Merge

So Brad, the elite hacker, and I were talking Tuesday morning about the USA vs. Canada hockey game from Sunday night.  It's being dubbed as the second greatest moment in USA Hockey history.  When there might only be three such moments (only one other actually comes to mind), second place isn't that bad, or that good.  Anyways, I listen to sports radio some, and on Monday the outrage that NBC put the game on MSNBC was everywhere.  "How could they do this?!"  Easy, we (25-45 year old male sports fans) weren't the demographic.  The market for Olympic programming isn't us.  It's your grandma, or sister, or mom.  "But it's the biggest sporting event going right now, and this was the biggest game!?"  More news, it's not sports.  Phenomenal athletes abound, but there is a reason you don't get two hour pregame shows beforehand, and instead you get polar bears.  Most of the events are subjectively judged on crazy and inconsistent criteria, and by humans to boot.  If you have to count on the judge from Belarus to determine a winner, and not a clock or scoreboard, don't be surprised if it's not aimed and marketed to the typically sports fan. 

NBC does what I would consider average coverage of sporting events.  Their Sunday Night NFL show is decent.  But their coverage of this years Winter Games has been a home run in terms of ratings and therefore revenue.   They've averaged almost 3 times the viewers of their closest competitor, Fox, home of American Idol.  For more proof of them backing the right horse, the USA/Canada game pulled in 700,000 more viewers than Game 7 of the Stanley Cup playoffs in June.  And it was in standard def on MSNBC. 

Their coverage has not come without criticism however.  The lack of live events has come under heavy fire.  I guess that's justified, if it were up to me, I'd rather see live hockey every night in lieu of ice dancing on tape delay.  But if your business had the opportunity to do three times the business of your nearest competitor by simply conducting that business at the time when the most customers were available, wouldn't you?   You could say that they didn't put the best product on the table, i.e. live events, but I would contest that they really understand their market and have a great formula for delivering the right product at the right time and place.  That's two of the four P's for those counting at home. 

Bottom Line:  Like it or not, NBC got this right.  The majority is happy, otherwise they wouldn't continue to tune in, and that means more dollars for the Peacock.