<div class="gmail_quote">On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 12:01 AM, Gary Buhrmaster <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com">gary.buhrmaster@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<div class="im">The "event" programming (which includes the America football)</div>
is the most lucrative programming that the networks broadcast,<br>
and they spend hundreds of millions (and sometimes billions)<br>
purchasing the rights to broadcast them, and expect the<br>
commensurate profits. Episodic TV (which includes almost<br>
everything after that on Sunday night) is just not in the same<br>
league profit wise. And the networks are commercial enterprises<br>
interested in profit. If CBS (or any other network) had a choice,<br>
they would gladly sacrifice the entire evenings schedule to the<br>
event programs and rake in the profits.<br></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I have to wonder to what extent this is actually true. Don't get me wrong, they do spend big bucks to get the contracts for sports, and they are obviously interested in profit. However, with four "major" networks, and only 2-3 really popular sports, you would think we would be seeing one of the major networks fold if they lost a sports contract for a couple of years running.</div>
<div><br></div><div>I've done some work for one of the networks (admittedly, years ago) shooting football. The networks had many concessions from the league with regards to when play would stop/start, etc. You would think that they could just as easily influence the league to have games take up a fixed amount of time (to within a half hour, lets say), with the possible exception of during the playoffs and the Superbowl/World Series/etc. I think it is just a matter of someone actually realizing that there is a problem, or better yet, a profit to be made. (Not saying I know what that profit is, but money talks).</div>
<div><br></div><div><br></div><div> --Matt</div></div>