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Happy 20th Anniversary, Olympics Triplecast

How funny! I was just thinking about the triple-cast as well. Didn't realize it was 20 years ago, though.
I do remember David Letterman having fun with that mess.
But today, NBC has many more outlets to broadcast the Olympics.
 
I remember the Triplecast very well. I worked in one of the call centers that took orders. The rest of the year we took calls for a major airline but some of us were given the chance to work on this for a few weeks. They pulled quite a few people from regular duties because they were expecting a flood or calls.
As I am sure you all know by now, those calls never came. We mostly just sat around playing board games like chess or backgammon or various card games. Was also a good chance to catch up on reading if you had a long book you wanted to finish.
The Triplecast was a good idea on paper, but perhaps just a bit ahead of its time.
 
I actually won the Triple Play from WMMR radio in Philly. I had just graduated college and did not have a job yet. I remember watching lots on the red, white, and blue channels. It could only be watched on the converter box on NYT cable out of Cherry Hill, NJ. I would not have spent the money. How much was it? But, I enjoyed watching it since I got it for free.

This year, I noticed 2 extra HD channels showing up on my FiOS and with the NBCOlypics App, I can stream it on my iPhone, all included in my FiOS subscription.
 
I think it was a novel concept but they wanted too darn much money for it. People love Olympics coverage they can get for no additional cost, when you have to pay, then not so much.

I think they wanted something like $10 PER DAY to receive it.

Considering the number of outlets NBC is providing coverage on, this has been essentially recreated without the additional cost.
 
I don't think American Cablevision(now Time Warner) in Kansas City and a lot of other cable systems even offered it due to limited capacity
 
When I did research on this (to improve the Wikipedia article), the stunning mismatch of expectations and results got me. And so did the quotes:

"[W]e blew it from an economic point of view." — Dolan
"...the worst marketing disaster since New Coke" — a writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer
"...an unmitigated disaster for NBC" — Albert Kim, Entertainment Weekly editor

Few things in television earn such unilateral scorn.
 
We watched the triplecast in Huntington Beach, CA on a pirate decoder box my aunt and uncle brought up from San Diego.

Excitement led to (five minutes later after channel surfing the three channels) thoughts of "Thank god we're not paying for this crap!"

At least the Olympics are on NBC and not a network I actually watch (oh, it could also be on ABC as well). :)
 
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