taking weekend trips up to the mountains for both skiing and snowboarding. I'd even venture to guess that it's almost as popular as skiing in most mountainous regions especially among the younger crowd. I think my university even has craft classes where you can make your own snowboards.

If I had to take a guess at popularity for what the average Winter Olympic viewer would watch (a horrible guess I should add) I'd say

1. Figure Skating
2. Hockey
3. Snowboarding
4. Speed Skating
5. Downhill Skiing

Curling might be in there as well but probably because people would find it peculiar rather than compelling.

Most Americans don't really have the patience or appreciation for something like the biathlon. I'm sure it might be something interesting that they might try on their own on a one-time trip or something, but then again a lot of people here play football growing up and don't like watching it on tv.

The fact is that most of our most popular viewer sports are Summer Olympic games (basketball, tennis, and I'll count baseball even though it's not officially an Olympic sport anymore, and you can sort of throw football in there because the popularity is somewhat dormant) or not Olympic games at all (gridiron football, golf, NASCAR). Hockey is the one exception and it's rooted in fourth place in popularity.
 
Re biathlon jveezy. It's not a sport that we normally play as youngsters here in Europe either, only a few. But it makes for great TV because it's exciting and anything can happen, nothing is decided until the last shooting.
 
I'd say that for Norway the most popular Olympic sports to watch would be:

1. Crosscountry skiing.
2. Biathlon
3. Alpine skiing (downhill,slalom etc)
4. Skijumping
5. Speedskating (the longer distances)


I'd guess that for central Europeans like Germans and Austrians it would look a lot like but Downhill skiing and Skijumping would be higher up.
 
Ruben said:
Re biathlon jveezy. It's not a sport that we normally play as youngsters here in Europe either, only a few. But it makes for great TV because it's exciting and anything can happen, nothing is decided until the last shooting.
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Yeah the whole "exciting because anything can happen" concept doesn't sit too well with Americans. I try to convince many of them that that's the beauty of football when they ask how I can watch when there's so little scoring. Evidently that's not working. It's the type of event that would get marginalized by television coverage here. No wicked fast speeds. No high flying stunts. No hard hits. But it's the type of thing that I would probably love to watch online if I were given the chance to. Don't get me started on the NBC rant again.
 
Anderson Searl said:
It's apparently upon video review more driver error than course design, but from the gobs of the athletes it's a little more touchy than that...
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Well, the cause is obviously a combination. But in a sport as fast and marginal as lugeing mistakes will be made and it's something the arranging committee, who are ultimately responsible for the safety of the athletes, must factor in. So why on earth were those nazi beams left exposed in the extension of one of the trickiest curves the sport has to offer? As others have pointed out, it would have been so simple to save random lugeguy's life with a bit of plexi or something. IMO this tragedy could turn into a scandal.
 
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