{"id":5547,"date":"2016-02-08T22:25:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T22:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/2016\/02\/08\/a-skeptical-review-of-cbs-super-bowl-online-streaming-success\/"},"modified":"2016-02-08T22:25:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T22:25:00","slug":"a-skeptical-review-of-cbs-super-bowl-online-streaming-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/a-skeptical-review-of-cbs-super-bowl-online-streaming-success\/","title":{"rendered":"A Skeptical Review Of CBS&#039; Super Bowl Online Streaming Success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-style:italic;font-size:16px\">By  <a class=\"colorbox\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/alltechconsidered\/2016\/02\/08\/466031675\/a-skeptical-review-of-cbs-super-bowl-online-streaming-success?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports\">NPR Staff<\/a><\/span>  <\/p>\n<div class=\"ftpimagefix\" style=\"float:left\"><a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/alltechconsidered\/2016\/02\/08\/466031675\/a-skeptical-review-of-cbs-super-bowl-online-streaming-success?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2016\/02\/08\/ap_363782439826-b4b0308fb6f46fe79db2a42209bbbe96c4f72edb-s800-c15.jpg\" title=\"The Denver Broncos' Super Bowl victory against the Carolina Panthers was the third most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history. CBS also streamed the game online.\" alt=\"The Denver Broncos' Super Bowl victory against the Carolina Panthers was the third most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history. CBS also streamed the game online.\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>The Denver Broncos&#8217; Super Bowl victory against the Carolina Panthers was the third most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history. CBS also streamed the game online. <strong>Julie Jacobson\/AP<\/strong> <strong>hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>toggle caption<\/strong> <span>Julie Jacobson\/AP<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you watched Sunday&#8217;s Super Bowl, how did you get it? Over cable? Rabbit ears? (Yes, those still work.) Or did you <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2016\/2\/7\/10930588\/super-bowl-live-stream-watch-online-streaming-2016\" target=\"_blank\">stream it online<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>CBS put the big game on the Internet and for the first time, streamed the commercials online as well. According to Nielsen&#8217;s national ratings, with 111.9 million viewers, the game was the <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.adweek.com\/news\/television\/1119-million-viewers-super-bowl-50-was-no-3-most-watched-all-time-169507\" target=\"_blank\">third most-watched broadcast<\/a> in American TV history (behind two other recent Super Bowls).<\/p>\n<p>And despite <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/bits.blogs.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/08\/for-some-cord-cutters-streaming-super-bowl-was-a-nonstarter\/\" target=\"_blank\">reported troubles streaming the game<\/a> on Apple TV and Google&#8217;s Chromecast, CBS also says the online stream <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/recode.net\/2016\/02\/07\/the-super-bowl-breaks-a-streaming-record\/\" target=\"_blank\">had a record audience<\/a> of almost 4 million unique viewers or an average of <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2016\/02\/08\/media\/super-bowl-50-ratings\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">1.4 million viewers per minute<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But Dan Rayburn was unimpressed. With the complicated nature of estimating the size and impact of online streaming, Rayburn, executive vice president at StreamingMedia.com and principal analyst at Frost &amp; Sullivan, tells NPR&#8217;s Kelly McEvers it may not be the future of live sports.<\/p>\n<div>\n<hr>\n<\/div>\n<h3><strong>Interview Highlights<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>On what CBS garnering a &#8220;record audience&#8221; for the online stream really means<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Doesn&#8217;t mean much, to be honest with you. There&#8217;s way too much hype over something like putting a live sporting event online, because we&#8217;ve been doing this for 20 years. And yes, the traffic we get to events like this [is] larger but it&#8217;s typical of an event after this, like we saw with CBS, they come out and pat themselves on the back and say it&#8217;s a record and then they give us no data or numbers as to what that actually means.<\/p>\n<p>If we compare it to last year, last year they had a little over 1 million simultaneous streams at the same time, watching the Super Bowl online. But keep in mind that&#8217;s not a million simultaneous people, because someone like me is watching six or seven streams at a time. &#8230; A million is not a big deal when you&#8217;re talking about there&#8217;s roughly 100 million pay TV subscribers just in the U.S. alone. You&#8217;re talking about 1 percent of the whole market.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the significance of the popular commercials being streamed as well<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The significance there is just in terms of some of the back-end technology. It&#8217;s actually easier for them to put the ads online than to take them out. There&#8217;s something in the industry that&#8217;s called stream stitching, which is how you stitch live ads into a stream &#8230; . But since we get no metrics or demographics afterwards of who watched what for how long or how much money they made from the ads. We don&#8217;t even know if this was a money-making thing for them online. Which it probably was not. They probably lost money.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On whether streaming is the future<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The problem you have is the fragmentation in the market. So for instance, if you wanted to watch it on mobile yesterday, you could only do so if you were a Verizon customer. So this is not the future for large-scale live events. The problem we have in the industry is many people think that one technology replaces another, when typically it&#8217;s a complement to it. So the Internet broadcast that we see, whether it&#8217;s live or on-demand, that can&#8217;t replace TV distribution at the same quality, the same scale and the same reliability. The technology just doesn&#8217;t support it.<\/p>\n<p><em>This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service &#8211; if this is your content and you&#8217;re reading it on someone else&#8217;s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Source:: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/alltechconsidered\/2016\/02\/08\/466031675\/a-skeptical-review-of-cbs-super-bowl-online-streaming-success?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports\" class=\"colorbox\" title=\"A Skeptical Review Of CBS&#039; Super Bowl Online Streaming Success\" rel=\"nofollow\">http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/alltechconsidered\/2016\/02\/08\/466031675\/a-skeptical-review-of-cbs-super-bowl-online-streaming-success?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"ftpimagefix\" style=\"float:left\"><a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/alltechconsidered\/2016\/02\/08\/466031675\/a-skeptical-review-of-cbs-super-bowl-online-streaming-success?utm_medium=RSS&amp;utm_campaign=sports\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" src=\"http:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2016\/02\/08\/ap_363782439826-b4b0308fb6f46fe79db2a42209bbbe96c4f72edb-s800-c15.jpg\" title=\"The Denver Broncos' Super Bowl victory against the Carolina Panthers was the third most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history. CBS also streamed the game online.\" alt=\"The Denver Broncos' Super Bowl victory against the Carolina Panthers was the third most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history. CBS also streamed the game online.\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<div>\n<p>The Denver Broncos&#8217; Super Bowl victory against the Carolina Panthers was the third most-watched broadcast in U.S. television history. CBS also streamed the game online. <strong>Julie Jacobson\/AP<\/strong> <strong>hide caption<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><strong>toggle caption<\/strong> <span>Julie Jacobson\/AP<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>If you watched Sunday&#8217;s Super Bowl, how did you get it? Over cable? Rabbit ears? (Yes, those still work.) Or did you <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.theverge.com\/2016\/2\/7\/10930588\/super-bowl-live-stream-watch-online-streaming-2016\" target=\"_blank\">stream it online<\/a>?<\/p>\n<p>CBS put the big game on the Internet and for the first time, streamed the commercials online as well. According to Nielsen&#8217;s national ratings, with 111.9 million viewers, the game was the <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/www.adweek.com\/news\/television\/1119-million-viewers-super-bowl-50-was-no-3-most-watched-all-time-169507\" target=\"_blank\">third most-watched broadcast<\/a> in American TV history (behind two other recent Super Bowls).<\/p>\n<p>And despite <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/bits.blogs.nytimes.com\/2016\/02\/08\/for-some-cord-cutters-streaming-super-bowl-was-a-nonstarter\/\" target=\"_blank\">reported troubles streaming the game<\/a> on Apple TV and Google&#8217;s Chromecast, CBS also says the online stream <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/recode.net\/2016\/02\/07\/the-super-bowl-breaks-a-streaming-record\/\" target=\"_blank\">had a record audience<\/a> of almost 4 million unique viewers or an average of <a class=\"colorbox\" rel=\"nofollow\" href=\"http:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2016\/02\/08\/media\/super-bowl-50-ratings\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">1.4 million viewers per minute<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But Dan Rayburn was unimpressed. With the complicated nature of estimating the size and impact of online streaming, Rayburn, executive vice president at StreamingMedia.com and principal analyst at Frost &amp; Sullivan, tells NPR&#8217;s Kelly McEvers it may not be the future of live sports.<\/p>\n<div>\n<hr>\n<\/div>\n<h3><strong>Interview Highlights<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p><strong>On what CBS garnering a &#8220;record audience&#8221; for the online stream really means<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Doesn&#8217;t mean much, to be honest with you. There&#8217;s way too much hype over something like putting a live sporting event online, because we&#8217;ve been doing this for 20 years. And yes, the traffic we get to events like this [is] larger but it&#8217;s typical of an event after this, like we saw with CBS, they come out and pat themselves on the back and say it&#8217;s a record and then they give us no data or numbers as to what that actually means.<\/p>\n<p>If we compare it to last year, last year they had a little over 1 million simultaneous streams at the same time, watching the Super Bowl online. But keep in mind that&#8217;s not a million simultaneous people, because someone like me is watching six or seven streams at a time. &#8230; A million is not a big deal when you&#8217;re talking about there&#8217;s roughly 100 million pay TV subscribers just in the U.S. alone. You&#8217;re talking about 1 percent of the whole market.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On the significance of the popular commercials being streamed as well<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The significance there is just in terms of some of the back-end technology. It&#8217;s actually easier for them to put the ads online than to take them out. There&#8217;s something in the industry that&#8217;s called stream stitching, which is how you stitch live ads into a stream &#8230; . But since we get no metrics or demographics afterwards of who watched what for how long or how much money they made from the ads. We don&#8217;t even know if this was a money-making thing for them online. Which it probably was not. They probably lost money.<\/p>\n<p><strong>On whether streaming is the future<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The problem you have is the fragmentation in the market. So for instance, if you wanted to watch it on mobile yesterday, you could only do so if you were a Verizon customer. So this is not the future for large-scale live events. The problem we have in the industry is many people think that one technology replaces another, when typically it&#8217;s a complement to it. So the Internet broadcast that we see, whether it&#8217;s live or on-demand, that can&#8217;t replace TV distribution at the same quality, the same scale and the same reliability. The technology just doesn&#8217;t support it.<\/p>\n<p><em>This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service &#8211; if this is your content and you&#8217;re reading it on someone else&#8217;s site, please read the FAQ at fivefilters.org\/content-only\/faq.php#publishers.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[221],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/associatednews.us\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}