At our house we don’t pay for cable, we aren’t home enough to watch it and it’s freaking expensive. We do pay for Netflix and through the genius of the Roku player’s channels occasionally make use of Amazon Video On Demand HD rentals (because the locally owned video store that we depended on for new releases went under over the last summer). We, as a rule, pay for software, we pay for content. I don’t subscribe to the notion of piracy as a moral imperative.
I also am casually hyper-entertained by the sport of hockey, I’m a hockey fan, but not any specific team or league. I just love hockey in all of it’s forms. So imagine my chagrin when I looked at the broadcast schedule of the Olympics and all of the non-medal rounds of hockey were relegated to being on USA (a cable channel).
Never fear, I thought, NBC has promised 100% coverage through their website. I found the page, passed the Silverlight install (I already had Silverlight installed, which I mind having on my computer LESS than Flash because it has never crashed a browser), and tried to watch one of the USA women’s hockey games. What did I find? Not even a pay wall, it was a subscription wall to another service. If you don’t pay for some form of premium television content (cable, u-verse, satellite) that has partnered with NBC, you can’t watch the Olympic events that aren’t broadcast on NBC network or ARE broadcast, but at 3am. I don’t even have the option of buying some sort of short term subscription for just this coverage (something I would gladly do if it was priced right, see opening paragraph).
Why is there no subscription model, or shit, being the Olympics, why isn’t there a medal themed pay system for accessing this content. A Gold Medal Pass costs $30 gives you access to every event on your terms in HD via a device like Roku or even XBOX 360 so you can watch it on TV. This meshes with your use of the Sliverlight plug-in for video (because of an apparent MS partnership?). Silver Medal Pass costs $15 and grants you access to every event for 3 sports. The Bronze Pass will cost you $5 gives you web only access to all events for 1 sport.
I CAN’T FATHOM THAT NOT ONE SINGLE PERSON IN YOUR ENTERPRISE HAD THIS IDEA!
So, Dear NBC: I fail to see the point of offering web based video coverage of the Olympics, if it’s something most people with cable can access at a higher quality on their televisions via their DVR and existing cable subscription which is required to watch the web based video. Between this and Heroes I am suspicious of a continued mandate for your existence. Please sell the following to other networks who have proven better steward’s of their customer’s entertainment and time: Chuck, The Office, Community, 30 Rock, Parks & Rec.
And then cease to exist. (Realistically the Thursday night shows don’t have much appeal to me anymore, the Office is dangerously close to overstaying it’s welcome and the other 3 I have never missed, even when I miss them. For the love of Crom, sell Chuck, ensure that his flame burns forever bright.)
Sincerely, an angry nerd with a raging first world problem.
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