Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics
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To watch online, you need a computer or mobile device. You need to shell out for a cable or satellite subscription. If your provider is not part of the NBC streaming deal, you're screwed. And you risk buffering, pixelation, freezing or crashing just as Usain Bolt bursts off the blocks. To watch on TV, you turn on a television set. Winner: TV
CHOICE.
Here is the great philosophical difference between the two formats. The livestream gives you media the 21st century way: what you want, where and when you want to watch. TV curates a schedule for you and, because NBC fears live-TV events from London will cannibalize prime-time revenue, you have to wait for the biggest events. Yes, online you have to read a menu and make some decisions. But this is the Olympics, people! Push yourselves! Winner: online
COMMERCIALS.
The livestream has banner ads, and its video ads are abrupt but fewer and shorter. NBC's prime time is loaded with ads (one of which, for the Today show, spilled news of Missy Franklin's gold-medal win just before her race aired). But this is how American TV viewers pay the freight for the cameras, Ryan Seacrest's hair product and--via the $2.2 billion NBC paid the International Olympic Committee for 2010 and 2012 rights--much of the rest of the world. Winner: online
Online wins the medal. But there's a big consolation prize, which explains why NBC has run its coverage as it has. Despite--indeed because of--frustrations like ads and tape delay, TV still brings home far, far more gold.