# What will NBC do?



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

If the Penguins are eliminated, will there be no more HD games on the *Nothing But Crosby* network?

I have yet to see the Nothing But Crosby network show a game in HD that did not involve the Pens. Look at the Flames v. Wings game. No Sid, no HD. This is ridiculous! They dropped the biggest game of the season (TSN ratings records) with the Isles v. Devils on the last day, just so they could show a meaningless Pens game.

Crosby is an awesome player, with great charisma and entertainment value, but it sells the game short when Iginla, Ovechkin, DiPietro, et al are forgotten.


----------



## wilbur_the_goose (Aug 16, 2006)

I heard Bill Clement on XM204 (a fantastic channel, by the way!) say that their ratings for Crosby are much higher than non-Crosby games. 

Profit speaks, islesfan, profit speaks.

(Sorry, but GO SABRES!)


----------



## wmschultz (Jul 18, 2006)

I concur..........GO SABRES.


----------



## JeffBowser (Dec 21, 2006)

And then you have people like me who'd sooner have their eyes gouged out than watch hockey. :lol: It's tough being a fan's fan of <name that team and name that sport>. One often finds themselves a part of a tiny minority in the overall scheme of things, and it does not pay for the broadcaster to pander to them.


----------



## DawgLink (Nov 5, 2006)

I didn't even know Hockey was still on TV


----------



## purtman (Sep 19, 2006)

DawgLink said:


> I didn't even know Hockey was still on TV


That's okay. We didn't know they had TVs in New Orleans! :lol: :lol: :lol:


----------



## n3ntj (Dec 18, 2006)

I am waiting for the Rangers-Thrashers series to be on in HD somewhere.. all NBC does is put on the Pens, like you say.


----------



## PoitNarf (Aug 19, 2006)




----------



## Indiana627 (Nov 18, 2005)

islesfan said:


> Look at the Flames v. Wings game. No Sid, no HD.


Game 2 of the Flames/Wings series was in HD OTA in Buffalo on Sunday.


----------



## DawgLink (Nov 5, 2006)

purtman said:


> That's okay. We didn't know they had TVs in New Orleans! :lol: :lol: :lol:


You're just jealous you don't have chocolate TV's


----------



## Bugs Bunny (Jan 14, 2007)

islesfan said:


> If the Penguins are eliminated, will there be no more HD games on the *Nothing But Crosby* network?
> 
> I have yet to see the Nothing But Crosby network show a game in HD that did not involve the Pens. Look at the Flames v. Wings game. No Sid, no HD. This is ridiculous! They dropped the biggest game of the season (TSN ratings records) with the Isles v. Devils on the last day, just so they could show a meaningless Pens game.
> 
> Crosby is an awesome player, with great charisma and entertainment value, but it sells the game short when Iginla, Ovechkin, DiPietro, et al are forgotten.


The Flames/Wings game 2 was in HD. But your point is well taken. ABC/ESPN was more balanced in their coverage. Heck even Fox was better despite their "glowing" puck.


----------



## dkgoalie (Jan 10, 2007)

islesfan said:


> If the Penguins are eliminated, will there be no more HD games on the *Nothing But Crosby* network?
> 
> I have yet to see the Nothing But Crosby network show a game in HD that did not involve the Pens. Look at the Flames v. Wings game. No Sid, no HD. This is ridiculous! They dropped the biggest game of the season (TSN ratings records) with the Isles v. Devils on the last day, just so they could show a meaningless Pens game.
> 
> Crosby is an awesome player, with great charisma and entertainment value, but it sells the game short when Iginla, Ovechkin, DiPietro, et al are forgotten.


The Flames / Wings game was in HD here in Indy.

Go Sabres!


----------



## bonscott87 (Jan 21, 2003)

islesfan said:


> I have yet to see the Nothing But Crosby network show a game in HD that did not involve the Pens. Look at the Flames v. Wings game. No Sid, no HD.


HUH? Flames/Wings on Sunday was in glorious HD via my local NBC.

Following the rants about NBC on AVS it seems that many local NBC affilitates are not passing the HD signal of hockey games even when available. Even the affilitate in Chicago is not passing HD. Luckily my local NBC actually cares about HD and it is a priority for them. Their only downfall is having 2 subchannels which degrades the HD quality quite a bit.

I agree with you on Crosby network. But the only time I watch NBC is if the Wings are on it. Could care less about any other teams.


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

With everyone who saw the Wings/Flames game in HD, was that OTA? I don't have OTA access where I live, so I have to use D*'s feed. I'm wondering if D* downgraded the signal or if NBC Reno did it? (This makes little sense, however, as they recently carried a Sharks game in SD as well, and the Sharks are the local team.)


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

wilbur_the_goose said:


> I heard Bill Clement on XM204 (a fantastic channel, by the way!) say that their ratings for Crosby are much higher than non-Crosby games.
> 
> Profit speaks, islesfan, profit speaks.
> 
> (Sorry, but GO SABRES!)


In general, this is true, but in some circumstances, it is not. With or without Crosby, the season finale between the Devils and Isles, which determined the last playoff birth, and set ratings records on TSN, was passed over in favor of a Pens/Bruins game.

The problem is not simply one of profit, but one of marketing, as the NHL has a crappy deal with NBC. They get the same deal that the Arena Football league or the National Lacrosse League gets. That is, the NHL pays NBC to broadcast, and the NHL gets a cut of the revenues. Therefore, the NHL has decided to market Sidney Crosby to the hilt, which is a good idea, but also to ignore the other young, marketable stars of the league. Typical, short-sighted marketing that has hurt the league for years! If you only care about the Penguins, as a league, how are you going to develop a market in Nashville? STUPID, STUPID, STUPID!


----------



## ProfLonghair (Sep 26, 2006)

bonscott87 said:


> HUH? Flames/Wings on Sunday was in glorious HD via my local NBC.
> 
> Following the rants about NBC on AVS it seems that many local NBC affilitates are not passing the HD signal of hockey games even when available. Even the affilitate in Chicago is not passing HD. Luckily my local NBC actually cares about HD and it is a priority for them. Their only downfall is having 2 subchannels which degrades the HD quality quite a bit.
> 
> I agree with you on Crosby network. But the only time I watch NBC is if the Wings are on it. Could care less about any other teams.


Why would they not bother passing on the HD stream? Is there some cost issue here?


----------



## I WANT MORE (Oct 3, 2006)

As I have posted in the past. You may as well watch any sports in SD as poor as NBC does HD sports. Horrible


----------



## I WANT MORE (Oct 3, 2006)

PoitNarf said:


>


Hell Yeah.........


----------



## thumperr (Feb 10, 2006)

Lets Go Pens!!!!!


----------



## thumperr (Feb 10, 2006)

islesfan said:


> In general, this is true, but in some circumstances, it is not. With or without Crosby, the season finale between the Devils and Isles, which determined the last playoff birth, and set ratings records on TSN, was passed over in favor of a Pens/Bruins game.


The pens final game of the season was against the Rangers.


----------



## Wisegoat (Aug 17, 2006)

Here in SoCal, we don't even get them on the FoxSports RSN. They are farmed out to KDOC56, a weak, no HD, independent channel that shows religious programming and Hawaii Five-O reruns. Even if they make the next round, FSN is still not showing them. Angels and Dodgers have first dibs. Ducks have to make the divisional finals to get any national HD love.


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

thumperr said:


> The pens final game of the season was against the Rangers.


Sorry, didn't check. I went by what Billy Jaffee said at the end of the Isles v. Flyers game. He mentioned that it was their good luck that they would get to cover the pivotal game on MSG because the Nothing But Crosby network had decided to go with a Pens game instead. He noted that they had made the decision a couple of weeks before when it looked like the Isles were done.


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

wisegoat said:


> Here in SoCal, we don't even get them on the FoxSports RSN. They are farmed out to KDOC56, a weak, no HD, independent channel that shows religious programming and Hawaii Five-O reruns. Even if they make the next round, FSN is still not showing them. Angels and Dodgers have first dibs. Ducks have to make the divisional finals to get any national HD love.


Wow, that is worse than the Isles coverage. You can understand the Isles getting the shaft since they are carried by a group of channels owned by their rival, the Rangers. Are the Ducks getting the same bad deal because of the Kings?


----------



## Badtz (Apr 17, 2007)

ProfLonghair said:


> Why would they not bother passing on the HD stream? Is there some cost issue here?


I work for an NBC affiliate. There's no cost issue. Network provides all the stations with a single HD IRD for the network feed.

If NBC is showing multiple games, each one will be on a separate stream. The network operations center in NY can change the SD network feed for your station automatically, but the HD switch has to be done manually at the box itself. I can't speak for all the affiliates, but I'll be totally honest with you.. we just don't change our HD IRD. It stays set on the east coast primetime feed. Hockey is the only thing that ever requires it to be changed. If the correct game for our station is on the primary stream, then we pass it.. but if not, we just upconvert.

Like I say, I can't speak for all the affiliates, but I imagine most of them operate this way. We've never had any viewer complaints over not having a hockey game in HD.. the ratings just aren't that great.


----------



## Wisegoat (Aug 17, 2006)

islesfan said:


> Wow, that is worse than the Isles coverage. You can understand the Isles getting the shaft since they are carried by a group of channels owned by their rival, the Rangers. Are the Ducks getting the same bad deal because of the Kings?


The Ducks got screwed by the NHL lockout and their sale by Disney. They got sold to a great owner during the lockout, but, they lost all of the broadcast rights. FSN has the Angels and Lakers, FSN Prime Ticket has the Clippers and Dodgers and some Kings. There was no room left for the Ducks when they came back. The only local station that offered anything was KDOC56. If you watch the games they produce, you can tell how much money they spend on the telecasts. I have seen High School football games with better production values.


----------



## purtman (Sep 19, 2006)

islesfan said:


> If the Penguins are eliminated, will there be no more HD games on the *Nothing But Crosby* network?
> 
> I have yet to see the Nothing But Crosby network show a game in HD that did not involve the Pens. Look at the Flames v. Wings game. No Sid, no HD. This is ridiculous! They dropped the biggest game of the season (TSN ratings records) with the Isles v. Devils on the last day, just so they could show a meaningless Pens game.
> 
> Crosby is an awesome player, with great charisma and entertainment value, but it sells the game short when Iginla, Ovechkin, DiPietro, et al are forgotten.


It depends on where you are. Here in KC, he only appeared once on NBC.


----------



## jasonblair (Sep 5, 2006)

I didn't realize Canada had a network that went by NBC....


----------



## tomcrown1 (Jan 16, 2006)

jasonblair said:


> I didn't realize Canada had a network that went by NBC....


National British Columbia


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

wisegoat said:


> The Ducks got screwed by the NHL lockout and their sale by Disney. They got sold to a great owner during the lockout, but, they lost all of the broadcast rights. FSN has the Angels and Lakers, FSN Prime Ticket has the Clippers and Dodgers and some Kings. There was no room left for the Ducks when they came back. The only local station that offered anything was KDOC56. If you watch the games they produce, you can tell how much money they spend on the telecasts. I have seen High School football games with better production values.


For awhile there, one of the stations that covered the Islanders was ch 55 from Riverhead. Occasionally, that would be the feed for NHL center Ice. I remember ch 55 from when I lived there, and it was a weak, college station calliber production which used Star Trek re-runs for most of its programming (I love Star trek, but I am making a point about the level of the station).

The worst part was, you could see that they were using an antenna to receive the feed, then bouncing it up to us. It only happened when Charles Dolan decided that he wanted the Rangers to get the first crack at the cable feed. I haven't seen it since Charles Wang bought the team.


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

purtman said:


> It depends on where you are. Here in KC, he only appeared once on NBC.


Do you get the Preds there? Here in Reno, absent a Sharks game, the NBC station just takes whatever the national game is.


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

Badtz said:


> I work for an NBC affiliate. There's no cost issue. Network provides all the stations with a single HD IRD for the network feed.
> 
> If NBC is showing multiple games, each one will be on a separate stream. The network operations center in NY can change the SD network feed for your station automatically, but the HD switch has to be done manually at the box itself. I can't speak for all the affiliates, but I'll be totally honest with you.. we just don't change our HD IRD. It stays set on the east coast primetime feed. Hockey is the only thing that ever requires it to be changed. If the correct game for our station is on the primary stream, then we pass it.. but if not, we just upconvert.
> 
> Like I say, I can't speak for all the affiliates, but I imagine most of them operate this way. We've never had any viewer complaints over not having a hockey game in HD.. the ratings just aren't that great.


I complained to KRNV, but they told me that the game wasn't available in HD (this was the Sharks/Kings game at the end of the season), and "if it isn't produced in HD, we can't give it to you in HD." I should be happy I got a response. When I complained that the 5.1 track disappeared from all their shows in December, they never replied.


----------



## Steve Mehs (Mar 21, 2002)

dkgoalie said:


> The Flames / Wings game was in HD here in Indy.
> 
> Go Sabres!
> 
> View attachment 8002


While I like the original logo, I fell in love with the 'slug' at first sight.

GO SABRES!










MSG blows, all they care about is the downstate teams. At least we still have Rick Jeanerette though.


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

As an update, at Tv Predictions today, there is an article about the lack of HD coverage for the NHL, and they note there that the Wings/Flames game was not in HD. So, apparently Reno wasn't the only one left out. What is up with this? Why bother to go through all the expense of producing HD when you don't bother to pass it along to the people who have shelled out the extra bucks to see it?

P.S. Last night's Wings/Flames game in Vs. HD was not in HD. It was the TSN feed with a Vs. bug in SD!


----------



## croaker (Feb 14, 2007)

Here in St Louis, we got stuck with the Pens game, and watching the Rangers game on CI (MSG) last saturday. But we had game 2 of the BUF/NYI picked up on an MLB (D* ch 94) and I believe the first game on D* 96.

We havent had any of the Rangers games in HD yet, I am assuming there will be in round 2.

http://www.hdsportsguide.com/nhl.php This is a list of what they are showing in HD that includes the RSN's, Vs & NBC. after looking at it, there dont appear to be any RSN games on there.


----------



## n3ntj (Dec 18, 2006)

Too bad this site doesn't list the HD games for Center Ice.

Let's go, Rangers!


----------



## jasonblair (Sep 5, 2006)

n3ntj said:


> Too bad this site doesn't list the HD games for Center Ice.


Hmm... http://www.dbstalk.ca perhaps? :lol:


----------



## n3ntj (Dec 18, 2006)

Now that the Pens have been bounced from the playoffs, I guess NBC is just going to close shop... ;-)


----------



## croaker (Feb 14, 2007)

Nah they will just follow the ESPN Model.... the Brodeur and Hasek daily sports program.... well since Floppa and Nashville look like they are taking a powder.


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

croaker said:


> Here in St Louis, we got stuck with the Pens game, and watching the Rangers game on CI (MSG) last saturday. But we had game 2 of the BUF/NYI picked up on an MLB (D* ch 94) and I believe the first game on D* 96.
> 
> We havent had any of the Rangers games in HD yet, I am assuming there will be in round 2.
> 
> http://www.hdsportsguide.com/nhl.php This is a list of what they are showing in HD that includes the RSN's, Vs & NBC. after looking at it, there dont appear to be any RSN games on there.


It all depends on who they play, and if Vs. carries the game. Your Ranger's owner Charles Dolan also owns Cablevision, so he has tried to keep Isles/Rangers/Devils HD off of D*. Lately, D* has gotten MSG HD if you live in the area. So, basically, you are relying on the other team's feed to be in HD in order to be available. The Rangers Thrashers series was so quick that the Nothing But Crosby network never had a chance to air the game they had planned (I think it was game 6). If things finish as they looke like they are going, the Rangers would face the Senators in the next round, so don't get your hopes up for much HD there either.


----------



## croaker (Feb 14, 2007)

islesfan said:


> It all depends on who they play, and if Vs. carries the game. Your Ranger's owner Charles Dolan also owns Cablevision, so he has tried to keep Isles/Rangers/Devils HD off of D*. Lately, D* has gotten MSG HD if you live in the area. So, basically, you are relying on the other team's feed to be in HD in order to be available. The Rangers Thrashers series was so quick that the Nothing But Crosby network never had a chance to air the game they had planned (I think it was game 6). If things finish as they looke like they are going, the Rangers would face the Senators in the next round, so don't get your hopes up for much HD there either.


Well if the Devils win the Rangers will get Buffalo, which I hope would get some coverage.

Either way the HD coverage for SCPO's has be piss poor


----------



## n3ntj (Dec 18, 2006)

Ditto!


----------



## Mocco71 (Jan 13, 2007)

islesfan said:


> Sorry, didn't check. I went by what Billy Jaffee said at the end of the Isles v. Flyers game. He mentioned that it was their good luck that they would get to cover the pivotal game on MSG because the Nothing But Crosby network had decided to go with a Pens game instead. He noted that they had made the decision a couple of weeks before when it looked like the Isles were done.


A little late to this thread, but the Pens last game was on a Sat, the Isles game that you keep mentioning was on a Sunday. I don't think you are correct with your days. As I recall, NBC had no hockey the last day of the season, I watched the devils via CI.

Do the Isles even fill their building, let alone being put on national tv?


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

Mocco71 said:


> A little late to this thread, but the Pens last game was on a Sat, the Isles game that you keep mentioning was on a Sunday. I don't think you are correct with your days. As I recall, NBC had no hockey the last day of the season, I watched the devils via CI.
> 
> Do the Isles even fill their building, let alone being put on national tv?


When they're winning, they do. And attendance soared by the end of the season. There just isn't the corporate money like the Rangers have, and there is a lot of market competition, so when the team is bad, the fans stay home. Nevertheless, the Isles never get a fair shake on TV, so I've gotten used to that. They say they want to market "dynamic, charismatic, young stars," but they have completely ignored Rick DiPietro so, what can you do?

Anyway, now that the Sabres have moved on to play the Rangers, I have only one thing to say:

*LETS GO SABRES!!!!!!*

Power to the Slug!


----------



## tomcrown1 (Jan 16, 2006)

wrong lets go san jose *s h a r k s*


----------



## islesfan (Oct 18, 2006)

tomcrown1 said:


> wrong lets go san jose *s h a r k s*


Well, yes, as usual, once the Isles are bounced, I'm rooting for the Sharks, but first and foremost, I am rooting for the Rangers to be eliminated. 3 more to go...


----------

