Some insight on why NBC walked away from the NHL

Anisimovs AK

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I am an OSU fan as a matter of fact. I'm only thinking about the networks that televise Big Ten games. I think UM-OSU would work as a night game. Fox shouldn't have to surrender the primetime ratings battle the way they did in 2018. In fact, I see them sponsoring a new NCAA bylaw that requires every FBS conference to schedule at least one night game every week from week 1 through Thanksgiving weekend to help out each conference's TV partners.

If SpongeBob SquarePants taught me anything, it is that some things are better at night.
No real OSU fan wants the game moved to 8pm
 

Blackhawkswincup

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NBC/Comcast flat out refused to offer NHL games in 4K even though the games have been shot in that format since 2019. When crew members asked - we heard crickets but NBC/Comcast went all-in with the White Sox home games in 4K this year.

This is because Reinsdorf owns 50% of NBC Sports Chicago (Wirtz owns 25%)

Comcast only has 25% stake in NBC Sports Chicago
 
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Big Z Man 1990

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Jun 4, 2011
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Don't say anything at all
Less choice is never a good thing.

FOX is committed to making Noon their biggest window, which makes a ton of sense. It's always been a fairly poor window for game quality, now neutrals always know where to turn if their school isn't playing and there's less overlap of big games in midday or night slots.

No real OSU fan wants the game moved to 8pm

If Fox wanted to produce a big game at noon, they can put it on Fox Sports 1. Enough people have more than just local channels that it won't make a difference.

The purpose of primetime scheduling for various things is to actually try and win the primetime ratings battle. Fox doesn't purposely schedule low-quality programs on any other night of the week especially during college football season. Saturday nights have evolved to the point where the only new things regularly airing on these nights anymore are usually sports events or on CBS, 48 Hours.

If Fox wanted to win the Saturday night ratings battle over ABC on Thanksgiving weekend, then they can't do things like they did in 2018. Consider this - ABC's SaNF broadcast of ND-USC was in the top 10 most watched regular season CFB games. Fox's competing broadcast of 6-5 Oklahoma State and 5-6 TCU was not, even though TCU plays in the same county as an NFL team which draws high ratings for Fox frequently, the Dallas Cowboys.

And while UM-OSU was #1, it potentially could have drawn more than 20 million viewers, even approaching Super Bowl viewership levels, had it been played at night. If Fox were willing to go along with UM-OSU being at noon that year, then they should have insisted on airing ND-USC in primetime instead of letting ABC have that game, which could have allowed eventual NCG winners Clemson to host the final on-campus SaNF game of 2018, the rivalry game against South Carolina, putting that rivalry on network television for the first time since 2000, when it aired regionally on ABC, and thus putting the OKST-TCU game on ESPN at 7 (where it should have gone, since it was not worthy of a primetime slot on Fox).

And AAK, you have it wrong. No real OSU fan wants to keep the game at noon. As I said before, a nighttime UM-OSU game going into multiple OTs well past midnight would be a real treat.
 

Big Z Man 1990

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In fact, if an NFL Sunday afternoon game was played between teams 5-6 and 6-5 at the time, the NFL wouldn't dream of flexing the game onto Sunday Night Football, not even putting it on the 4:25 DH slot. If the scheduled SNF matchup had these records, it would likely be flexed out.
 

Big Z Man 1990

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CBS is not putting sports on Paramount Movie Network. For the fifteenth time! It's is not a general interest cable network like TBS/TNT or USA. It is not ViacomCBS's equivalent.
They won't have a choice if CBS wants the cable rights to things like MLB, NFL, NBA, Power 5 college sports.

None of these will consent to airing on CBSSN.

The NFL got flak years ago for putting games on NFL Network though carriage of that has significantly increased since 2006.

But I don't think the NFL makes the same mistake twice.
 
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Jumptheshark

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Netflix also offered to sell their company to blockbuster but we're laughed out of the room.


My guess is you have not looked at how the deal was structured. Netflix at the time was still doing their mail order thing and did not know about how they were going do their on line thing.

I did a business degree a few years ago and there was large module that covered what people get wrong about that deal.

Google offering to sell itself to Excite is better example.

Netflix knew they were going to do stuff on line and blockbuster was not going to have interest in the on line stuff just the mail order side
 
Jan 21, 2011
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I’ll echo what others have said: when Live Sports makes the full-time move over to streaming services exclusively, Cable will be dead.

I mean, slightly OT, but even back in 2015 when my fiancée and I moved in together we knew not to get cable. All we needed was Netflix and Hulu. An OTA attenna did the trick IF we needed to catch local channels. I must be naive, but I wish more sports catered to the OTA Market.
 

aqib

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Feb 13, 2012
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One thing I wonder about with all the talk about the death of cable is the assorted boxes out there where you basically pay somewhere between $100-170 a year and you get thousands of channels from all over the world over a broadband connection. Obviously that would be bad for the cable service providers but what about the networks themselves. Would this keep them alive or kill them off?
 
Jan 21, 2011
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Massachusetts
One thing I wonder about with all the talk about the death of cable is the assorted boxes out there where you basically pay somewhere between $100-170 a year and you get thousands of channels from all over the world over a broadband connection. Obviously that would be bad for the cable service providers but what about the networks themselves. Would this keep them alive or kill them off?

I think it keeps them alive - to a point.

again, you’re getting thousands of channels, but how many are you actually watching?
 

aqib

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Feb 13, 2012
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I think it keeps them alive - to a point.

again, you’re getting thousands of channels, but how many are you actually watching?

Well I watch a handful of movie, sports, and news channels (I am Canadian and grew up mostly in the US). My wife watches a lot of the Arab channels (she is Lebanese and grew up in the Middle East). Now I am paying about $15 a month for thousands of channels. Whereas with a regular cable package I would pay $50 a month for like 30 channels or something insane like that. Adding a sports package would cost like $35-40. So the issue is there is a lot less money going to the assorted channels if I am spending a fraction of the monthly fees for thousands of more channels.
 

Anisimovs AK

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Apr 14, 2006
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If Fox wanted to produce a big game at noon, they can put it on Fox Sports 1. Enough people have more than just local channels that it won't make a difference.

The purpose of primetime scheduling for various things is to actually try and win the primetime ratings battle. Fox doesn't purposely schedule low-quality programs on any other night of the week especially during college football season. Saturday nights have evolved to the point where the only new things regularly airing on these nights anymore are usually sports events or on CBS, 48 Hours.

If Fox wanted to win the Saturday night ratings battle over ABC on Thanksgiving weekend, then they can't do things like they did in 2018. Consider this - ABC's SaNF broadcast of ND-USC was in the top 10 most watched regular season CFB games. Fox's competing broadcast of 6-5 Oklahoma State and 5-6 TCU was not, even though TCU plays in the same county as an NFL team which draws high ratings for Fox frequently, the Dallas Cowboys.

And while UM-OSU was #1, it potentially could have drawn more than 20 million viewers, even approaching Super Bowl viewership levels, had it been played at night. If Fox were willing to go along with UM-OSU being at noon that year, then they should have insisted on airing ND-USC in primetime instead of letting ABC have that game, which could have allowed eventual NCG winners Clemson to host the final on-campus SaNF game of 2018, the rivalry game against South Carolina, putting that rivalry on network television for the first time since 2000, when it aired regionally on ABC, and thus putting the OKST-TCU game on ESPN at 7 (where it should have gone, since it was not worthy of a primetime slot on Fox).

And AAK, you have it wrong. No real OSU fan wants to keep the game at noon. As I said before, a nighttime UM-OSU game going into multiple OTs well past midnight would be a real treat.
I live in Columbus and went to OSU, NOONE wants the game moved from 12pm. Not fans, not students, not booster, not the Athletic Director, not the university president.
 

DaBadGuy7

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Sports Media Watch with an interesting comment about discussion on NBA’s studio show (which most aren’t a fan of) that his opinion that NBC lowballed the NBA during negotiations back in 2002. It’s ironic based on how NBC really didn’t want to go into a bidding war with Turner and FOX:

 

Spydey629

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Jan 28, 2005
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Sports Media Watch with an interesting comment about discussion on NBA’s studio show (which most aren’t a fan of) that his opinion that NBC lowballed the NBA during negotiations back in 2002. It’s ironic based on how NBC really didn’t want to go into a bidding war with Turner and FOX:



Hmmm... where have I that before??
 
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Look Up

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I’ll echo what others have said: when Live Sports makes the full-time move over to streaming services exclusively, Cable will be dead.

I mean, slightly OT, but even back in 2015 when my fiancée and I moved in together we knew not to get cable. All we needed was Netflix and Hulu. An OTA attenna did the trick IF we needed to catch local channels. I must be naive, but I wish more sports catered to the OTA Market.
I believe you are right on this.

When we built our current house in 2016, we declined the option to wire each room for cable, as we knew then the medium was dying. We stream everything if we want to watch something, including the NHL.
 
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Lt Dan

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I’ll echo what others have said: when Live Sports makes the full-time move over to streaming services exclusively, Cable will be dead.

I mean, slightly OT, but even back in 2015 when my fiancée and I moved in together we knew not to get cable. All we needed was Netflix and Hulu. An OTA attenna did the trick IF we needed to catch local channels. I must be naive, but I wish more sports catered to the OTA Market.
IMO, They are actually going to go the other direction and go more direct to consumer.

The conspiracy theorist in me tells me that Bally's was asking for the outrageous carriage feeds so the FS contracts mostly ended , so it can had a bad year write off a bunch of debt and launch it's own direct to consumer product.

Bigger market teams have also done this. The Lakers and Dodgers both have their own dedicated channels. I see this becoming much more frequent in the future
 
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Big Z Man 1990

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I live in Columbus and went to OSU, NOONE wants the game moved from 12pm. Not fans, not students, not booster, not the Athletic Director, not the university president.

If NBC or CBS get the rights to the game in the next contract, I'll bet money either network will want the game at night. As I said in an earlier post, there's lots of money from putting UM-OSU at night, and money is the main thing driving FBS football nowadays. And what the network wants ultimately trumps what the fans, students, boosters, and university president want (and I don't even like using the word "trump" for reasons I cannot get into without getting in trouble). Everyone who prefers the game at noon now will in time get used to the primetime slot.

Many traditions in sports have fallen by the wayside despite huge resistance. Like amateurism in NCAA sports, the unwritten rule that the American and National Leagues both must have an even number of teams to prevent seasonwide interleague play (and I believe that unwritten rule will return in the future through expansion), the NFL's blackout rule and 16-game regular season, and the men's only status of Augusta National. The noon timeslot for UM-OSU will also fall by the wayside I project.

As Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain once said in their theme song "it's what the network wants, why bother to complain?"
 
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Big Z Man 1990

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For instance, what Fox should do regarding PSU-Wisc is air it at night on Sunday the 5th opposite ABC's broadcast of ND-FSU. All of Saturday afternoon up to 3:30 ET/2:30 CT/1:30 MT/12:30 PT would thus be programmed by the individual affiliates in those time zones (the PTZ would have the least amount of time between Xploration Station and the pregame show for Louisiana-Texas, at only half an hour, which would likely be filled with a newscast on those affiliates).
 

Anisimovs AK

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Apr 14, 2006
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If NBC or CBS get the rights to the game in the next contract, I'll bet money either network will want the game at night. As I said in an earlier post, there's lots of money from putting UM-OSU at night, and money is the main thing driving FBS football nowadays. And what the network wants ultimately trumps what the fans, students, boosters, and university president want (and I don't even like using the word "trump" for reasons I cannot get into without getting in trouble). Everyone who prefers the game at noon now will in time get used to the primetime slot.

Many traditions in sports have fallen by the wayside despite huge resistance. Like amateurism in NCAA sports, the unwritten rule that the American and National Leagues both must have an even number of teams to prevent seasonwide interleague play (and I believe that unwritten rule will return in the future through expansion), the NFL's blackout rule and 16-game regular season, and the men's only status of Augusta National. The noon timeslot for UM-OSU will also fall by the wayside I project.

As Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain once said in their theme song "it's what the network wants, why bother to complain?"
Thats a lot of words to say "I was talking out of my ass by saying no real OSU fan wants to keep it a day game."

You could have just typed that
 

Anisimovs AK

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Apr 14, 2006
3,323
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Columbus, OH
I’ll echo what others have said: when Live Sports makes the full-time move over to streaming services exclusively, Cable will be dead.

I mean, slightly OT, but even back in 2015 when my fiancée and I moved in together we knew not to get cable. All we needed was Netflix and Hulu. An OTA attenna did the trick IF we needed to catch local channels. I must be naive, but I wish more sports catered to the OTA Market.
When do you think that will happen? As it stands live sports are the one thing keeping cable alive and somewhat well
 

Kane One

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Feb 6, 2010
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I’ll echo what others have said: when Live Sports makes the full-time move over to streaming services exclusively, Cable will be dead.

I mean, slightly OT, but even back in 2015 when my fiancée and I moved in together we knew not to get cable. All we needed was Netflix and Hulu. An OTA attenna did the trick IF we needed to catch local channels. I must be naive, but I wish more sports catered to the OTA Market.
Absolutely this. I pay $140 (or was it $170) per month for one cable box and internet. Once blackouts are gone, I’m definitely cancelling cable and get a $40 internet plan from Verizon.
 
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46zone

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Feb 5, 2007
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If NBC or CBS get the rights to the game in the next contract, I'll bet money either network will want the game at night. As I said in an earlier post, there's lots of money from putting UM-OSU at night, and money is the main thing driving FBS football nowadays. And what the network wants ultimately trumps what the fans, students, boosters, and university president want (and I don't even like using the word "trump" for reasons I cannot get into without getting in trouble). Everyone who prefers the game at noon now will in time get used to the primetime slot.

Many traditions in sports have fallen by the wayside despite huge resistance. Like amateurism in NCAA sports, the unwritten rule that the American and National Leagues both must have an even number of teams to prevent seasonwide interleague play (and I believe that unwritten rule will return in the future through expansion), the NFL's blackout rule and 16-game regular season, and the men's only status of Augusta National. The noon timeslot for UM-OSU will also fall by the wayside I project.

As Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain once said in their theme song "it's what the network wants, why bother to complain?"

Michigan vs Ohio State gets 10+ million viewers every year despite the noon kickoff. The game being at noon does not hurt the ratings for the game one bit; it's not getting moved to primetime. I also seriously doubt that the Big 10 walks away from FOX either.
 

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