Saturday, February 04, 2012

NBC/Universal (Again)!

I've said it before. I'm going to say it again. NBC Sports and their partners are terrible. They are at best a rip off and at worst a greedy money hungry ogre of a network system. Now what's got me all upset this time you might ask (in case you're new to the party, I've complained about NBC Sports in the past both here and here)? Well, let's start with their takeover of Versus Network. Yes, I understand that NBC owns a large portion of Comcast that owns a large portion of Versus, but really NBC, you have to change the name of the network to represent how supposedly great you are (It's now called NBC Sports Network by the way). NBC's hockey coverage has improved, mostly because they carry more games, unfortunately over half the country can't watch them BECAUSE THEY ARE ONLY AVAILABLE ON CABLE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Again someone please tell me, how does that even make sense? This blog isn't about that however, it's about another channel that NBC at least partially owns called Universal Sports. Since the inception of digial TV there has been a channel on my antenna based TV called Universal Sports. As of the first of the year, it is off the air. Why? The simple answer, because they switched to cable only. Why would they do that? Well, according to the channels own website "Sports content is expensive and in order to sustain our network long term, it is imperative that we switch to the business model of a cable, satellite and telco offering so we can continue to provide the world class programming our fans have been accustomed to." You can read said quote here. This is the epitome of arrogance. Since 2008 Universal Sports has been available for free. Now, 4 years later, it's not only not free, it's also only available on one satellite provider (currently only DirecTV subscribers have access to the channel). Now I will say that there is a way to still watch the channel online, however, details about how to do that are very hard to find. Specific events have prices but you can't tell if that is for that event or for more. $8 for a few days of skiing coverage just isn't worth it to me, and I don't think I'm alone in that opinion. I think that Universal Sports wasn't as successful as the parent company had hoped in the 3+ years it was on broadcast TV. This is probably because it rarely carried live events and didn't carry any sports that are considered mainstream in the United States (home of sports like cycling, rugby and skiing, not exactly big events in the USA). I think it might have been a better idea to completely shutter the channel rather than change the model and frustrate those of us who had been watching it for free for a long time.
However, this seems to be what everyone is doing now. Nickle and diming seems to be the norm. Have Netflix for watching movies? Well, a bunch of companies don't like them, so you have to either wait for disks that may never come or pay Hulu or Amazon Prime or something similar to get the content you want. Look at the airlines. I would rather pay an extra $20 on every ticket I buy than pay a stupid bag fee at the airport or when I check in online. What about cell phones? Data plans used to be unlimited. Now, only Sprint has unlimited data and even they admit they cut down your speed when you hit a certain usage level. Everyone else, data limits and if you go over, you have to pay. Don't get me wrong, companies have people to pay and products to produce and that costs money, but does it really cost as much as they put on the consumer. The classic example of this is text messaging. Because of the way messages work, they cost the cell companies about 1/1000th of a cent (depending on who you read this number varies, my source is here). Yet the average user is paying $20 a month and definitely not sending and receiving 200,000 messages. I pay $30 a month for 5 lines and between all of us I don't think we've gone over 6,000 messages. Believe me, I don't like paying it but it's basically become a necessity to me at this point. I could go on, but I think I've made my point.
In the end, I'll keep watching NBC Sports, because I don't have another choice right now. I'll pay the bag fees, because again, what option is there (Southwest is the only airline that doesn't charge and they don't always go where I want to be). I'll eventually pay for a cell phone data plan, just as soon as I have a job and can afford the iPhone I've been wanting for years. And yes, I'll probably someday get cable just so I can watch my Edmonton Oilers play some hockey, okay, that and I really like Discovery channel. As always, thank you for taking a few minutes out of your busy life to read this. Feel free to leave a comment, although please remember that all comments are screened by me before they are posted.

1 comment:

  1. Eric, you gotta get the lineage right!

    Comcast owns NBC!

    When I worked for Comcast (Video Producer for CNWS, Channel 14) We carried Blazer replays, duck replays, Universal Sports Programs (Tape delayed world championships in Ping Pong, Track, Cycling --- exiting stuff eh and I got to insert the commercials) Universal Sports had no affiliation with Camcat or NBC, that changed in 2008... In 2008 even more things happened.

    NBC bought Universal, and Comcast bought rights to carry the Blazers.

    Yep Comcast Paid the Blazers 10 million for a multi year deal, and pay Garry anything? Nah! Comcast killed CNWS, fired its staff and and started up, yet another Sports-net Channel. (Sports-net Northwest 37 It's really Blazer TV)

    All Comcast sports-net channels are Major sports Franchisee driven...

    So Comcast can sell their cable service to the sports buffs... and make their big bucks. And, guess what... They do!

    BTW Comcast also owns the Philadelphia Flyers...

    Vs. got most of its programming from all the different Comcast Sport-nets around the country and from Universal among other sources.

    So when Comcast Bought NBC, something had to give... on the Sports programming front (as bad as it is) You gotta understand that Comcast is a bottom line kinda company, and if its in the red, its gotta go!

    So, on cable it goes... just look at the "lineage" and the CABLE business model... And Comcast.

    If NBC had got it right in the first place... things might be different.

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