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Senator raises questions about NBC Olympics Internet coverage
Television network NBC’s online Olympics coverage has sparked questions from Senate Judiciary Committee’s Herb Kohl, according to Reuters. Senator Kohl chairs the antitrust subcommittee.
Wisconsin Democrat Kohl expressed concerns about NBC’s requirement that viewers register with the site and prove that they subscribe to a cable, satellite or IPTV (Internet Protocol television) provider.
“I fear that this practice of locking up certain content only for pay-TV subscribers may be a preview of what is to come with respect to TV programing shown on the Internet, particularly in the context of the proposed Comcast/NBC Universal merger,” Kohl wrote in a letter to NBC President Jeff Zucker, the article says.
Locally, the issue is of interest because of Austin NBC affiliate KXAN’s signal outage due to an electrical problem at their transmitter site just after 10 p.m. on Feb. 23. KXAN moved the Olympics signal to station KNVA and suggested that viewers could catch any content they missed at the network’s Olympics Web site. But that solution didn’t work for viewers who normally catch the station’s over-the-air signal and did not have cable or satellite service.
An NBC representative was not immediately available to comment on Kohl’s office, the article says. The full story is available here.
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