John asked me to tell him why he’s wrong about the Olympics, so here goes: If you’re going to imagine a 4-way celebrity car crash, and you don’t put any Kardashians in the car, that’s a clear failure of tragic imagination.
Other than that, I have to say that I don’t understand the carping about Olympic coverage. I can go to the NBC Olympics site and pull up video of every single event, and watch every event live. I can watch the 10 M Air Rifle finals on demand (Go Romania!) for Bieber’s sake. I can download a free app on my tablet and watch handball while I’m sitting on the can, and another free app for my smartphone lets me watch taekwondo while I’m out walking the dog. What’s not to like about that?
The Olympics site is a mammoth, amazing technical achievement. The reason I was bitching the other day was because some idiot suit decided not to put the opening ceremony on their amazing piece of shiny technology.
And, yes, I get that if you don’t have a cable TV subscription, you don’t see everything on the Olympics site. I have no love for NBC, but the Olympics’ business model is not NBC’s fault. The broadcast rights to a multi-billion dollar spectacle are going to cost billions, and you’re going to have to pay. A month of cable here costs somewhere in the ballpark of $75 (including installation). When the Winter Olympics come, if watching downhill cocktail ice cube melting is so damn important, sign up for cable so you can access NBC’s online site, then cancel. Some things cost money. This is one of them.
Polyhedron
Look, that’s great that you already have cable. On the other hand, NBC keeps advertising their “free” live streaming of events. Imagine my surprise when I went to download the app for my Kindle Fire and discovered that it doesn’t exist. NBC has no contract with Amazon, so root your Kindle or go out and buy an iPad. (It is supported for some Android devices, but all the reports online suggest it’s buggy as hell.)
Ok, fine. I’ll watch it on my laptop. Oh, sorry, you need a cable subscription. While the cost per month may be $75, that assumes that you already have cable. I would bet dollars to donuts that turning on the service and then cancelling it a month later adds at least $50-100 in “processing” costs to the price.
The Ancient Randonneur
I may start watching the Olympics again if pole dancing makes it into the 2016 line up. Other than that I have little interest in watching. Now, get off my lawn!
arguingwithsignposts
Fuck you and NBC, mistermix. Give me an online-only option where I don’t have to pay for bullshit cable that I’ll then have to cancel next month, and we’re good.
And for fuck’s sake, I wish they’d stop calling it “free.” IT’S NOT FREE!
Interestingly, I haven’t watched any of the Olympics, since they haven’t offered that option. I might have bought a package online-only, and I could certainly find somewhere on the Internet to watch it for free, but as it stands, it’s been a non-entity for me.
I realize NBC is all about the Benjamins, but there are so many other ways to do this that would be better for consumers.
the antibob
Or, spend that $75 on Witopia and access the BBC for a year. The accents are better. Plus – Jools Holland.
Rob
And yet somehow the BBC can do it all. But it isn’t the fault of NBC!
beltane
@Rob: But do BBC executives get paid as much as NBC’s glorious executives? It’s American exceptionalism at work again; just as with health care, Americans are exceptional for having to pay extremely high prices for things the rest of the world gets at much reduced cost.
R-Jud
$75 a MONTH?!?!
With the Beeb, I pay £110/year for my TV license and get access to 24 online channels streaming any sport I like, live– AND I can turn off the commentary if I want. They had a similar system in place for Beijing, IIRC.
There’s also at least 7 days’ access to repeats on iPlayer. Added bonus: no Ryan Seacrest. Ever.
mistermix
@arguingwithsignposts: My aren’t we touchy this morning. So you’re saying you would pay $75 to watch the Olympics, but you just object to paying it to your cable provider? Because I would wager that’s what a for-profit entity would have to charge for the quality of coverage NBC is delivering online.
@Rob: BBC is financed by a TV tax on every Brit with any kind of TV equipment. NBC isn’t.
john b
the opening ceremony is on the nbc site/app now for what it’s worth.
R-Jud
@mistermix:
You don’t have to pay the TV license on a television that isn’t hooked up to receive a signal. We did this for several years while we were broke; a guy came round, confirmed we were only using the TV for games and DVDs, and sent us a refund for what we’d paid so far that year.
We were still ok to watch BBC content on iPlayer, too, as long as it wasn’t live. Had they caught us live-streaming, we’d have had to pay the license and a penalty.
Cassidy
This is an easy one. I have the most basic cable I can get to get good internet service. I don’t have CNBC and MSNBC. So I am paying for it, just not channels I don’t want. BUt I still can’t access the app because I’m not a high enough paying customer. To get those channels, my cable bill would jump from $50 to $120. That isn’t right.
Secondly, the coverage is just shit. While a riveting archery match was going on, we got to see 3 hours of cycling. While the US Men were doing their qualifications, we got ot see 3 hours of cycling. While some really good volleyball was happenning, both kinds, we got to watch 3 hours of cycling. That’s just one morning. They never show the rowing or anyof the lesser known events and it’s bullshit. I, personally, would like to see the handball and water polo and synchronized swimming and badminton…etc. If I were paying $120 a month for that kind of crap coverage, I’d be livid. And let’s not even start on the idiot commentary and filler interviews. Howsabout some shut the fuck up and show some people playing sports.
This is one of those few times where it’s nice to feel some national pride. It makes me happy to watch those young, talented kids achieve something like this. That this whole thing is blantantly aimed at their clients instead of the consumers is galling. As long as Proctor and Gamble gets their advertising, though, fuck the rest of us right?
Lee
My biggest complaint is that they still time delayed the coverage over last weekend. There was no excuse for that.
Time delay during the week for broadcast makes sense and they could start it a bit earlier. My wife and I sit down and watch after work.
If I want to watch stuff live, I’ve got 4 or 5 channels on DirecTV that are dedicated to different sports (soccer, backetball, and a couple others ).
Fouten
Harlan Ellison said it best:
Sometimes it’s an indie darling doing a kickstarter.
Sometimes it’s NBC.
Don’t steal, stuff costs money.
NotMax
@Fouten
An Ellison reference and brevity?
I think I’m in love. ;)
Narcissus
This isn’t that hard to understand. It’s just a shitty, shitty product that we have to pay far too much for and have no alternatives to.
I mean it’s basically an encapsulation of the whole Corporate American shit sandwich we all have to eat every day: Expensive, Stupid, and Inferior to what other countries get simply for paying their taxes.
Randy P
Yes, if you’re free to watch TV online when the event is on live, it’s a great thing. But the live streams for gymnastics have been midday for me and NBC is not making them available for replay. Most other events, not that. Also swimming prelims are in replay, but not finals.
Comrade Scrutinizer
Wah, wah, wah. The amount of coverage of events is incredible. I’ve managed to watch ALL the fencing competition (including that fantastic win by Kim Jiyeon in women’s saber yesterday) for the first time ever—while it was happening, with the extra added bonus of not having to listen to a presenter tell me what I was watching. I’ve been able to watch live events live whenever they were going on, or watch complete replays when I couldn’t watch live because I was doing something else, or didn’t want to get up at 4 am. I’ve been able to do that without having to resort to a uk vpn to watch the beeb. What NBC does with its broadcast/cable shows is pretty much irrelevant to me.
If you want to complain about the business model of the Olympics, go to it, but complaints about the amount of coverage are misguided.
Cassidy
@Comrade Scrutinizer: So basically, IGMFU?
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Randy P: Not so. I’m looking the replay of the women’s team gymnatics final right now.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Cassidy: Did you read the part about complaining about the business model separate from the coverage provided? Or are you partially illiterate?
Carrie
Where do you get a cable subscription that doesn’t require a 2-year commitment?
DJAnyReason
Shorter Mastermix:
The Kardashians should die in a car crash. Also, if you want to see the full NBC olympics coverage, you need to also subsidize the channel that airs Keeping Up With the Kardashians.
the antibob
The BBC manages to provide online- on demand replays of all events. If NBC isn’t providing that, I’m sure it’s because 1) There isn’t an easy way to milk revenue from it. 2) Monopoly.
Yes, I feel a bit bad about filching from the BeeB, but they don’t have a tip jar.
arguingwithsignposts
@mistermix:
Um, no. First, I doubt they’d gouge at that price for a two-week event. And, btw, I’m not just paying for NBC’s lackluster Olympic coverage, I’d be subsidizing all the other shit that is on that cable system – and having to go through the expense and time of having to get it connected and disconnected. No thanks.
Xboxershorts
Yes and no.
The Olympics have become a major profit making worldwide sporting spectacle. So, sure. Let the broadcast rights be able to generate a profit.
But…
The American tax payers puts up millions and millions of dollars to house, train and care for our Athletes. The preparation for our nation’s participation in the Olympics is very much a tax payer subsidized process.
So, here we are again, taxpayers footing the bill and socializing the risk while corporate behemoths extract all the profit.
This profitizing and comodiitizing of everything under the sun has gotten way way out of hand. The preparation for the Olympics and of our athletes participating are paid for by all of us.
There should be limits on profiteering.
Cassidy
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Must have gotten drowned out in your condescending tone, stating that all was good since you have been watching whatever you want, while not really addressing the multiple issues people have brought up.
anonymoose
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
If NBC is going to show an event during their primetime show, the block the replay of an event until AFTER it is shown on TV. Then it is available for replay.
Miss gymnastics when it was live and want to see it when you get home that afternoon? You’re SOL. You either have to watch the NBC coverage, or you have to wait till after they show it on TV to watch the replay later.
RoonieRoo
Just to make sure I understand. NBC CHOOSES to pay billions for the exclusive broadcast ownership of the Olympics that no other country’s stations have to pay (nor them in reality). They CHOOSE to pay this ridiculous amount to make sure they block ABC, CBS or anybody else from making or getting a bid. It is not because that is what it costs, you morons, but their way to make sure there is no way they can lose the bid. But that is America so no surprise and the 1% roll in more money.
So that is fine and dandy. Now if someone can’t afford to pay $120 cable bill (that is what it would be for us) each month to be able to watch this OR if they are cord cutters, to get back on, pay $250-$300 hook up fee PLUS $120 so they can then cancel the next month (oh yeah, that makes awesome financial sense), then they are just dirty poor people who shouldn’t get to watch because they are probably Napster thieves anyway.
Okay, fine, so they are people that can afford the monthly cable bill so they can watch all this great stuff live on their computer. Geeze, that is so appealing. Really beats watching it around the TV enjoying it with your whole family.
Oh wait. But poor Dad has to do that thing called….oh what do you call it….oh I know…WORK! He has to hold that lowly job and actually work during the day to pay for that cable bill. So screw Dad for getting to see the olympics. But then again, he probably doesn’t deserve to see good coverage because he is one of those poor, less fortunate people that really don’t deserve anything at all in life because he has to actually hold a real life job that means he has to actually work as opposed to sit on his ass in front of his laptop watching live streaming Olympics all day.
So the primetime Olympics coverage in the evening that is the only option for a large portion of America, aka the working poor/late-lamented middle class, has the ability/time to watch should be the worst coverage imaginable. I mean, really, they are just those working people that we really wish would just shut up and stop whining. I mean they really should be happy without whatever gruel they are given, right?
pseudonymous in nc
But it’s actually not as good as the ones they had in 2008 or even 2004, when there were no restrictions on who could see it. They’ve offloaded their archiving to YouTube, and the arrangement of videos and the UI is shit. And once again, it’s worth noting that the raw feeds are provided by OBS, not NBC.
(Someone on Deadspin posted a screenshot of the Swiss broadcaster’s web player, and it’s really sweetly done. The one for NOS in the Netherlands is nice as well. I haven’t checked the French or German ones yet, but will probably take a look.)
NBC has spent its online budget on the mobile/tablet apps this time, which are pretty nice looking but buggy as hell, they aren’t as good as ESPN3/WatchESPN, which is pretty much the standard people use for live sporting events.
I paid for a month of cable (plus installation fee) to give NBC and the cable operators their pound of flesh, just in case the alternative options fell through, but I’ve spent as little time as possible watching the US coverage so far.
Gian
NBC is using a broadcast model from the 1960s. It involves doing a lot of stuff on tape delay and mixing in “human interest” stories with the sports. Networks in the US have done this since the 1960s
NBC is clinging to this model of distribution in the same way that record companies clung to the CD.
The rest of the world doesn’t do it this way but it’s a US model that NBC is using. It would be the same if ABC or CBS or Fox was doing it.
they simply don’t cover the dames as a sporting event. you’d never see the superbowl tape delayed and interspersed with the overcoming adversity human interest stories.
chopper
yeah, 75 bones at least, plus the stupid ‘installation fee’ that you have to literally threaten to dunk the cable rep’s face in a bucket of hot shit to get them to waive (‘installation’ ending up being ‘flipping a switch somewhere’ which somehow costs $120).
sorry, i’m not paying 200 dollars to watch the olympics. that being said, i can always walk around the corner, sit in my friend’s bar and watch it on a much better tv than mine, drinking. but i’m lucky that way.
RoonieRoo
@Gian:
I would love to find out if ABC, CBS or even, gag, Fox would do the same or much better. But we never will. We know that having choice is not an American virtue anymore. But I suspect that they would do a much better job than NBC purely because a part of the problem is the business model that NBC chooses for this.
NotMax
@Glan
Old enough to remember the major brouhaha when a football game broadcast was cut short to show the movie “Heidi” at its scheduled time?
Just for the record, that was NBC as well. Institutional memory runs deep.
chopper
plus you probably get roped into some 6 month or year-long contract, so you pay some lousy fee to cancel 2 weeks later.
RoonieRoo
@chopper: Yep! But, hey, that is just the price that every American should gladly pay to watch good Olympics coverage according to Cole and Mistermix.
We all have to support those poor impoverished NBC executives. Plus we all know that the Olympics probably would shut down and not even be held if NBC didn’t pay all those billions to help fund it. Right? Right?
blondie
Amen to the commenter who noted that many of us can’t catch any Olympic coverage until prime time; so we should be safe to assume that the Olympics are comprised mostly of gymnastics and swimming or diving events, correct?
This is a very small nit, but we all know the coverage is time-delayed; so the “tension” of waiting for results is hokey and contrived. There’s a lot of stuff going on over there, but they think the better TV is watching some gymnast’s tormented face while awaiting a score? Maybe the Kardashians should be covering this. They have a closer tie to the Olympics than Seacrest.
Shawn in ShowMe
And this, my friends, is yet another example of why the 1% will kick our ass forever and ever. The first step to engaging in successful class warfare is recognizing who the enemy is.
Corporate America is your enemy. They are ALWAYS your enemy. They will ALWAYS make you pay exorbitant sums of money for services the rest of the world has figured out how to deliver at a reasonable price. They will ALWAYS deliver good service for middle class proles who have the ability to pay their monopoly rates and crap on everyone else.
You can’t endorse class war in one breath and endorse American business practices in another. C’mon my middle class brethren, you’re better than this.
Cris (without an H)
EXACTLY. Interviewing Michael Phelps six times and running soft-focus five-minute profiles of athlete’s families are marginally justifiable, if annoying. But spending even a single minute talking about what Olympic tweets are trending? Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot that this is not NBC’s fault, it’s the Olympics’ revenue model or some shit.
My biggest gripe with the NBC coverage, going back years, is that they focus so heavily on the US teams that they practically exclude any sport in which the US doesn’t have medal chances, and pretty much ignore the other countries in the sports where the US does compete. You’d think the gymnastics all-around was five US athletes vs. one guy from Japan and one guy from China, and that’s it.
Ultimately, the prime time main-channel coverage isn’t about showing sports, it’s about presenting a narrative and dearly clinging to the possibility of a dramatic finish. I’d probably get a better sporting fix if I thought TV was worth paying for. (I’d pay for the online package, yes I would, but I don’t have that option.)
Also, fuck Bob Costas. “If you want to watch badminton coverage, and who doesn’t….” Cram it up your ass Bob. Just because you don’t care about a sport doesn’t make it unworthy of attention.
Cassidy
@Cris (without an H): Hell, when the American Archery team won Silver, that was apparently a hotly contested contest that came down to the last arrow. I would have loved to have seen that. Even better if Ryan Seacrest and Costas were used as targets.
Cris (without an H)
I don’t know. ABC did the 1984 Los Angeles games, and though I got pretty irritated at Jim McKay’s old-and-out-of-it closing ceremony commentary (“are those break dancers? I think that’s called break dancing.”), I was too young to have the curmudgeonly annoyances I have now. So maybe it was just as bad, but I think we at least have an empirical example for comparison.
Grumpy Code Monkey
We no longer have cable, so we only get NBC’s daytime and prime time coverage.
The prime time gymnastics coverage has been tragic for the following reasons:
1. Trautwig, Dagget, and Schegel cannot tell the story of the competition. We rarely get an idea of what the standings are, or how a particular routine affects that gymnast’s place in the competition. The stupid red-yellow-green gimmick tells us nothing useful. A better system would show the cumulative score and current rank in the competition in addition to last routine’s score.
2. We don’t get to see a good chunk of the competition. No rings, damned little parallel bars, some high bar.
3. We don’t get to see all the competitors. During the men’s team competition, we did not get to see much of China or Japan, despite the fact that they were the gold and silver medal winners. I want to see the medal-winning teams compete. If that involves the US men’s team, great. If not, too bad. Instead, we watch the US men’s team…not medal.
4. Much of the competition is being trumped by preliminaries in other events and profiles and social media analysis. We see a couple of Americans in the all-around final, and then 20 minutes of swimming semi-finals, then a set of beach volleyball, and then we got back to a few minutes of the all-around final, with no idea what’s happened in the interim.
And that’s just gymnastics. I dread what’s going to happen during track and field.
And Another Thing…
@Xboxershorts: Are you sure about what you’re asserting about taxpayer subsidies? While host countries govts subsidize facilities, security etc, I don’t hunk US taxpayers subsidize housing, training etc. Some other countries do subsidize their athletes including bonuses for medals.
Shawn in ShowMe
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
They can’t pull this garbage in track because the athletes compete on the track at the same time. It’s not like you will only see the American women running in the 200m final. But yeah, field is gonna suck, because they will cherry pick American performances.
PatrickG
Adding my support to those calling out the breathtaking attitude in the post.
Paying money for a crappy service that’s bundled in with a bunch of other crappy services at an exorbitant price? Yes, I have a problem with that.
Telling us all that we should just suck it up and pay money to watch the Olympics is just beyond insensitive. Yo, asshole, I’m unemployed. $75 (and it’s more here!) is a lot of money to me. Because I’m poor, I shouldn’t get to watch the Olympics? Because I’m having trouble in a shitty economy, I’m forced to go to other people’s houses/restaurants/bars and watch the truly unbelievably bad crap on TV?
And let’s be very clear here: we’re talking about a company who charges much more than needed to bolster a monopoly contract. And then still provides a shitty service.
I don’t know when you started channeling Thomas Friedman, but if you’re going to tell me to “Suck. On. This.”, I’m going to tell you to “Fuck. Off.” I enjoy your writing normally, but yeesh, man, you’re just an entitled asshole in this one.
+Roger Burgess
mistermix said, “Some things cost money. This is one of them.”
Bullshit. Somebody should be footing the bill. When it comes to granting U.S. citizens access to their Olympian athletes, this is most definitely not one of them. We subsidize those athletes, paying for NBC’s shit sandwich should not be in the cards at all.
Further, NBC’s ‘check to see if you subscribe to our channels’ system is broken beyond belief. I’ve been on the phone every day since the Olympics started with Verizon and they can’t figure out how NBC managed to shit the bed so completely. Many many people don’t have access that they should, even granting NBC’s stolen ‘right’ to limit access in the first place.
Mike Nardozzi
I think all anybody wanted was a way to watch the games regardless of the nature of their entertainment pipeline. Why is this so hard? Pay per view boxing figured this all out 20 years ago.
I dont want to “steal” the games. Just partner with Hulu or have an NBC Olympic premium app on Roku or whatever. Let me pay what you’re asking and be done with it when the olmpics are over.
I have to believe that people paying at the ticket office is a far more efficient model than the content to sponsor to potential customers model we have now.
Yeah..I might buy something from Proctor or Coke..but if you charge me for the right to stream the games, I’ve DEFINITELY bought something.
I’d even tolerate something like the current Hulu model of limited commercial interruption.
Brachiator
@mistermix:
What? Networks structure the deal to their advantage. It’s kinda why they are in business.
And to say that it’s not their fault is as wrong as saying that the stupid commercialization of the Games (where a business can’t even have a sign that says Olympics unless their are a paid corporate sponsor) is not the fault of the Olympic organizing committee.
NBC stupidly believes that they have to funnel the maximum number of viewers into a dumbed down prime time telecast in order to maximize their profits. And they also believe that they have to use their high paid “talent” (including Ryan Seacrest to bring viewers commentary about the games, whether or not these doofuses are worthy to the task (even when they have been briefed by producers).
I absolutely believe that NBC could make bank allowing more access, free and paid. Their business model is also constrained by the interests of the cable companies and Internet service providers, but these dopes are still living in the past. Everyone is focused on what they can restrict, not how to maximize their income by maximizing viewership and access.
Others here have touched on the inadequacy of the Olympics coverage. But let me contrast two other real world examples in looking at NBC’s weak iPad apps.
Even though they are one day events, the Super Bowl app and the Oscars app were pretty damn good. The Super Bowl app provided some news background and clips on how the two teams got there, and was updated after the game itself to include highlights and celebration coverage. The Oscars app offered mulitple real time video windows where you could watch the red carpet arrivals, backstage coverage, and see many full press interviews of the winners. And the apps were free.
By contrast, the NBC app and the London Olympics results apps are crappy, disorganized jumbles of info about the games.
Even the staid NY Times is trying to do something unconventional to provide more, free, coverage:
By contrast, NBC ain’t even trying to do anything innovative. As is so often the case, by focusing solely and blindly on the market they think they know and understand, they miss an opportunity to expand their market and to create a new one.
Randy P
@Comrade Scrutinizer: Huh. You’re absolutely right. Swimming final on Saturday still blocked out, but everything else that used to say “Concluded” now has a Replay link.
Cassidy
@Brachiator: Add the March Madness app. That was a thing of beauty.
taylormattd
His post was fucking stupid. I mean honestly, limewire? Like everyone wants to “steal” coverage? Fucking dumb.
People are bitching because NBC does things like arbitrarily remove part of the opening ceremonies. Or have horrifyingly stupid commentators that ruin everything. Or go to a commercial literally in the middle of a gymnastics routine. Or including the outcome of an event by revealing the winner, in a promo *just seconds before the tape delayed event airs*.
I.e., people hate the coverage because it is terrible.
PatrickG
Just to clarify post up above, I consider the Olympics (the motherfuckin’ Olympics!) to be an international event of goodwill and shared humanity, and I believe access to the Games should be considered a public good, not something mediated for profit.
It’s on that basis I find the posting so damn offensive. I’m glad you have somewhat unfettered access, I really am. Good for you! It’s your attitude of “I’ve got mine, so what’s the problem?” I find so batshit crazy.
JR in WV
Just watched women’s beach vollyball, obviously a tough sport.
One of the US women had a round pink tape on her shoulder – is that a sports medicine thing?
Gex
Okay, so we’ve discovered cable for one month is cheap. Now tell me a cable provider that will allow me to subscribe for only one month.
I’m pretty tired of these cons. The taxpayers and consumers in the world have already spent plenty of money sending people to the Olympics. Now we gotta get gouged on the other side too?
I love sport, but I’m tired of how our love of it lets them extort money from us. Here in MN we have built the Target Center, XCEL Center, Target Field, TCF Bank Stadium, and now the new Vikings stadium. We are also the state with the bridge that fell because apparently the only infrastructure we can spend on is to help sports businesses and athletes get obscenely wealthy.
Joel
What sucks about the coverage is that Yahoo spoils the results when I’m looking for fantasy baseball.
Joel
What sucks about the coverage is that Yahoo spoils the results when I’m looking for fantasy baseball.
Cassidy
@JR in WV: Yes.
tcolberg
I bought a TV and an antenna just for the olympics. It’s awesome and in HD.
Darkrose
@mistermix: @arguingwithsignposts: My aren’t we touchy this morning. So you’re saying you would pay $75 to watch the Olympics, but you just object to paying it to your cable provider? Because I would wager that’s what a for-profit entity would have to charge for the quality of coverage NBC is delivering online.
I would happily pay a one-time fee to watch the Olympics online, without having to get hit with the cable bill every month. I pay annually to listen to baseball games online. I’d pay to watch, but we’re in the MLB.tv blackout area for the SF Giants, and MLB doesn’t want to step on Comcast’s toes.
Until we broke down and got cable, I watched all of my favorite TV shows via Amazon or iTunes. I have no problem paying once to get something that’s exactly what I want. What rankles with cable is that I don’t get exactly what I want. I’ve got umpteen channels of Home Shopping Network and Christian broadcasting, but I can’t get MLB Network because that’s a different package. The networks and cable companies have a sweet little deal. Too bad for them that technology is outpacing them.
Darkrose
@Fouten: And then there’s what John Rogers said:
“Any screenwriter who thinks he loses more money to piracy than to Hollywood studio accounting is a child.”
WWoS
@Xboxershorts: Show me where taxpayers fund the US Olympic Teams… or are you just assuming?