Just a thought- NBC is a for-profit company. Because of that they are able to pay hundreds of millions for the rights to cover the Olympics. Because of that, they want the largest viewership. That occurs during primetime. If the tv industry is so "disruptable" as many keep saying, why hasn't it happened? Clearly people want the ability to watch as much shit, wherever, whenever they can, preferably for free. Apparently the problem is that unlike most internet sites, television requires an actual business model.
The fact that this guy is literally asking people on an internet blog not to watch what will inevitably be viewed by tens of millions of people kind of does more to prove this point than anything I can say here could.
I'm not sure why people don't get this. It's pretty obvious that companies need to make money, and that it's big business.
I haven't had a TV for almost 3 years and I suffer through missing out on lots of stuff. However, until the economics change (e.g. cable companies die) it's going to be like this for several more years. At least I got a real streaming Superbowl this year.
Rather than complain, let's change the economics and help to make the transition faster. Btw, http://justin.tv is a going place to start in a pinch. :-)
Yesterday's discussion on HN had the price of broadcast rights at $1.1B, not including production costs. The tv industry is not disruptable. Content is expensive, and margins are not huge. People need to stop saying it is disruptable just because they are unhappy with it. There is a ton of inertia behind the entertainment market.
People saying an industry is disruptable, nine times out of ten, means that people want that industry to be disrupted -- not that such a disruption is easy or even feasible.
Of course it is, think out of the box. Netflix is already doing it, see the discussion elsewhere in the thread. Apple/Google might buy the Olympics rights and put it in iTunes/Play.
"Apple/Google might buy the Olympics rights and put it in iTunes/Play."
Are you sure that's better than the current model? You have to be very careful about listening to customers, because what people say they will pay for is quite different than what they will actually pay. Aggregately I might pay $80 for access to the Olympics and several other channels as well (I already do this, so this isn't really a stretch). I'm not so sure I'd pay $1.99 to watch the US Men's Basketball team play one game, and even if I would, NBC makes its money through advertisements. There is no proof that a pay-per-view model would bring nearly as much revenue as advertisements over wide broadcast would.
And this says nothing of the people who don't necessarily live in Silicon Valley and have ready access to broadband and iTunes.
It could be thought of as a loss leader that would bring a lot of people to buy Apple TVs or the Google equivalent. They might sub-license the rights to transmit the SD stream live on terrestrial TV. Etc.
Note that NBC stands to lose $1-200 mio on the olympics (I think is was in this week's Economist), so it's a loss leader for them as well.
Anyway, my point was merely to react to the idea that "I can't think of a better business model off the top of my head" somehow equates "it can't be disrupted".
The fact that this guy is literally asking people on an internet blog not to watch what will inevitably be viewed by tens of millions of people kind of does more to prove this point than anything I can say here could.