I am a big fan of Will Leitch (who wrote the item, even though it's on JoePo's website). In this case, he's spectacularly full of shit.
Everyone seems to be putting the onus on Twitter here, when it's really the entire Web. We started seeing this in 2008, when people started complaining to non-NBC news properties about "spoiling" the Olympics. At this point, it requires a real effort to *not* find out the results unless you block off almost every social network *and* anything related to news/sports (For heaven's sake: I've been getting alerts from The Wall Street Journal on major events). The catch is that NBC wants to play both sides of the fence here. Their official site, nbcolympics.com, is a full spoiler. There is to the best of my knowledge no way to avoid that. Right now the big image on their home page is a big ol' spoiler. The NBC Olympics Twitter feed has been spoiling all the time. BriWi has been spoiling on Nightly News. Only the NBC Olympics Facebook page is spoiler free, simply pointing out when events are happening live. But NBC continues to operate their prime-time three-hour block with the modus operandi that a viewer has no clue what has happened today. That group of people is shrinking more and more. NBC can argue that they're setting record ratings, but what the ratings don't show is how many people are getting increasingly pissed while doing so. About five minutes ago someone posted this Facebook status: "? to NBC? If mens swimming and womens gymnastics already happened today...why am I watching a platform diving final that the US isnt even in right now??" And this isn't someone who's a social media wizard: this would be someone in the demo! And they're pissed off. They just want to get to the fireworks factory (Simpsons reference). I'll agree that the sports fans don't really matter. But acting as if the regular fans are stupid (which is what NBC's attitude has been) is what's really pissing people off. And NBC's "The silent majority love us" act is wearing thin on everyone. As for Leitch's comment about how 20% of people aren't on the Internet: According to that same report, 97% of adults 18-29 and 91% of adults 30-49 (aka The Demo) *are* on the Internet. The people who aren't are almost all old folks (aka Not The Demo). If you're making the argument that NBC needs to aim towards the people out of the demo, then perhaps *you're* the one who should be ignored. On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 5:05 PM, Mark Jeffries <[email protected]> wrote: > Joe Posnanski of Sports on Earth reminds us that NBC is not programming to > sports fans--key quote: > > "There’s a good argument to be made that networks and corporations should > pay utmost heed to what their diehard customers want, rather than just be > blandly generalist. If you make your most loyal customers happy, they’ll > stick with you during down periods, providing you a solid customer base. But > the Olympics are absolutely not the time to make that argument. There are no > loyalist Olympic fans. This is an event that comes around every two years, > featuring sports that, in any other context, no one cares about. There is no > solid customer base. Everyone’s just dabbling, so NBC is selling > accordingly. The Olympics are a two-week episode of the “Today” show, > pitched at that level and sold accordingly. It’s the only way to do it." > > And he also reminds us that only a small subset of the Internet is on > Twitter--and that there are still 18 percent of Americans with no access to > the net at all (and adds that he's not happy with NBC, either, but he's not > the audience): > > http://sportsonearthblog.com/2012/07/31/nbc-is-ignoring-twitter-diehards-and-rightfully-so/ > > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
