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Comment by bena | Hacker News Reader

No, there's nothing really to do. They aren't producing the feed, they're essentially hosting a stream from another broadcaster.

For instance, if you have Paramount+, you can watch sports broadcast by your local CBS station through it. That station is going to be running commercials, Paramount+ has no input on it. The most they can do is run ads over their ads.

I'm assuming there's something similar with Disney+. You can watch your local ABC broadcast or ESPN broadcast of a game, but you're just getting that broadcast as being currently aired.

But even for broadcasts wholly owned and controlled by a streaming platform, like Thursday Night Football on Prime, there are just times when it would be dead air. I don't entirely mind commercials in that instance. Nothing else is going on.

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Let’s reverse the situation, they were able to add ads to sport events, so they can definitely remove ads and show the main event cameras if they wanted to. But they’re picking up showing ads indirectly through some other service.

Who is "they" in this situation?

I noted that the streaming service, like Paramount+, would be able to overlay their own ads over the broadcasted commercials, but they won't have control over the cameras. That's on the broadcast station, they're the ones controlling the remote production.

Paramount+ can only rebroadcast what my local CBS affiliate is broadcasting.

I think only Netflix and Prime have deals to actually produce sports broadcasts.

I suppose it’s a response to this part:

> But even for broadcasts wholly owned and controlled by a streaming platform, like Thursday Night Football on Prime, there are just times when it would be dead air. I don't entirely mind commercials in that instance. Nothing else is going on.

I.e. instead of dead air, they could show some live feed in the spot that other broadcasters use for commercials.

Have you been to a live sports event?

What's happening in that time is just random bullshit. They'll run bits on the jumbotron, hold raffles, go play games with people in the stands, etc. All sponsored by "<SO AND SO>, the official <THING> of your <LOCAL SPORTS TEAM>". Or, in other words, ads.

You could show the players and coaches on the sidelines, but that's also rather boring. It'll be a couple of guys shooting the shit on a bench, or a couple of guys hunched over a table, or some guys warming up.

The best thing they can do is like information from other games maybe.

Honestly, I was going by my most recent experience, which was F1 in Singapore last year. (I’ve been in Singapore at the time, but haven’t managed to get to a good spot, so I was watching it online a couple blocks away.) That thing had ads every minute, but the race obviously doesn’t stop during the breaks.

> What's happening in that time is just random bullshit.

Are most sports events like this? It sucks then, but the playing games with people in the stands thing sounds better than just plain ads. Mix that with sidelines shots, some alternative commentary maybe (with some instant replays?), and sure, information from other games, and you get a nice, coherent broadcast with some ads from the stadium but none that are as out of place as the usual commercial breaks.

Ads consume attention, so I do prefer static. Then again, I don't know why people watch TV (at all) or browse without uBlock.

Does uBlock work on commercials aired as part of a stream/broadcast? I don't mean where they interrupt the stream and insert an ad, I mean that it's part of the video produced.

I genuinely don't know and am asking out of curiosity.

Depends on the service.

I wouldn't know, for the same reason: I don't see the point in watching a stream rather than something one specifically wants to watch.

Do like international broadcasters do for these things and opt out to your own presenters with analysis etc

I'm unsure. I believe I've seen Telemundo at certain events, but they could have deals to rebroadcast and they'd have the same options as Paramount+. They can run ads over the broadcast ads and swap the audio feed with their own. The broadcast feed should have at the very least; a video feed, a crowd/stadium audio feed, and the commentary audio feed. So they could just not rebroadcast the commentary audio and replace it with their own.

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