On the Olympics and Ratings...

[acroyear]

Olympic Idols:

NBC, the network that has over time invested billions of dollars in Olympic coverage, has taken a beating in the TV ratings on nights when these Winter Games were up against several popular shows -- most notably the amateur entertainment contest "American Idol" and the offbeat series "Desperate Housewives." ("Idol," especially, has become a national phenomenon, an un-Olympian event in which just about anyone can compete and unfortunately often does, in the manner of a new skier tumbling head over heels the whole length of the downhill course and getting a unanimous verdict from the judges at the bottom: "zero.")

WTOP also addressed this in their "talkback" question yesterday - "Why are the olympics tanking in the ratings".  And I think this hits it: sports are no longer "reality" in the face of "reality tv".  Individual sports are increasingly not something the couch potato can relate to anymore.  America is a "team" country, and individual merit is no longer worth what the "team" (with strong individuals as its backbone) means (with the oddball exception being NASCAR, but that's as much for the worship of cars in this country as anything else).

When Survivor or Idol are on TV, people can watch that and think "I could be in there", and then are able engage with the program by guessing what they would do in such a situation.  That engagement is key to return viewers, and the Olympics (*either* season) can't get that engagement anymore.  Its not something someone can just get up and do.  I can't just go "hey, I wanna do skeleton" - the equipment, the kit, the insurance, and finally the commute to some place that actually supports it (meaning they have their own insurance, too) being potentially *days* away, means its just not something someone can say "hey, I can do that!".  So the disconnect is there.

Olympic athletes are perceived as the elite at a time when America is worshipping the (worst) examples of the "common man" (well, person).  Just as they can't deal with what they see as elitism in science, they can't deal with what they see as elitism in athletics anymore.

And in both cases, the "elitism" is only in their minds.  Its less on the minds of the athletes (Bode Miller not withstanding) than it is with America's real sports heroes in baseball, basketball, and football...

Comments

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

well, i think its a little deeper than just "identify with".

and college basketball has been up a bit as pro has dropped. march madness still gets the attention beyond even the olympics (partly because the games are cross-network).

As for NBC, what could be done? If they just "showed the stuff" (and live as some have asked for it), it would certainly cost a lot less, but ratings would drop like a tank. If you can't get more than 13-20 rating points running an edited version of the slalom, how the hell does one think that showing *ALL* of the 150 runs live is going to improve anything?

There's a reason "Wide World of Sports" is no longer on ABC (and hasn't been for years), and it has nothing to do with losing Howard Cosell.

The sports themselves were not interesting to Americans long before the Olympic ratings started their decline; its a symptom, the cause is much older.

Granted, NBCOlympics.com is heading in what I think will be the Olympics' final "resting place" in America: pick your own coverage.

Within 4 years it will be technically possible to go to the website, pick the athletes who's runs you want to see, and let the website assemble a giant movie download (with 5-10 second commercials in between, or the "sponsor in the corner" that soccer on tv does) that you simply drop into your video IPod, plug into your TV, and watch whenever you get the time. You could even tell the web site (as a cookie preference) *not* to give you the results and put the events in the order of their run rather than the order of thier finish, or see the medal listings and do the "NBC" thing of top contenders + all americans.

The PPV approach is what it'll take to make the Olympics profitable for American broadcasters again - only it will take the resources of the internet itself, rather than 3 cable channel signals, to pull it off.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

sheesh. i'm a goddamn genius sometimes, and i'm not going to see a dime for this idea...

just remember, when in 2010 this is how you watch the olympics, that you read it here first.

[dawntreader]

you're a humble god-damned Wile. E. SUPERgenius that's what! *beepbeep* ;)

i do agree with your original point. i can't imagine how any network will be able to afford running the Olympic games without serious advertising sponsorship and grants, that if people aren't watching anymore, the network isn't going to get. it isn't feasible to show all events all the time, especially Live. due to timezone differences, and sheer boredom of watching 150 runs, or 30 skaters (of whom 10 are in medal contention), or obscure games played between countries no one's heard of, it isn't possible to find the audience you need to make it economical.

i can definitely see the PPV approach for the Olympics working out better than the Internet download/view approach. that would probably work really well. people could get the events they wanted, watch in their entirety, and not be subject to the mass garbage that i've been fast forwarding through this season so far.

but, no matter how fast teh Internets get, there's not going to be a good enough compromise between watching it on a large TV as opposed to a teeny, grainy, pixellated window that skips and hiccups and "buffers" every 30 seconds. even if the computer capabilities and internet streaming video improves, they'll just have bigger files to run, which will compromise quality.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

the traditional PPV approach was tried and failed in a spectacularly disasterous (financially) way with the TripleCast format. Traditional PPV will be dead in 4 years (you heard it here first).

Keep in mind that the eventual integration of cable/satellite tv and the internet means that the internet will be a factor in this regardless of whether or not the ipod is used. What can happen is that instead of interacting with the 'net directly, you can program your cable box to send the request to the cable system and let their internet connection assemble the product and send it to you.

And you obviously haven't seen a real download - this is not streaming, this is downloading like podcasting (or mp3s/iTunes): you get the whole show before you play it. (or your cable system downloads it and the broadcasts it to you). you won't do this over a modem.

720mbaud density files are of a higher visual/audio quality than NTSC TV. 1000mbaud files are almost dvd quality.

I never said this would bring the Olympics "live" - this is a solution that acknowledges that the vast majority of the population of America *can't* see the Olympics live, no matter when (or where) it is. That is the reality that NBC has tried to deal with, the reality that the "i wanna see it live" people can't comprehend.

[dawntreader]

but with download comes illegal filesharing, doesn't it?

i think the previous attempts at PPV failed because the abbreviated versions were still running in regular broadcast mode.

what i don't understand is why ESPN doesn't pick up the Olympics, away from the regular networks? seems a likely "leap" to me.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

the traditional PPV approach because it was too expensive, badly marketted, and gave the viewers a combination of too much choice (what to what what to watch) with too little choice (except its on a 3am! whah!).

traditional PPV is dying, and has been for years. like i said, it'll be dead by 2010. download on demand i'll watch it when i feel like it is the future (as tivo and ipod video, even in these early stages, has already shown).

as for filesharing? if they gave a crap, maybe - it depends on how much advertising is put into the download. the advertising may pay for it because its traditional advertising rather than "pay per click". if advertising pays for it all, then they will actually want people to share the files - if they like what they see they'll go to the web site and pick up their own.

if advertising isn't enough and you have to pay for coverage, DRM technology will be strong enough to restrict your playback. iTunes/iPod video is already successful for the vast majority even today.

as for ESPN? most of it is that the big networks have always been able to out-bid them for the rights. They couldn't afford to do it unless (like USA/CNBC/MSNBC (and in '02 & '04, Bravo) they piggybacked onto their primary owning major network, ABC (as ESPN and ABC are owned by Disney) and ABC gave up on the Olympics after '84's crappy ratings and the retirement of their better sportscasters.

and ESPN's ratings have been in the tank for almost 10 years now; they're broke, relatively speaking. the majors are still key, along with the ppv market for public broadcasts (i.e., the ppv games paid for by bars and pubs, which will be ppv's last stand).

edit

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

the traditional PPV approach already failed because it was too expensive, badly marketted, and gave the viewers a combination of too much choice (what to what what to watch) with too little choice (except its on a 3am! whah!).

Re: edit

[blueeowyn.livejournal.com]

Stop depressing me. I *liked* the PPV from Barcelona. I was able to (oh joy, oh rapture) see ALL of my favorite events (gymnastics and equestrian) plus a lot of the other events I enjoy (diving, swimming, some track & field).

With 3 people sharing the bill and running 2 VCRs 24/7, we got every horse (and some of it was hilarious) and every gymnast (good and bad). It was actually very educational. All I need to do now is figure out a sane way to pull from those tapes (yes, I still have them) and make DVDs of the The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

keep in mind, when it comes to file-sharing, that the attention span for this stuff is relatively short. after a week, its so old news (and people have so many new things to watch) that they won't care about it.

[voltbang.livejournal.com]

My TiVO can download content for me in the fullest resoloution my TV supports, and respect the copy protection tags that the content provider requires. I can burn some things directly to DVD or move it to my wife's ipod if the protect bit is not set. Other programming can only be viewed on the TiVo directly. This summer they will be releasing a TiVo that does HDTV on top of all that. We are less than six months from netflix doing away with those envelopes and sending you your movies via your network and set top box. By the time the next olympics roll around, PPV will be entirely different than it is now.


I think that the reason the olympics are tanking is simply that coverage stinks. The announcers don't seem to understand the events they are covering. The network can't schedule coverage and keep to that coverage. And despite the efforts of the announcers, not every event is the grand sporting triumph of the century for the americans. My understanding is that they tried to compare at least three of the hockey events to the miracle on ice. They can't just appreciate a hockey game as a hockey game, and cover the event that is actually happening. And they don't have to cover every last run on the skeleton, for example, but they do have to show more the the american atheletes.