Does Social Media Spoils Your Viewing?
Social media and the digital innovations changed the way we receive information. A single tweet, or a post on Facebook, or a photo on Instagram from any part of the world becomes a news item in an instant. It could be well-known in a specific area or in the whole world depending on the range of audience it affects.
Imagine a sports event like the Olympics or an entertainment gala like the Oscars. People get their updates from live feeds on social media rather than from television or radio. Unlike with broadcast networks who have a specific schedule per time zone, social media doesn’t have to deal with this issue. So even if a network paid for the exclusive presentation of the event, it ends up being late in delivering the results and end up, somehow, a loser.
Recently, NBC announced that they will air the 2018 Olympic Games live across all US time zones. This is their way of competing with social media on delivering updates from South Korea. That means social media won’t be ahead of the action somehow. As a result, viewers will no longer have to wait. This plan sounds good for the audience, the advertisers, and the affiliates alike. It seems that NBC has learned its lesson from its failure to embrace technology and social media during the London Olympics.
In 2012, NBC got the flak from netizens when the network limited its access to some videos on social media. Also, there was a mobile app that provided live streaming of the Olympics. But users could only access it if they subscribed to the network’s cable company. Those incidents and much more, created a trending topic on Twitter with the hashtag #NBCFail.
Does social media spoils your viewing? Let’s see both sides of the coin. If networks don’t embrace the technology and the social media, users will have no choice but to get their updates from somewhere else. But, if networks embrace technology and goes along with social media, users, advertisers, affiliates, and the network itself will all be happy.