NBC & XX Olympic Games vs. TiVo

What were they thinking? NBC was behaving like Ozzie and Harriet - "You can watch all of it or you'll see none of it!" And guess what we kids picked? "None of it, thanks Mom." (Actually, many of us picked "American Idol".)
Happy now, NBC? Life (and TV - is that redundant?) just doesn't work like that any more. We can watch just what we want, when we want, and pretty much where we want too. So what happened? I missed the figure skating. T missed the skiing. Over all, viewership dropped 37% from the SLC games (and 45% in that coveted 18 to 49 demo). Why? Because NBC wouldn't tell us when what we wanted was going to be on. Don't you think we would have watched, or TiVo'd, from 10 to 10:45? Sure we would have. But try to make us sit through four, count 'em 4!, hours of lots of stuff we're not interested in, just to catch 30 scattered minutes of what we are? Are you nuts? Four hours today is a lifetime when everything is a nugget, a sound-bite, a clip, a blip.
You can't fight city hall, and you can't fight the new reality of consumer technologymediabehavior -- we consumers are, or we think we are, taking more control over our media experiences - TiVo, DVR, Podcasts, iTunes, blogs, cell phones, SMS, Slingbox, the list goes on...
Smart market makers are playing right to that, supporting it, fostering it, and gaining consumer allegiance as those others (ahem) lose out.
NBC - 800 days until your next chance? Use them wisely!