Users run circles around NBC's Great Olympics Firewall

Cyndy Aleo-Carreira — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 15:51:39 -0700

NBC wants to make a lot of money on the Olympics. The company paid an enormous sum to get the broadcast rights to the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, and in order maximize the associated advertising and sponsorship campaigns, it needs to ensure viewers in the United States only have one place to turn to for their Olympics fix.

The problem, however, is that many viewers don't want to deal with time zone differences for ceremonies and events, and NBC's Siverlight-hobbled website.

Is it possible to watch the Olympics using other online sources? A quick search of YouTube shows that Google has pulled down copyright-infringing clips of the opening ceremony from NBC, but coverage from Chinese network CCTV is easy to find. As for the events themselves, NBC and BBC Olympic videos seem to appear and disappear frequently, so it's clear YouTube is having trouble keeping up with the uploads. Users with a proxy service can also view coverage on the YouTube-dedicated Olympics channel, provided that the proxy server is located in the approved countries permitted to watch the content. The United States is not one of those countries.

Looking for live coverage? Most online coverage is locked to geographic region (and courtesy of NBC's ongoing Cablevision wars, television carrier), live coverage can make it difficult to find. Some viewers have tried using a relay from a service like Tor and netted live coverage via Eurovision TV, depending on the location of the relay. For those shut out of NBC coverage, borrowing a friend's zip code and provider is a possibility, as is P2P TV, which may have spotty uptime, but does at least get users live coverage. Even that may be temporary, however, as Silicon Alley Insider has already been dinged by the IOC for posting a link to a stream.

As more viewers start moving outside the standard viewing model, NBC may realize that it needs to re-evaluate how it provides sports coverage. Forcing all the "big" events to a time-shifted-to-prime-time model isn't holding the entire audience, and any U.S. network planning to buy Olympic rights will be confronted with more and more audience bleed as viewers find ways to see events as they happen.

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