Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jasode | Hacker News Reader

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>When I was a kid, we use to look forward to the Olympics. It was a big deal. The whole family would gather around the TV to watch the events live regardless of timezone. [...] Nowadays, [...] No one cares. Heck, some people don’t even know that the Olympics are even happening.

It seems like the macro trend of network television spectacle events is on the decline and probably due to the internet. The decline in ratings happens across many domains:

- sports: NFL Super Bowl football viewership declines[1], MLB baseball, NASCAR racing, Olympics, etc

- awards shows: Academy Awards, Grammy Awards

- morning shows and evening newscasts on all networks NBC/ABC/CBS, etc

Both the internet (Netflix, Youtube, etc) and a demographic shift means events like the Olympics is not a big deal anymore. Yes, the Olympics committee has scandals but everything on network tv has been on a long term decline.

The 1950s television sets shifted audiences out of movie theaters. The 1940s era of "Gone With The Wind" and "Casablanca" represented the peak movie theater attendance for % of population. Now the internet is shifting audiences away from tv specials including the Olympics.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/sports/football/super-bow....

I think this is it, and I think all of these events need to be making deals with 1 or more streaming service to get major front page features. Network TV is holding onto them like a life-raft, and it’s causing both to drown. Tastes haven’t changed that much; audiences just aren’t seeing the events in their ecosystems.

Peacock (NBC’s service) is aggressively pushing Olympics coverage. I saw my roommate watching the Olympics, which he said was the first time he’d done since moving out of his parents.

I think you are spot on. Sports has been one of the main reasons left for many to get cable. I've thought a few times about trying to follow soccer more, but I'd need to get cable or YouTubeTV which is like $60/month. I recently started watching F1 again which is $80 for the whole year and it was super easy to sign up and watch on all my devices. It's even set up in a way where it's trivial to stay away from spoilers. I wonder if all access to sports and live events was that easy if they'd grow more as well.

I predict that the networks will either adapt or die as their remaining audience does as well.

I agree completely. I'd also add that many people don't even have cable television now, so could they even watch the Olympics if the wanted to? I have not watched network television in about 10 years, I have netflix and another streaming service, and that's it. Does NBC have free online streaming? Even if they do, it's still outside most people's normal sphere of media consumption so they are probably less likely to look at it.

I like this take. Big, spectacle events have almost lost their luster.

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