Olympic online coverage

It doesn’t have to be that way. The network’s cameras are ubiquitous on the Olympic grounds, and it could use the virtually unlimited capacity of the Internet to provide blanket coverage. But NBC is holding back largely because it doesn’t want to cut into its prime-time audience. Like its broadcasting rivals, NBC Universal generates more advertising dollars from the people tuned to its TV networks than the ones watching on the Net. ...

But in trying to guard against the erosion of their prime-time audience, networks may be doing themselves a disservice. For one thing, they miss the chance to reach new viewers who weren’t going to be tuning in on their TVs anyway.

And so far, at least, the programmers who have been most aggressive online have been the most successful on TV as well. Experience shows that avid viewers online and on mobile networks are also avid viewers of prime-time TV. ...

The sooner they close the gap between the Web and TV, the fewer opportunities they’ll miss.