The Olympics will not be televised
Four years from now, will you be watching the Winter Games on TV or over the Internet?
Follow @pveneziaI haven't been watching the Winter Olympics on TV. In fact, a quick and thoroughly unscientific survey of friends tells me that an awful lot of people are going to NBColympics.com rather than flipping on the television. Could this be the last Winter Olympics that more people watch on TV than on the Web?
I have a problem with time-delayed events. Most of the truly amazing moments in televised Olympic history have been broadcast as live several hours after they actually happened, and most people watching the "live" broadcast already knew how it would turn out. Depending on the location of the Games, this is generally done for fairly good reasons, like not interrupting scheduled news broadcasts on the East Coast or whatnot, but the fact remains that most people never actually watch live events and, since they already know the outcome, are less likely to bother. Who would watch the MLB playoffs if you already knew who won?
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Basically, the scheduling of most events in both the Summer and Winter Olympics just doesn't jibe with broadcast television anymore, if it ever did.
But NBC has done a pretty good job of filling that gap over the Internet. NBColympics.com provides a good portal for finding just about anything you're looking for, with plenty of search options and tons of content. Want to watch 3.5 hours of pairs figure skating without commentary? It's there.
Or you can tap into the live feeds and finally watch live competition. This is the way the Olympics should be broadcasted. This is the way that everyone can get what they want, when they want it. There aren't enough broadcast channels in existence to provide anywhere near this level of coverage, which is why the Olympics are likely to be the first major worldwide event to be almost completely Webcast. It might be the 2012 Summer Games, but that seems a bit soon. My guess is that the 2014 Winter Games will be the watershed.
