A quote by Gary Zenkel, president of NBC Olympics, is a great summary of the networks' view of the new media world and how off base they can be at times.
On Friday morning NBC decided not to telecast the Olympic Opening Ceremonies live. That led to a bunch of online carping. I managed to do a bit of whining myself on Twitter (click here) which led to a mention on Brian Stelter's blog on the New York Times. (Click here.)
In short, many people wondered why there wasn't live coverage of the Opening Ceremonies. Zenkel, defending the decision to show the ceremonies 12 hours after they happened said this:
“We have a billion dollars worth of revenue at stake here, so that means we’re not public television, for better or worse.”
Aside from coming across as a bit snippy, it also shows how NBC can't recognize an opportunity when it presents itself. Here we have demand and networks restricting supply. So instead of figuring out a way to broadcast the ceremonies live online or on TV, either in its entirety or in snippets, they pursue a policy that encourages avid fans to search elsewhere. And because there is this thing called the Internet, they find it elsewhere. (Click here for a great article by Brian Stelter on how it was done.)
Seems NBC would have been smarter to do a limited broadcast (sponsored, of course) in the morning which which have given all us a flavor of what to expect 12 hours later and allowed us, by word of mouth, to promote what ended up being a spectacular event.
