The United States of NBC.

I'm twenty-five and self-employed, living on bran flakes and dreaming of luxuries like health insurance and television. Zeus forbid I want to watch the Olympics on the internet I pay more for because I'm not also purchasing a cable tv package. All the whining about online coverage of the Olympics is getting annoying, but it brings me to a point I've been making for a long time: Internet, internet, internet.

NBC is so dependent on primetime advertising that they couldn't even televise the four-hour opening ceremonies live, (much less show it online), much to the boo-hoo of laptop-toting and DVRing 18-35 year-olds everywhere. Despite the claim of over two thousand hours of streaming online coverage, the majority of it is not live, and NBC won't be offering the more popular events to online viewers until well after they've happened. I know women's gymnastics just ain't what it used to be now that steroid-testing and underage Chinese girls are the norm, but the only thing badminton calls to mind is an animated match between Maid Marion and Lady Cluck. It's tough to get excited about that.

Granted, ninety-eight percent of households in the US contain at least one television, if not the 2.5 average, and sixty percent of households with television subscribe to cable, but even they're getting shafted on coverage if this guy's f***-per-paragraph rate is any indication. I can understand the importance of commercial sales, especially considering the $800 million payout required to win the bid as exclusive US broadcaster of the Olympics, but if NBC can't make that money back that's their own fault. And what's with all the exclusivity, anyway? It's the Olympics. If there are two things people the world over can unite on, I'd say they're the Olympics and the internet. Just not at the same time, apparently.

Ok fine. Instead of lurking around on Chinese sites I can barely decipher, BBC through a proxy, (by far the best major network coverage), or stealing video via P2P, I broke down and decided to watch delayed videos on the NBC site. Navigating to any desirable coverage was a total mess. Even for online listings, I had to enter my zip code and cable tv provider, and since I don't have cable, I lied. When I finally got to see the listings, the majority of the calendar was a sad gray with repeated No events scheduled at this time. Ok fine. I clicked on a highlight video and was prompted to install Microsoft Silverlight. I considered downloading it, but decided not to back down on my refusal to run Microsoft products on my machine just for the sake of respectfully viewing the Olympics through my established regional provider. None of their other content requires the installation, and it's not my problem that NBC needs Microsoft to underwrite the expense of online Olympic coverage.

So it's back to viewing live coverage through illicit means. It's not as though I want to. I'd be perfectly happy to watch the Olympics through NBC, but they've clearly put a lot of effort into making that impossible for me. Obviously, those who have the choice of watching the Olympics on television will do so, and soak in the relentless commercials along with dunder-headed and culturally-ignorant commentary. It's not like people are going to turn off the flatscreen and hop on the internet instead, (although I encourage everyone to do just that).

The Olympic fiasco is making it clear that people want more televised content available on the internet. I think television networks that offer any kind of streaming programming would do well to just make all of their content available. That means I get to watch whatever I want immediately, well before the P2P networks have enough seeders to make for a painless theft. There should be no special installations required, and my only complaint for existing content is that there is often no fullscreen option. Does this mean I have to sit through commercials that all my DVRing friends get to joyfully fast-forward? Yes. Do I mind? Not in the least.

Oh yeah, I forgot. Go Phelps.