Tag: NBC

Video, vexing and victorious: Olympics, CNN

Weren’t those Olympic opening ceremonies amazing? I sure thought so – YMMV (Your Mileage May Vary). Got to watch on my sister-in-law Diane’s new flat/wide-screen TV and … that surely helped make them truly awesome, to use a much-overused term of the day.

And there’s a comfortable familiarity to the way our network, NBC, covers the games – the great John Williams music, Bob Costas at ease talking to President Bush or Bela Karolyi, etc.

Before I dive into the unfortunate part of this message, let me point to a nice new addition to our Website – CNN videos, a frequently updated selection available right below the video player, in what’s known as a ‘widget’ – something added to our and our sister stations’ Websites. Click one, and the screen darkens a bit and the pop-up viewer plays the piece in wide-screen format (something we intend to move to for our own online videos in coming months, by the way).

The best thing about the CNN video addition – at least, to my work-addled eyes – is that much like our wide variety of AP news, it’s automated, which means it’s fresh and up to date, 24 hours a day, days and nights and weekends. If we can get the same thing at some point from MSNBC, then the only manual posting I’ll need to do will be our local video content. Yay!

But, alas, things aren’t going quite so swimmingly for Central Oregonians wanting to watch live streaming video or other “enhanced” video coverage of the Beijing Olympics.

I’m going to try to word this carefully here, because I know just enough to be dangerous, but basically it boils down to the fact that NBC wants to partner (read: contract) with local “TV providers,” on providing not just all that extra online video – 2,000 hours worth at the Olympics – but also on-air via the cable systems, with Video on Demand, special Olympics channels, etc. And they want to extend those contracts through the 2012 Olympics.

But there’s this big umbrella cable-operators organization that wants to instead negotiate a deal for everyone. So while NBC-Universal has been trying to work out deals with individual cable operators, some want to wait for the big package, national agreement. And those, alas, at this time include our very own BendBroadband.

I learned that the eve of the Olympics, as I wrote my Friday piece, fired up the fancy Microsoft Silverlight-powered NBC Olympics player, and hit… a message, asking for my ZIP code and which “TV provider” I have. I said BendBroadband, and it said, “We’re sorry,” and explained basically what I just explained above.

I got, um, a bit upset. Fired off some notes, both to NBC folks I know and on Websites like Lost Remote, asking what the heck was going on? I heard today – on a Sunday! – from an NBC-Universal VP who explained what I’ve said and agreed it wouldn’t hurt for folks to make their cable provider aware of their… dissatisfaction with paying for that great speedy cable-modem service, and then being unable to view one of the most unprecedented offerings of Web content ever seen, because of a contract squabble.

He said they are continuing to negotiate, and hope to get the issue resolved beore the Olympics ends.

I sure hope so. In the meantime, I’m not sure that fibbing about your “TV provider” works – I have gingerly tried, and given up. There’s still lots of NBCOlympics.com material to enjoy, including some video, if a bit… delayed. But the four-screen window of live events, etc. has to wait for the negotiators to negotiate.

(By the way, we’re not alone in this mess – I was told today the uncovered areas include about 3 MILLION customers, and MediaWeek has reported on Cablevision folks in the Northeast stuck in the same boat we are.)

Just wanted you to know it’s not KTVZ’s doing or fault, any more than the 15-hour delay to prime time of certain marquee sports coverage (and the Opening/Closing Ceremonies, etc.) I can understand NBC driving folks to the TV, even in these Net-enabled times, because… hey, they spent quite a bundle on the TV rights, and then charged quite a bundle for the commercials, so… like I always say, “Information wants to be free, but I want a raise.”

But to promote these 2,000 hours of online streaming video, and then throw a caveat/asterisk/roadblock in like this is, well, more than a bit bothersome.

I won’t put BendBroadband’s link/phone number here, but chances are, you know them already. Maybe you can help convince their powers that be that we want and deserve that live streaming video, and we do promise to watch the TV too. I believe the two are complementary, not robbing each other of viewers.

UPDATE: I should have known, my pal Jake over at UtterlyBoring wrote about the Olympics video issue back on Thursday and suggested the work-around of using another ZIP code and provider to see the stuff. Why we should have to fib to see the added video, sigh…

Into our living rooms, losses of pain (or ‘Less Stay, More Cation’)

Wow, check this out: http://echuck.newsvine.com/_news/2008/06/13/1571290-in-memoriam-nbc-newsman-tim-russert – such wonderfully written, heartfelt comments on the passing of someone many of us felt we knew, and liked, even though we’d never met him.

I was in Master Control, prepping to record tonight’s ‘Leave it to Barney” (darn that lint roller!;-) when the golf gave way to an NBC News Special Report slide. Then,Tom Brokaw. Then the sad news of Tim Russert’s passing. It was a shock, I’m guessing, to everyone when they heard the news. Surely at our network, in our profession, and to middle-aged males across America who work too hard, get too much stress and too little sleep, and fear the pain that takes us to the Next Stage.

Tonight also marks the start of time away from the newsroom, a whole week, to mark my 25th wedding anniversary to darling Deb. It’s, to use the new term, a ‘Staycation’ – because until my wife finds a job;-/ we can’t afford to go far, much less to the dreamed-of Hawaii. Plus, there’s this beast called KTVZ.COM that always needs feeding, and the folks in the newsroom only know so much about how to do that. My fault, I suppose. I care too much about every word, want to beat back every typo, so…  I can’t let go.

Former station manager Jim DeChant, the Wise Buddha of NewsChannel 21, taught me some good lessons when I arrived a few years back, with only high school and college TV experience. He (and others to be sure), talk of the special power of television to bring people into our living rooms, day and night, to the point where we truly feel we know them (and like them, hopefully), so when we lose them, it’s like a loss in the family.

Those Newsvine tributes show just how true it is. They are almost more tear-inducing than the loss itself. People who don’t know each other and actually never knew Tim Russert, felt they knew him, and with his passing, we shed collective tears. The Internet has that power. So does television. May we use it wisely, and try never to abuse it. It’s too important.

And I’ll do my best to make it less “stay” and more “cation” over the next week. If that means a few less updates of the Website – well, my apologies. Get away from the keyboard, now that the High Desert has finally warmed up. Read a book in Drake Park. Get on that bike. Hug those spouses and kids.

Life’s too short. Who needs another reminder?;-)