I'm a little surprised this didn't get mentioned during the week when it happened, but I wanted to share one post from a surprising source: Charley Steiner (you do not need to be a Facebook member to read the post).
https://www.facebook.com/charley.steiner/posts/10206485026537008 Obviously the fact that no on-air staff was touched put it under the general public radar, but from everything I've read, this was a wholesale bloodletting behind the scenes. It goes without saying in this group, but the people who were let go were the people who truly make the magic happen. One other thing that flew completely under the radar for me: NBC won the rights for The Open Championship earlier this year beginning in 2017 for 12 years. But a couple weeks back, they negotiated with ESPN to take 2016 (the last year of their contract) as well. http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/nbc-takes-over-british-open-tv-rights-espn-one-year-early I cannot find a previous occurrence where a network willingly gave up (even via negotiation) TV rights for an event. ESPN still has MLB though 2021, the NFL through 2022, Wimbedon through 2023, the US (tennis) Open and NBA through 2025, the FBS College Football Playoff through 2026, and a host of conferences I'm not going to go through and figure out lengths for. One wonders if this isn't the last time Bristol does this. -- -- 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 --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
