Television viewers are complaining about poor coverage of the London Olympics. The television networks are complaining that people are using the internet to get better coverage, by circumventing geo-blocking systems to view coverage from other countries.
In the US, NBC is copping plenty of flack for poor and delayed coverage – (delayed to move events into the valuable primetime slots) – and here in Australia, the Nine Network are copping it for generally poor coverage, regardless of the time slot.
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“A growing number of people are no longer willing to watch TV on someone else’s schedule. They want to watch it on their own terms when and where it’s convenient for them.”
And there you have it, in a nutshell.
More evidence that “traditional media” cannot or will not respond to the ways in which people want to consume their content.
People don’t want to be locked into certain times. They don’t want to be locked into sitting down in front of an actual television to watch the content they want.
They want it how they want it, and the old broadcast models simply don’t match consumer desires.
The first media organisation to really “get it”, and deliver the content in flexible way, will win the “gold medal”.
If the networks are going to complain about people circumventing geographic boundaries to get a better product, that should be ringing alarm bells, telling them to deliver a better product.
It costs a lot of money to win the rights to cover the Olympics, so best they start listening to the message, lest that money goes completely to waste.
It might just take a high profile event like these Olympics for the penny to finally drop.
But I wouldn’t bet on it.