Olympic Video Online: Cord-Cutters are Out of Luck
NBC Sports Network will cover U.S. team sports, with 292.5 hours of total coverage. MSNBC will carry 155.5 hours of a wide variety of long-form Olympic programming. CNBC will serve anchor Olympic boxing this summer, including the launch of women’s boxing. And Bravo will focus on Olympic tennis, with 56 hours of coverage.
NBCUniversal’s Spanish network Telemundo will have 173 hours of Spanish-language coverage. The network is creating specialty channels for basketball and soccer specifically for cable, satellite, and telco providers, and will total 770 hours of coverage.
Then there’s 3D: Panasonic Corporation of North America has partnered with the NBC Sports to offer 3D coverage of the Games to “all U.S. distributors who carry Olympic coverage on cable, satellite, and telco,” says the May 29, 2012 NBCUniversal news release that announced the London Games broadcast schedule. This works out to “nearly 100 percent of the multichannel industry.”
“We are only able to provide this level of coverage to U.S. viewers because of the unmatched array of NBCUniversal assets,” said Mark Lazarus, Chairman, NBC Sports Group, in that same news release. “Whether on television or online, on broadcast or cable, in English or in Spanish, NBCUniversal has the London Olympics covered, providing the American viewer with more choices than ever to watch the Games.”
What’s at Stake
NBCUniversal’s willingness to stream all of the 2012 London Olympics means that this media company understands the growing importance of streaming media. At the same time, NBCUniversal’s decision to restrict full access to cable, satellite and telco service subscribers may encourage piracy and illegal rebroadcast over the U.S. Internet.
Of course, NBCUniversal’s Olympics rights are limited to the United States. So even if the network wanted to let everyone in, it couldn’t: Some form of controlled access to keep out non-U.S. viewers is unavoidable.
Under the current conditions, it will be informative to see how much NBCUniversal’s Olympic feeds are pirated and rebroadcast online, and from what parts of the world. Technically speaking, it would be easier for a pirate to point a video camera at a TV screen and to rebroadcast the off-air feed over the web, than to try and hack into USN’s video streams. And there may not actually much motivation for Americans to watch pirated streams, given that nearly 88 percent of U.S. households are satellite, cable or telco subscribers
What also remains to be seen is the "stickiness" of NBCOlympics.com’s second screen apps; notably the version that will provide highlights, schedules, results, and columns. “You don’t to have access to the Olympics broadcast rights to create an effective second screen app to support the Games,” observes Brightcove’s Chris Johnston. “A really smart developer could grab a share of this market, depending on the quality of their content and the functionality of their app.” Note A source at NBC tells Streaming Media that such third-party content is actually good for the network, since it “just fuels more buzz for the Games.”
One thing is certain: The 2012 London Olympics are a watershed for streaming media, and a testing ground for the notion that controlled online access is still possible. As with the Olympics itself, we'll be eager to see who wins and who loses.
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