What Happened to Universal Sports?

1/3/2012

In case you are wondering what how come you can't watch Universal Sports anymore as of January 1, I hope I can clarify this for you. Universal Sports had a big campaign telling everyone to call their service provider, but strangely enough they did not tell you what to do if you are watching Universal Sports OTA (over the air). That is because they stopped multicasting. It is Universal Sports who choose to pull their programming and stop multicasting. The greedy execs at NBC Universal pulled their broadcasts off the air because they want more money.

If you were receiving your Universal Sports signal (Over The Air) you can no longer do so. So essentially Universal Sports choose to reduce their own viewing audience drastically. "Smart" move, now just watch their ratings plummet.

Comcast or any other provider is under no obligation to pay them any money for content which until a few days ago was free.

This is a part of a long line of dumb decisions by Universal Sports. First they would let you watch events for free on their website. Then they made it so you can pay per year or monthly and now you have to pay an exuberant amount or money for each event and no monthly or yearly options anymore.

I will miss watching alpine skiing, but I hope Universal Sports comes to their senses after their ratings drop so low that no one would want to advertise on them anymore.

1 Comment

E.Dougherty (Philadelphia) link

1/8/2012 04:14:41 am

Alex,

Thanks for the information here. Real disappointment in this development. While I can't say I was glued to, say, pairs figure skating or beach volleyball, my appetite for Alpine skiing and track field - to cite two examples near to my heart - was endless. As such, I was endlessly grateful (if a little confused by the lack of HD broadcasts) for the availability of Universal Sports here in Philadelphia (over the air, on the NBC channel, which is owned by Comcast). In terms of Before and After, the limitations of a pure Over the Air lifestyle are becoming louder and louder, so much so that I at least inquired about the costs of either Comcast or Direct TV.

One point of clarification, though, or perhaps correction. Inasmuch as Comcast is the majority stakeholder of NBC, and Universal was a subsidiary of NBC, I have to believe this was a Comcast decision. The Universal execs are employees, ultimately, of Comcast.

Though I wish it wasn't so, you have to believe that in Comcast's view of the world, the ONLY available programming is paid programming, that is, that the television experience doesn't exist unless you pay for it.

Thank you for the information.

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What Happened to Universal Sports?

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Alex

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