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NBC delays live sports coverage on the West Coast ... again
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Andy Roddick plays a return to Andy Murray during
their Wimbledon semifinal match on July 3, 2009 //
(AP Photo/Alastair Grant)
UPDATE: This match ended at 10:45 a.m. PST. NBC will not air it on TV until 12:00 p.m. PST.
Tennis, anyone? Well, if you want to watch the highly-anticipated Wimbledon semifinal between Andy Roddick and Andy Murray on the West Coast, you'll have to wait till after the match has been in progress (or has been over) for several hours.
NBC Sports bought the rights to air this Wimbledon semifinal -- preventing ESPN from televising the match -- yet isn't broadcasting it live on TV or the Internet, creating a fury amongst tennis fans on Twitter.
Even on the East Coast, NBC didn't start airing the start of the match on both TV and the Internet until it was two sets in. They won't broadcast the start of the match on TV on the West Coast until three hours later, when it's likely to be over. And watching pre-recorded sports is about as exciting as folding socks.
Not surprisingly, this isn't the first time NBC has done this on the West Coast. They received a great deal of viewer complaints for their decision to withhold live Olympic coverage from West Coast viewers last summer. NBC has commented on how this hasn't affected ratings much -- but they shouldn't expect that to be the case for long.
In the case of Wimbledon, viewers are turning off NBC and turning to more current alternative media who don't have to worry about cutting into Kathie Lee & Hoda. While this is a legitiamte concern for the major networks, it also illustrates why they're falling behind in the era of the Internet.
This is an even bigger problem on the West Coast than it is on the East Coast because of the obvious time difference. But NBC has the ability -- and responsibility -- to air events live, especially on the Web, if they're going to buy the rights to them.
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