I was sad to see BYU drop out of the NCAA basketball tournement in the round of sweet sixteen last night. Jimmer Fredette had an incredible run and the team did more than anyone predicted. Most importantly the team, school, and alumni can be proud of how everything ultimately played out this year considering the roller coaster of ups and the downs. If nothing else my brother-in-law Tim, who is on the coaching staff, seemed to be sporting snazzy new suit for his national broadcast. Losin' in style Tim!I've been watching the tournament games via the generous online streaming from CBS college sports. I'm at four months now without a television, not because I'm too good for TV but because I'm cheap. I will only be in NY until June so it seems silly to buy a TV. I can find most things that I want online but quality is often sketchy or shows are delayed. Some people probably complained about all of the commercials on the CBS online coverage and they were a bit tricky about keeping you from tuning out or switching games during ads but I thought it was great. After searching for low quality feeds that can get shut down at any time I was happy to put up with some commercials in exchange for reliable high quality coverage of the tournament.
Other online media should be following the example of CBS Sports, Netflix, and Pandora. Free services with ads or broad access for a low prices seems the way to go. Netflix may not make a lot of money for each individual subscriber but keeping the prices low has encouraged millions of people to sign up and it's killing dvd rentals. Netflix has made survival with TV quite easy. I've w
atched some great movies and buzzed through some outstanding TV series (Firefly, Downton Abbey, Doc Martin, Slings & Arrows, Lie to Me, and others).On the other end of the spectrum is the New York Times. They will be taking their third swing at online subscriptions next week and I think it will be a strike out. Instead of learning from the successful services listed above they are pricing too high. There will be limited free access each month before the paywall comes up and there are a few potential back doors but I imagine NYT will work hard to shut them down in the future. What they should do is cut the price significantly, get more subscribers, and still maintain some subtle advertising that wouldn't annoy subscribers. Amazon has been walking close to the line as well with the prices of its ebooks. For the first couple of years there was nothing in the kindle store over 9.99 and now the standard new release is well above that. I love my kindle but am sticking with cheaper books for purchase. If I'm going to spend that much money I want something I can put on my shelf.
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