Olympian video effort for '08

Jay Small — Wed, 08 Aug 2007 11:22:07 +0000

Cory Bergman notes NBC Universal's planned endurance run to cover the 2008 Olympics, including 2,200 hours of streamed video and 6,600 hours of coverage available in archive:

It goes without saying that such blanket online coverage raises some interesting issues/questions at the affiliate level, but kudos to NBCU for blowing it out online.

Yep. One way I look at this: NBCU finally squeezes out all the return on investment it can from all the staffing, equipment, bandwidth, travel and planning it takes to prepare for Olympics coverage.

It reminds me of when local supermarkets first started shifting to "open 24 hours" schedules. One major reason for that was just common sense: they had to pay to leave all the refrigerator and freezer cases running constantly, and kept store staff on site overnight to restock, accept shipments, manage inventory etc. They might as well collect some purchase revenue from second-shifters and night owls while all that energy was expended.

NBCU would have thousands of hours of unused video assets, as in Olympics past, if not for the ability to stream or serve them online. Even if online advertising per-unit revenues are dimes vs. dollars for broadcast, any grocer would tell you: a dime in the cash register is better than nothing if it compensates for work you have to do either way.

lost remote

Olympian video effort for '08