The Twitterverse is all up in arms over the fact that NBC won't live-stream Olympic events. NBC, of course, has exclusive broadcast rights to the summer games in the US and they intend to maximize their revenue by showing the key events only during primetime hours.
And NBC has limited online streaming access to those who have cable access, further frustrating the cord-cutters among us. They've turned to online VPN services which allow them to appear to be from other countries, as detailed by Heidi Moore.
Take a look at the #NBCFail hashtag on Twitter. You can see all the frustration pouring out in real-time. But while that's helped to get journalist Guy Adams' Twitter account suspended, it's having little to no impact on NBC. Even Jeff Jarvis' pleas for NBC to listen to its' customers fell on deaf ears. Of course, that's probably because we aren't NBC's customers; we're the product (eyeballs).
For as frustrating as this experience may be for the technologically advanced, it's been a positive for NBC, who reportedly have averaged over 35 million viewers for each of the first three nights of Olympic coverage.
NBC's customers are their advertisers. And the only way that NBC will respond is if their advertisers press them to. And the only way that will happen is if we have a viewer boycott. A sizable boycott will be incredibly difficult to stage on such short notice - but maybe with the right media coverage, it can happen.
So, let's call for all in the US to boycott one hour of Olympic coverage this Thursday at 8:00 pm ET. Let's send NBC the one message that they can't ignore.
