question of the day: Is a streaming Super Bowl a nail in the coffin for broadcast and cable TV in North America?

Super Bowl XLVI

Headline I missed yesterday being offline most of the day:

In New-Media First, Super Bowl to Be Streamed Online

That’s from Advertising Age, which continues:

The next Super Bowl will be streamed online by NBC Universal, adding a new-media dimension to one of the oldest but most viable big-TV properties on the prime-time schedule.

...

Under current plans, all postseason games broadcast by NBC, including a wild card Saturday game, the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl, will be streamed via NBC's website and Verizon's NFL Mobile application. Online viewers will be able to access additional camera angles and live statistics.

Cool. Not that I care in the least about football, but this is huge news for new media. As ReadWriteWeb notes:

One of the biggest deal killers for would-be "cord cutters"... has always been live sports. If you're a huge football fan, for example, there's no way around it: you need TV the old fashioned way.

Though Ad Age points out:

In recent years NBC began online streaming of its "Sunday Night Football" telecasts.

And that obviously hasn’t killed cable or broadcast TV.

The Super Bowl is, though, enormous, and always gets one of the biggest TV audiences in the U.S. (and Canada?) every year.

So: Is a streaming Super Bowl a nail in the coffin for broadcast and cable TV in North America? If it isn’t, is there anything that would prompt huge numbers of people to “cut the cord” and get their info-tainment purely online? Is streaming major league games a way to get some crosscultural interest in sports that haven’t been able to catch on via old-fashioned TV, such as soccer (aka what the rest of the world calls football) in the U.S. or baseball in Europe?

(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTD sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)

support


Disqus comments

blog comments powered by Disqus

  
posted:
Wed Dec 21 11, 3:15PM

categories:
Net buzz
talk amongst yourselves
tv buzz




Disqus comments


tip jar





share


 
 


read more




related


· question of the day: Is social entertainment making us more passive?
· question of the weekend: How are your reading habits changing with the advent of ebooks and social media?
· question of the day: What’s the worst we can expect from the FCC-approved takeover of NBC Universal by Comcast?
· quick list: five great football movies that aren’t really about football
· 'Harry Potter' beats up 'Star Wars'; Michael Caine, psychic author; TV getting gayer; more: leftover links
· WWII in HD (review)
· question of the day: What’s your Super Bowl postshow analysis?
· question of the day: Why do Americans love the Super Bowl so much?
· question of the weekend: What seemingly unconnected consequences are we likely to experience as a result of global warming?
· question of the day: How could the Oscar telecast draw more viewers?


bloggy


previous post:
question of the day: Do set tours and makings-of ruin the magic of movies for you?

next post:
sorry about my near absence yesterday...

search




search FlickFilosopher.com


follow

  
  
  
(in case of site outages or other emergencies, I'll update my status on Twitter and Facebook)



Get our toolbar!

follow FlickFilosopher.com no matter where you are online


share and enjoy

shop to support

support FlickFilosopher.com when you click through here and buy almost anything at:

Amazon U.S.
Amazon Canada
Amazon U.K.
Amazon Germany
Amazon France
Amazon Spain
Amazon Italy
Chapters/Indigo (Canada)