Comment by mbreese | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mbreese | Hacker News Reader

One of the comments at the NPR site suggested the IOC not have an exclusive broadcast partner and just open it up for everyone to cover it as they'd like. I think that this is interesting, but hardly a way to fund an event as massive as the Olympics. In order to any changes to work, you'd have to be able to make up the $800+ million NBC ponied up for the games.

So, here's an idea: why not let others (even competitors) bid on individual events. This could work from either the IOC doing to brokering or even NBC itself.

So, for example, if another network wanted to broadcast the USA/Canada hockey game, they could have bid for the rights to show either that game, or all of hockey. I'm sure that would be worth something. Why should a large part of the country have to miss out on a great event, just because NBC decided to show ice dancing?

Split the games up into smaller biddable packages, and I'm sure you'd end up with as much, if not more, revenue for the IOC, and more people could get to see a greater variety of events. Imagine if ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox/ESPN were all showing a part of the Olympics? Wouldn't this be more in the spirit? You'd get a greater variety of events and more depth in individual events.

To build off of your idea, what if the IOC had their own camera crews that would cover the live events and rather than bidding out the events? They could license access to the raw footage to buyers (i.e. NBC/ABC/ESPN) who would then choose how to use the footage as well as applying their own commentators and technologies (such as scores, replays, etc.).

Seems like the IOC would benefit from licensing to all the different networks, the networks would all benefit from being able to carry the olympics, and the people would benefit from the competition between the networks to provide better replays/commentary/analysis.

I have to believe that a lot of the action is covered with Olympic provided cameras. There are a lot of cameras on track systems, which there can only be one of. There are also a lot of cameras in venues that only hold a single set of cameras; e.g. curling and hockey rinks.

Other than 'backstage' interviews, I suspect most footage is shot by IOC crews.

When you (as NBC) have payed $800 million to get coverage, I imagine you can gut and rewire/install anything you like in the facilities, and even give your employees jackets that say IOC on them.

Or you don't want to spend another dime on a proposition that is going to cost you $200 million. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/20/sports/olympics/20sandomir...

For the opening ceremonies, I watched both the CTV coverage (first) and then later in the evening the NBC coverage. I was pretty shocked at the differences -- the NBC coverage was terrible: Horrible camera angles, bad panning and zooming, almost no close-ups on single performers and way too much on group performances, terrible lighting, the audio cut out twice during a major performance -- you name it, it was poorly done. Watching it on NBC, you'd think the entire opening ceremonies was 2-bit production. I was actually surprised that there simply wasn't one set of cameras for everyone involved.

This is pretty much what happens.

There's an IOC subsidiary called Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), which has crews/cameras/directors at every session of every event. If you're watching an event happen (as opposed to an interview), there's a 99% chance it's coming from an OBS camera. If the shot is coming from a site-specific camera - like the track-side camera at speedskating or the overhead curling shots - it is coming from an OBS camera. OBS cameras are the only ones allowed to go into the field of play; all other cameras have to stay on specified media risers outside the competition area.

When you watch an event on CTV, you're actually watching the OBS feed (with OBS graphics) overlaid with a CTV-supplied commentary track - the only sound OBS supplies is the ambient environmental ones, and it doesn't cut to any interviews or anything. Those of you who watched the Beijing Olympics on the CBC website may recall that there were eight or nine feeds available, but only one of which had CBC commentary. The commentary-free ones (which also didn't have commercial breaks or explanations) were the raw OBS feeds, without any additional CBC editing/directing.

When a broadcaster pays for exclusive national rights to the Olympics, one of the main things they're paying for is exclusive access to the OBS feeds. As for why they don't sell that feed to multiple networks? I assume they've worked the math and determined that they'll make more money by selling it exclusively, as opposed to cooperatively.

I assume that they haven't worked the math. I assume they are doing it that way because they've always done things that way, and that is what everyone expects them to do.

But if they went and looked at economic theory they would find that the expected price of a bundle is always less than the sum of the prices of the individual things that are part of that bundle. So theory says that selling things piecemeal should result in more revenue.

In the case of the Olympics you would do that by selling off sports one by one. If NBC values speed skating and skiing, let them have it. If CBS wants hockey, let them have it. If ESPN is willing to buy biathlon, let them have it. Any sports not purchased wholesale can be negotiated during the Olympics. So if nobody buys bobsleigh but an interesting story there happens, they sell the story just like any other story of interest gets sold.

A lot of paperwork, and a shift in mindset, but they should get more money that way. And interested viewers would get better coverage of a broader range of sports.

>the expected price of a bundle is always less than the sum of the prices of the individual things

This also goes for viewers though. If in order to watch the 4 events that I want I have to buy 2 separate bundles then the bundled price of those 4 events, for me, is greater.

Actually not. Economic theory says that most consumers will spend less for what they get and get greater value for their money if they buy equivalent services piecemeal. The reason is simple, when you buy a bundle you get a mix of things you want and things you don't. You therefore are willing to pay the sum of the values of things you want. But once you have purchased the bundle the marginal cost of consumption goes down and you will use things out of the bundle that would not be worth your while to buy piecemeal.

However in practice consumers do not want the hassle and prefer bundles. Vendors like bundles as well because they provide a convenient way to get people to try things they wouldn't otherwise try.

However in this case bundle versus piecemeal is not the appropriate comparison. The problem now is that one vendor buys the entire feed, and then doesn't offer all of it. If it was sold piecemeal to different vendors, then you'd have the option of watching everything, including things like hockey that are not currently being shown. And for avid sport watchers the extra cost is nothing for the simple reason that you probably have already purchased a bundle from the cable company that gives you most of the likely channels on which things you want will be there. The result then for the end consumer is that the Olympics are on more channels with greater variety, and therefore people will get to watch more of what they want. The additional people in the seats will result in more eyes for advertiser dollars, and everyone is happier.

Incidentally there is an interesting fact about selling services piecemeal versus bundling. If two vendors compete in the same market with those strategies economic theory predicts a nasty price war until one is driven out. See http://www.dtc.umn.edu/~odlyzko/doc/price.war.pdf for the gory details.

I'd pay for access to the OBS feeds directly.

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