If you’re here because of a quick quote of mine in a story today in today’s Bulletin (must be a subscriber to see the story online), welcome. The blog post mentioned in the article is here, along with a workaround for folks wanting to see more video online.
Comments
Gee Jake, I’ve read the piece, take the cable co.’s side why dontcha;-)
Seriously, the paper had time and um, ability to dig into this and learned of a ‘surcharge’ the cable folks declined to pay. (I shoulda figured that was part of the contract I’d learned of.) Again, one can argue both sides – the cost vs. benefit to BendBroadband of having the added Olympic channels/streaming video. It’s just too bad.
Yes, I did appear that I took the cable company’s side (with my one-sentence quote — nevermind the other five minutes I talked to the reporter), and I mostly did as I think it’s NBC’s fault for this.
As I mentioned to another commenter, as I mentioned to the reporter (which didn’t get published) is that large cable companies like Comcast probably have dedicated teams to dealing with the networks and the channel representatives. BendBroadband probably has one guy who does it on a couple-hours-a-week basis on top of his or her other duties. Who do you think is going to negotiate a deal faster?
I still blame NBC in all of this, personally.
Well, we had no say of course, but … everybody wants to make money off the Web, but nobody wants to pay for the Web.
Get my drift?;-)
Whoops, I’m the nameless one, posting from work so … didn’t know;-)
The lack of streaming is bad, but even worse is KTVZ passing off the evening events as “Live”. They are actually on 3 hour tape delay from the east coast, so that we have to stay up until 11:30 at night to watch something that happened 3 hours earlier! They could show it from 5:00-9:00 pm instead. At least they should be honest and take the “Live” image off the top right corner of the picture.
@Pete: My guess is that’s coming directly from NBC and KTVZ has no control over the “Live” image.
Jake,
You’re on the right track. At BendBroadband I have primary responsibility for programming contracts, working with our CEO. We leverage the National Cable and Telecomunications Cooperative as much as possible as they have more bargaining power – which means better programming rates for us and prices for customers. But we do have a lot of direct deals with networks due to the fact that we are a leading edge company and are often out in front of things (HD is a primary example as is all digital). The amount of time we have to devote to contracts is not the issue. It’s all about terms and bargaining power. In this case NBC Universal was going for a direct deal while NCTC negotiations were still underway. The deal involves more than just this enhanced Olympics coverage – it includes rates for several NBC U channels. Looking at the entire deal, it was clear to us that it was better to pass and let the NCTC continue to negotiate. We’re with you and others in wishing that the elements of the enhanced Olympics coverage had not gotten wrapped up in this larger issue. The surcharge was simply icing on the cake here – another reason not to go for the direct deal. I/we appreciate those that are open to hearing the facts as these are complex issues, not easily communicated in a newspaper story.
That’s probably true, but can you imagine if they tried to do this with any other sporting event? Here’s the announcement: “For all of you on the west coast, you will be watching the Super Bowl three hours after New York, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, etc.” There’s no precedent for this. The Wimbledon finals started at 6:00 AM. Monday night football starts at 6:00 PM. Tonight, I even got to watch the Red Sox live from Fenway. The game started at 4:00 PDT.
Whatever, I’m going to bed. I set my TIVO so when I watch it tomorrow morning I can fast forward through the commercials NBC is counting on me watching.
“nevermind the other five minutes I talked to the reporter”
What do you want them to do, reprint a transcript of your whole conversation?
Easy there, rob — never once did I say that I expected him to reprint a transcript of what I said. All I meant was that there was more that I said that could have added more to the discussion that didn’t get printed.