I was going to say that Fox could make use of the Nat Geo family of channels
(which has been done for some global launches like the Tyson-hosted COSMOS).
But Disney seems poised to pick up those assets if the sale of 21st Century Fox
goes through.
CBS does have a sports channel, and the CW. They could, conceivably, do
something in connection with CBS All Access. Perhaps make the service free for
the duration of the games, with an 'eye' toward using the Games to expand the
subscriber base.
Of course, since NBC has US broadcast rights on lock through 2032, the
landscape could be different in ways we don't even consider right now.
Emphasis on could.
David
On Thursday, February 22, 2018, 10:20:21 AM EST, PGage <[email protected]>
wrote:
As I mentioned earlier, I always find NBC boosterism of team USA obnoxious,
and my interest in watching the Olympics (Winter or Summer) is unaffected by
how well the Americans are doing. I really have become interested in Biathalon,
I literally have seen every event, and find it compelling even without US
medalists. I have become a huge fan of the great French Biathalete Martin
Fourcade, even though I had never hear of him before.
But my main point is that I think NBC has developed an excellent way to make
the Games available to those who are interested. For the Winter Games it is
pretty much using one broadcast and 1+ cable channels (NBCSports and some
curling and hockey on CNBC), plus every event available pretty easily online
(and on Xfinity at least, these can be accessed through my On Demand menu). The
Summer Games require I think 5 cable channels (NBCSports, CNBC, USA, MSNBC and
maybe USA too?).
What I am wondering is, now that the standard has been set, who else could
really offer a similar experience? I guess the Disney family could - ABC plus
however many ESPN channels there are (it seems like they are capable of putting
up extra channels as needed?). I don’t know if the various Fox stations are
able to cooperate like this, if so I guess they could put together 4 channels.
But what would CBS do?
On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 9:22 PM Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote:
On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 5:11 PM, Chris Neuman <[email protected]> wrote:
Despite the fact that the US doesn’t dominate the Winter games quite the way
they do the summer games, I commented a few days ago to my wife how odd it was
to not see the US higher up in the medal standings. My theory is that it’s a
regression to the mean.
I present, without opinion of any kind, a story that appeared in today’s Globe
and Mail about the US performance in PyeongCheng to date. The author links the
Elizabeth Swaney debacle and DJT to the American performance and crowd
presence.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/www.theglobeandmail.com/amp/sports/olympics/the-americans-and-their-terrible-horrible-no-good-very-bad-games/article38026417/
(The author is something of a provocateur, a fact you’ll likely pick up on in
the first para. I still haven’t forgiven him for his hit piece on my hometown
of Edmonton two years ago, when he was here to cover the Women’s World Cup.
Such a Toronto-centric A-hole.)
The answer to why American athletes aren't doing well has to be found in the
time before the Olympics, during World Championships and other international
events. Are the Americans dominant there? I don't follow any of these sports
and I will defer to anybody here who does. I thought the Winter Olympics added
snowboarding and other X-Games style events to give the US more medals and it
may be that they have been passed by other countries. as we don't pay attention
to these sports outside the Olympics we see NBC try to rev up interest in the
games by talking about and to local athletes without giving a sense of if they
are objectively expected to win medals at their sports. With our sense of
national entitlement deflated, US viewers may choose to stop watching as
American athletes continually fall short.
--
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.
