NBC Finally "Gets" this Internet Thing

It wasn't too long ago that NBC was scrambling to remove it's now infamous SNL "D*ck in a Box" skit from Youtube (and any other site that was impinging on its 'copyrighted' material). Their official and on-record vigilance about removing any trace of the SNL skit caused thousands (maybe millions) to be unable to access and view it. The only problem with this course of action, of course, is that while protecting their intellectual property, NBC was shelling one of their first truly "did-you-see-that" talk-value SNL skits in a long time.

SNL had started to go the way of the dinosaur, and NBC seemed determined that viewers would only be rewarded with content if they tuned in at 11:30 on Saturday nights for the original broadcast. And the attitude at NBC seemed to be a big "too bad" if you were eating, sleeping, or doing anything else than making an appointment with your TV for SNL viewing. In a time of fragmented consumer attention, this was totally counterintuitive-- as if NBC was single-handedly going to buck the will of millions of consumers by re-introducing a literally captive audience to their television broadcasts.

That was a little over a year ago. Enter the 2008 Olympics. The games are taking place in a country that is many time zones removed from ours, forcing NBC to re-think this tune-in-live-or-too-bad policy. NBC partners with Microsoft for live streaming video from the games, hosting on NBCOlympics.com. This would appear to be a vast improvement, with NBC now allowing their 'copyrighted' material to circulate on the web.....

Except for one little catch. The time zone thing was tricky for prime-time broadcasting-- NBC decided to delay showing big events for prime-time TV in an effort to draw a large audience to the broadcast. If those events were allowed to be viewed online live, that meant NBC's prime-time broadcast might be hurt. So, only select streams were made available live, and some streamed only after the on-air broadcast. Personally, I didn't watch an ounce of the Olympics in prime-time. Even as a rabid sports fan, the idea of knowing the result hours beforehand tends to kill the impact of the match. I did, however, stream online when NBC allowed me to.

The site was a step for NBC, nonetheless, and one that paid off--42 million unique visitors to the site, spending an average of 27 minutes during the games. That's a huge amount of eyeballs, and a depth of engagement that no doubt, NBC was happy to capture-- and didn't want to miss by not streaming events online.

Now, NBC has joined the networks that stream popular shows online. It even has a fancy new tagline, "Chime In." This is likely to highlight they are coming out of the dark ages and allowing conversation around their own product. A small move that I noted and appreciated, but I wasn't sold on NBC as a network that was innovating or embracing online conversation by any means.

The real watershed for selling me on NBC came with Sunday Night Football this year. Like many ridiculously-addicted NFL fans, I was thrilled when the season opened on September 4th. Like many NFL-addicts who live on the West Coast, I was upset that the game began during the workday here on the West Coast. Millions of NFL fans have been forced, in the past, to settle for bad text updates via mobile phone or internet browser ("Manning incomplete pass on 3rd down"). This compared in no way to watching a game.

NBC shocked me by beating ESPN's Monday Night Football to the punch, and launched Sunday Night Football's site, http://www.sundaynightisfootballnight.com/. Besides being a beautiful site, it's also rich with what is the best streaming sports coverage to-date. The interface of the game is the same you would see on-screen, PLUS PLUS. It offers 5 different camera angles, ability to see plays in instant replay, and overall, adds up to the most satisfying sports experience online. ESPN has been innovating at a rate far beyond its stodgy network competitors for years-- but NBC nailed this one. I was highly disappointed on Monday when I looked to stream Monday Night Football from ESPN.com, only to have the same old text-tracking experience that frankly, wasn't worth monitoring. For the 2008 season so far, NBC Sports, 1 : ESPN, 0.

Oh, and the latest SNL skit to go to "must-see" status is Tina Fey's recent rendition of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. I missed the live broadcast of the SNL skit, but I caught it on Youtube. Because NBC allowed me to catch it on Youtube, in addition to displaying the skit for video play prominently on their own homepage.

Thanks, NBC, for finally "getting it" and realizing that if your content is good enough to be sought out online-- that isn't a bad thing, but an incredibly good thing. An incremental kind of thing, not a detrimental kind of thing.

I'll be streaming Sunday Night Football while I watch the broadcast on Sunday. Have you seen the site yet? What do you think?