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Online options for upcoming Sochi Olympics

December 18, 2013 by 1 Comment

XXII olypics

As the XXII Winter Olympics rapidly nears fans of events will soon be scanning broadcast times to see if they will manage to be home from work in time to view various competitions live, but cable, telco and satellite customers should have a very nice alternative.

The reason is that for the first time all of the competition will be available live streamed by NBC sports on its NBCOlympics.com and its NBC Sports Live Extra app to the nation’s 100+ million cable, satellite and telco customers. An estimated 1,000 hours of live broadcasts are expected to be available.

Fans will benefit in two ways from the networks largesse: The online coverage will include all 15 sports as well as each medal winning performance in all 98 separate events. The second is the cost, which is no additional cost, as in free — as long as you have a qualifying cable or other broadband service video plan.

Then there is also a pair of additional bonuses. Viewers also get access to online coverage of the US Olympics Team Trials prior to the start of the games and during the games they will have access to a host of additional programming including exclusive content, real-time results, medal standings, event highlights and analysis, athlete interviews and profiles, and rewinds of all event coverage.

While a portion of the live streaming will be available to everybody the bulk will only be available to subscribers of satellite, telco or cable networks. Viewers have to be authenticated as being paid subscribers.

In order to get verified simply:
1. Go to NBCOlympics.com/LiveExtra
2. Click the “Verify Now” button
3. Select your cable, satellite or telco provider
4. Enter the username and password that corresponds with your account
5. Upon verification of your subscription to an Olympics-eligible package, you will be signed in throughout the Games on that device!

It would make sense to do so early since NBC expects that it will have the most devices verified to view the Sochi Olympics for any sporting event ever, most likely dwarfing the 9.9 million devices that were verified for the recent London Olympic Games. You can verify for multiple devices, but must go through the process for each device.

Filed Under: Apps, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NBC Sports, Olympics Tagged With: , , ,

Mobile and online usage continues to soar for ESPN & MNF

December 5, 2013 by Leave a Comment

mnf

The Dec. 2 Seattle Seahawks 34-7 blowout of the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football was a huge broadcasting success for ESPN, it was the No. 1 program on at that time not only on cable but also over the air broadcast — and it was also a smashing hit online as that audience continues to surge.

The Saints-Seahawks broadcast was strong enough to garner a 9.7 U.S. rating, numbers that represent an average of 11,289,000 households and 15,500,000 TV viewers, according to Nielsen.

ESPN, as all broadcasters are, is working hard at expanding and enhancing its digital offerings including tablet, smartphone and PC offerings and has seen those users expand as the technology and quality of the offerings continues to increase.

A look at how it has performed this year on Monday Night Football shows how well it is succeeding in that area. It reported that across all of its platforms its NFL-focused Digital Media that includes ESPN.com, mobile Web, apps and WatchESPN it has a 27% increase in viewership compared to the same period last year, with an average minute audience of 65,000 during each broadcast.

The most recent game showed how those numbers are continuing to grow as it represented the second largest online audience ever (the first being the Eagles-Redskins from earlier this year). The game had an average minute audience of 81,000 with a total of 225,000 unique views, numbers that represent an increase of 134% and 145% over a year ago respectively.

Overall digital media at ESPN is up strongly as well, 16%, compared to last year, according to ESPN. The strongest area last week was with mobile apps, with its new SportsCenter app enjoying an audience that registered 136,000 average minute users, up 55% from last year. Its Fantasy Football app had an average audience of 148,000, up 88%. The unique viewers for both were, respectively, 7.5 million and 3.9 million.

The broadcaster expects another big Monday Night audience next week When the Cowboys play the Bears and former Bears’ player and head coach Mike Ditka gets his number retired at halftime.

Filed Under: Apps, ESPN, ESPN3, Fantasy Sports, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, NFL, Seattle Seahwaks, WatchESPN Tagged With: , , ,

Short Week Grab Bag: Cheap HP tablet, new hockey TV deal in Canada

November 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Hewlett-Packard has revealed that it will be entering the Black Friday fray with a very enticing offer: a 7-inch HP Mesquite tablet for the low, low price of only $89. The tablet will be available at your local Walmart.

The tablet is one of several that will be on sale that weekend that are powered by Intel’s Medfield family of microprocessors as the chip maker is using the start of the shopping season to start hyping its development partners in the tablet space.

Google Glass user booted from club
Earlier this year a Seattle bar said that it would ban anybody wearing Google’s see all glasses. Well a user of the hands free device has been kicked out of a bar, but not the one that made the original promise.

A user was asked to either remove the glasses or be asked to leave the Lost Lake Café and Lounge and apparently made a scene both at the bar but also online (where else) as he complained about his rights. Not sure where in the U.S. Constitution those rights are covered but I am sure its in there somewhere.

EdgeCast Networks helps Indianapolis Colts reach fans
The team has developed the ability to stream video and live content to fans using pretty much any mobile device using EdgeCast technology as the team seeks to increase traffic to its own web sites and away from third party apps.

Get your Apple rumors here
Now that Apple has filled its backlog of iPhone 5S orders it’s time for the company to start fending off rumors of what will be in its next generation iPhone, probably known as the iPhone 6. Well the International Business Times has done a nice roundup for you.

The release date will be late next year; it will have a larger screen, possibly as large as six inches. The display may be curved or flexible and it will be lighter than existing models. Is weight really an issue with iPhones?

Nokia looking at 8-inch tablet?
Well not really looking at but actually planning on building on for sale, with a possible release date sometime in the first quarter of next year, a follow-up product to its 10-inch Lumina 2520, according to Digitimes.

The piece also said that it expects that LG Electronics and Sony Mobile to stay in the tablet market but that sources are reporting that HTC, Motorola Mobility and BlackBerry may choose to leave and only focus on smartphones.

New hockey broadcast deal in Canada
The NHL has just signed its most comprehensive, and largest financially, broadcast deal for games to be shown in Canada. The deal gives Rogers Communications the broadcast and digital rights to all NHL games.

The 12-year deal cost the cable company $5.2 billion and is viewed as a step by Rogers to drive demand for its subscription based cable networks.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, BlackBerry, Google, Hewlett-Packard, HTC, Intel, iOS 7, Live Sports Video Consumption, Motorola, NFL, NHL, Nokia, Sony Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Turner Sports to provide viewer options during Final Four broadcasts

November 21, 2013 by 2 Comments

turner

The NCAA’s Final Four is one of the most watched sporting events of the year, and for that matter talked about as fans and non fans start early by entering pools of all sorts to predict the winner of the month long tournament..

As the teams get eliminated and it charges down to the finals fans become polarized as to who they want to win based on teams’ reputations, pool results and a host of other issues. Now fans can watch broadcasts that are designed for each team in the Final Four thanks to Turner Sports, the network that will be broadcasting the games.

Sports Business Daily is reporting that the two will take an innovative approach to broadcasting the games at next years’ tournament. There will be the traditional national broadcast that will be seen on TBS. TNT and truTV will then carry the exact same game but with a twist.

Each channel will have a team-centric approach with announcers and camera angles designed to highlight one team. The differentiation does not stop there as the halftime shows will also be different, although pregame and post games shows will be the same.

The Final Four next year will be seen only on cable for the first time and the networks are hoping that they can avoid the tradition viewership drop when a formerly over the air broadcast moves to cable with this move. The championship game will be broadcast on CBS and so will obviously not have dual perspectives.

Filed Under: Basketball, CBS Sports, Live Sports Video Consumption, NCAA Hoops, NCAA.com, TBS, TNT, truTV, Turner Sports Tagged With: , , , , , ,

MLB, NFL team up to battle Aereo

November 19, 2013 by Leave a Comment

aereo

Live-TV startup Aereo has been taking on television broadcasters and winning but now faces an assault by two of America’s largest sports leagues, the NFL and MLB as they seek to prevent it from showing their broadcasts.

The two leagues are seeking to piggyback with an amicus brief to a petition filed by broadcasters that asks the United States Supreme Court to rule on the legality of Aereo’s broadcasting of local over the air signals.

In case you are unfamiliar with Aereo, it is a startup that makes a combination DVR/antenna that captures over the air broadcasts and allows customers to its $8 a month service to view the programming on Internet connected devices.

It started out in New York City last year and then moved to Boston and Atlanta, surviving legal challenges along the way. It has now accelerated its expansion efforts and recently moved into Utah, Chicago, Miami, Houston and Dallas this year.

Apparently this is terrible news to the sports leagues, as well as with NBC, Fox, ABC and CBS, the broadcasters that filed the initial suit. The broadcasters have claimed that Aereo is violating their copyrights and must pay retransmission fees.

The sports leagues have piled on claiming that if they lose exclusive retransmission licensing rights it will make over the air broadcasting less attractive and that they would be forced to go to paid cable networks. According to a piece in Variety the amount that the league collects is about $100 million for those rights.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out on a number of levels. Cable has been losing viewership as a generation of ‘cable cutters’ has emerged and they use Netflix and other online programs, get over the air antennas or do without.

Also the sports should keep boxing in mind. A once popular over the air sport it moved its premium events to pay per view cable, and helped kill the sport. While basic cable is not the same as PPV the example is one to remember.

The trend to get over the air broadcast, either from a service such as Aereo or by using a proxy, often illegal, appears to have accelerated the movement of quality content to basic cable where it is much more difficult to rebroadcast. Will sports follow this trend?

Filed Under: ABC, Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, CBS Sports, Fox Sports, Lawsuit, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, NFL Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

MLB sees strong increase in mobile and social media demand during playoffs

November 4, 2013 by 1 Comment

mlbpost

Major League Baseball had a great postseason (depending on who you were rooting for), with exciting games and strong broadcast viewership but it also experienced a great deal of success connecting online and via mobile with its fans as well.

While all of the playoffs and World Series had strong viewership during the 38-game run MLB.com saw a huge increase in fan participation, with a total of 296.4 million viewers over that period, an increase of 43% over the previous year and an average of approximately 10 million a day, according to stats from MLB.com.

In the area of live video streams MLB.com saw a very big jump in viewership, overall up 22% compared to 2012. Viewership on mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones was up 30%YOY. The video was available from MLB’s broadcast partners TBS and MLB Network and was seen on Postseason.TV on MLB.com and in MLB.com At Bat.

However live video, which requires a subscription, was only the tip of the iceberg. Combined with on-demand video MLB.com had 152 million video streams representing a massive 170% increase over last year. Mobile is driving this usage with MLB.com At Bat app’s share of the total video streams delivered increased 130% compared to last year’s Postseason.

MLB’s mobile app, At Bat, saw its usage up 76% this postseason, and was opened 76.6 million times or an average of 2.5 million times a day. MLB was active on Facebook, with its team of posters recording 4,800 individual posts, which in turn had 1.4 billion impressions. The impressions were up 80% from last year. MLB also delivered 2,840 posts on Twitter at @MLB and saw an increase of 81% in retweets.

For the first time MLB.com distributed highlight clips across a wide swath of social media including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, which were watched collectively 33.5 million times.

MLB.Com’s use of a wide variety of mobile and social media technologies to reach fans is obviously showing strong return interest by fans and enables fans that cannot see the games to catch highlights and information on a as it happens basis, something that will keep fans coming back for more.

Filed Under: Android, Apple, Apps, Baseball, Boston Red Sox, Facebook, iPad, iPhone, Live sports via mobile, Live Sports Video Consumption, Major League Baseball, Smartphone, Sports Social Media, Tablets, Twitter, YouTube Tagged With: , , , ,
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