b5media.com

Advertise with us

Enjoying this blog? Check out the rest of the Technology Channel Subscribe to this Feed

Inside Online Video

CBS to Stream All NCAA Games

by Mike Abundo on February 12th, 2008

One of the greatest hurdles to TV networks embracing online video is the fear of offending their local affiliates. That’s what doomed Hulu.

Ever clueful in their approach to online video, CBS overcomes that hurdle with NCAA March Madness, making all 63 games available online. Last year, they put only 56 games live online in order to protect their local affiliates. Michael Learmonth explains their boldness:

The NCAA tournament has been one of CBS’s most successful forays on the web, drawing nearly 1.4 million users last year. And putting the games online is one of those moves that’s incredibly sensible, yet hard for big media companies to pull off: Most online viewing goes on at work, so it’s hard to argue that the Web will cannibalize TV audiences. And anyone who could watch the games on TV instead of a PC is obviously going to do so.

That last sentence is the obvious point that eludes most TV networks. Superdistribution FTW.

Tags: , , ,

Share This

Related Stories

POSTED IN: Sports, Television

5 opinions for CBS to Stream All NCAA Games

  • IT Manager
    Mar 14, 2008 at 4:07 pm

    here’s the class c ip addresses to block for the streaming of CBS website NCAA games:

    128.242.191.65
    128.242.191.58
    66.77.9.204
    204.2.225.6
    81.52.202.210

  • IT Manager is a Loser
    Mar 21, 2008 at 12:14 pm

    You’re an ass IT Manager, watching games once a year isn’t going to do crap to your network, unless you have it running very poorly to begin with. You’re the type of dickhead who people hate at work. You probably have very little friends and make around 50 grand a year, enjoy your miserable existence.

  • IT Manager is a Loser
    Mar 21, 2008 at 12:21 pm

    Also, if you have a jackass IT Manager as the guy about, just set up a proxy on your home machine, or find a free one and watch the games anyway. People work better when they are happier Mr. IT Manager, March is our most productive month, take that to the bank.

  • IT Manager is a Looser complaining asshole
    Mar 24, 2008 at 12:17 pm

    Hey IT Manager is a looser complaining asshole…Not all companies can affort huge pipes to the ‘net, so yes the streaming does kill links making it a pain in the ass for people actually wanting to work and not listen or watch NCAA crap. Get real, there are perfectly good reasons to block that crap. I dont personally block it beacuse I know that there are those that want to listen or watch the games, but then again my company has a big Internet pipe. Not everyone that works is a NCAA basketball fan, and it DOES take bandwidth to stream all that. All that IT Manager posted were the IPs for those that do want to block it. He/She did nothing wrong. It is assholes like you that we IT people always have problems with, whining that the Internet is slow, or something doesnt work right. Don’t be a little bitch and grow the hell up!

  • CBS Makes $23M from Streaming March Madness
    Apr 30, 2008 at 9:50 am

    […] again, CBS CEO Les Moonves reaps the benefits of his courage inside online video. Streaming all the NCAA March Madness games earned CBS $23 million in revenue. They guessed (correctly) that this particular content was very […]

Have an opinion? Leave a comment: