CBS already a winner in NCAA tournament
CBS’ online coverage of March Madness — the NCAA basketball tourney — has raked in about $37 million in ad sales. Look for at least 8 million unique viewers.
The online viewership is dwarfed by the traditional telecasts, but that $37 mil is not a bad showing, considering it comes from the charity stripe. In its first year of free and open access, March Madness on Demand made a measly $4 million.
The evolution of CBS’ online tournament coverage shows that old media can learn from its mistakes and limitations, given enough time.
The network’s early attempts at online NCAA came with an admission charge, $15 back in 2004. Two years later, it offered feeds for free, but viewers had to go through an annoying registration process — and wait in “lines” to enter the video portal. Long waits, smeary images, frozen screens — the bad old days.
Then, in 2008, CBS got it: full access for everyone, no blackouts and no marketing-driven registration. The network starting streaming all, including the Final Four and Championship Game. Overall quality was up, slowness down.
This year there’s the HQ video, back again after debuting in 2009. Those with the right stuff get widescreen HQ video via the March Madness on Demand player. CBS says viewers can watch picture-in-picture highlights of ongoing action inside of a live video stream.
The standard player runs on Adobe Flash, while the HQ comes via Microsoft’s Silverlight platform. New this year for the HQ is something called IS Smooth Streaming, which adjusts the bitrate to match your online video setup. Audio comes from Westwood One’s coverage. Stats can be displayed onscreen as well.
The March Madness players can be found all over the Web, thanks to various partnerships and the javascript links offered to anyone who wants them. (The freebie ad below will take you there, for example.)
CBS to some extent is doing what it has to, since nothing less than full (and free) access would satisfy fans. Look at the animosity NBC generated with its crappy online coverage (or non-coverage) of the previous two Olympics Games. NBC doesn’t seem to be learning anything from this biennial outpouring of hate, but its rivals no doubt are paying attention.
Here are some other venues for the web streams: CNN.com, ESPN.com, Facebook and CBS Interactive properties TV.com, CBS.com, CNET.com and GameSpot.com. The March Madness iPhone app goes for $10.
Last year, CBS posted about $32 million in ad revenue for March Madness on Demand. There were 7.52 million unique visitors in 2009, a 58% increase over 2008, the network said. About 8.6 million total hours of video and audio were gobbled up by sports fans, a 75% increase over 2008.
March Madness streams cleaned up
Like green beer, stinky cabbage and your office NCAA pool picks, CBS’s live streaming presentations of March Madness proved to be a bittersweet March tradition.
Herky jerky video, pointless viewer registrations and the purgatory of a bandwidth “waiting room” all irritated followers of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Still, 4.7 million tuned in, and at least it was free — unlike on DirecTV.
This year, though, it looks like CBS Interactive has a chance at cutting down the net. Starting today, all NCAA tourney games will be flowing with what CBS says is plenty of bandwidth for all, no waiting, no b.s.
Also, a higher-quality (HQ) stream will flow via Microsoft’s Silverlight video platform. You’ll recall that was used last summer for NBC’s Olympics. This time, look for better results: Silverlight works for Macs and presumably a lot of the bugs are toast.
Webmasters not opposed to promo freebies can use the new “March Madness on Demand” links, popup players and widgets to offer links and popups to game coverage. (View the popup player below, use the link.)
The iPhone and iPod Touch also are in the game with a $4.99 app that brings in all games, but only if you’re currently on wi-fi. (Of course, if the iPhone is in wi-fi range, you’d probably be watching on a computer, right?) For those on Edge or 3G, the iPhone basketball app delivers audio of all games. Odd, because CBS Interactive already has an iPhone app that runs on 3G. Looks like the NCAA iPhone app is a low seed, but someone somewhere will find it a godsend.
Online video provider Joost tried a P2P version of live NCAA coverage last year, but there’s no sign of a repeat on its new browser-based service. The noble Joost “experiment” received mixed marks from viewers, at best.
CBS said it has nearly sold out advertising for its NCAA live streaming content, with something like $30 million from 35-plus sponsors. In the online video world, that’s big money. Last year’s MMOD revenues were about $23 million, Media Week reported.
None of that good news will get my Gators out of the NIT. Ugh.
(Ever wonder who came up with the term March Madness?)
Check out the March Madness popup player
