Know which master is being served

Simon Dumenco at AdAge wrote basically what I had in mind about the whole “#NBCfail” meme that’s running around regarding the broadcast of the Olympics. And he pulls the best graf from a piece in The Atlantic that covers the same ground:

The easiest way to understand why NBC wants to force you to watch the Olympics in prime time is to stop thinking about what audiences want and start thinking about what advertisers want. NBC paid about $1.2 billion for the rights to broadcast these games. To make back most of that money, NBC needs to sell extremely expensive commercials. The most valuable commercials aren’t sold online to be viewed on browser tabs on 12-inch display screens. They’re sold on prime-time TV.

That needs to be referenced everytime someone complains about not being able to legally watch swimming at a time that’s most convenient to them.