Watch the full 20 minutes of Super Bowl commercials back-to-back on Google video or download them as video podcasts here.
This is intersting in particular for those of us who only see a local remix and never get to see them live!
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I’m just scratching the surface of this subject but 5 minutes ago I heard, on CBC news (canadian public broadcaster), that the Super Bowl attracted 1 billion viewers… I haven’t found the answer yet but as I said in my previous post, wikipedia (whoever that is!) suggests that this is probalby an urban myth:
There is a popular urban myth regarding the Super Bowl — that the game is watched in 234 countries by 1 billion people, a fact unlikely to be true considering the time of the event, and the lack of popularity American Football has outside of the United States. In actual fact, Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005 was watched by 93 million viewers in total, of which 98 percent were in North America. Approximately half of the remaining 2 million worldwide viewers watched from the United Kingdom.
Just to have a better idea, I found the ratings of other big broadcast events:
- this week’s President Bush’s State of The Union address (Nielsen): 42 million
- FIFA World Cup 2002 (wikipedia) : cumulative audience 28.8 billion, final match 1.1 billion
My guts feelings tell me that soccer is the real global sport. How could american football be so popular all around the globe?
Anyone has the answer?
The 40th Super Bowl is currently live on TV. Either through cable, satellite, IPTV or off air, it requires a capacity that we can’t have off the Net today. With its extremely high Nielsen ratings, it shows the best features of broadcasting: Live, high capacity bitstream, one-to-many-many-many. The broadcast infrastructure is at its best here. It’s currently the only channel that supports the dissimination of the head of the longtail live, in HD, to the largest audience of the year.
By the way, wikipedia provides a good description of the event. There could be as much as 100 millions viewers this year, mostly in the U.S. (1 billion is an urban legend) . As a comparison, there were 3.8 billion viewers of the 2000 olympic games in Sydney.
Well, now I have to leave you. Mick Jagger is singing his “I can’t get no satisfaction”. I’ll be one of 100 millions with you…
Blast Podcast is a web service that matches advertisers and podcasters by inserting relevant ads. They now offer video ads insertion.
Fruitcast seems to have a similar product.
This matching of products with cunsumers and content is the traditional function of broadcasters. Maybe it’s the only function that’s left for them in the future although these guys here already grab a piece of the market.
Nokia announced the following today:
… Other firms in the alliance include Intel Corp., Motorola, Texas Instruments and Modeo, owned by Crown Castle International Corp., it said in a statement. The tie-up, called the Mobile DTV Alliance, aims to encourage open standards for TV broadcasts to mobiles, focusing on the North American market.
DVB-H (Digital Video Broadcasting – Handheld) technology bypasses mobile networks and broadcasts directly to handsets from TV masts, allowing millions of phone users to access the service at the same time.
This seems to build a united DVB-H front against Qualcomm’s MediaFLO in the US.
A short review at the NYT about the new Internet content dissemination models:
“At one level it’s clear that the dam has broken,” said Paul Otellini, chief executive of Intel. “There’s an inevitable move to use the Internet as a distribution medium, and that’s not going to stop.”
This Reuters.com story tells us a little bit about the new iRadio service by Motorola. After looking at the iRadio website , I would summarize the whole story with this:
iRadio = podcasting by Motorola
Althoug the name is not ideal (somewhat confusing because it is absolutely not radio) I prefer it to Podcasting. Podcasting is a direct reference to the iPod and I find it sad that we’re stuck with a product-based terminology for such an important innovation. Nevertheless, the iPod, in conjunction with iTunes, is probably the best platform for podcasting.
After launching the Rokr cellular phone last September with Apple, Motorola introduces the new Rokr E2 that will receive iRadio services.
Here is a factsheet of the RoKr E2
Mobile TV made the news last week at CES 2006 with announcments and product demonstrations. From now on, one of the two major ventures will be called Modeo (formerly known as Crown Castle Mobile Media) while the other one has been known under the name of MediaFLO (Qualcomm) for a while now.
Both services will be very similar with, of course, some variations. This paper at C|Net provides a very good comparative overview of the two technologies.
This Nokia device was presented running a Modeo demo last week. Here is another device by Motorola .
This looks like another huge project under the Celtic Eureka umbrella. MI FRIENDS will be a two years project for the 75 official participants.
The project aimes at a new architecture of inter-working media services based on infrastructures of broadcasting and telecommunications for the media needs of a mobile information society.
The project goal is to develop and test new mobile media technologies from an economic point of view paying particular regard to social and cultural aspects with media consumer in its centre.
This looks quite interesting since it will give particular attention to DMB technologies as well as to social and cultural aspects.
A good post on “dose” where CBC’s vision of the future is questioned. That’s all Broadcasting 2.0.
Producing & disseminating audio is so cheap and easy now, and so much wonderful audio will be produced in the coming years — by smart public broadcasters, and also by joes and janes at home — all of it accessible on net. Why listen to CBC if they insist of becoming AOL audio, and do not understand what’s happening on the web? Why support an institution that does not reflect anything i believe in? (freedom, the responsibilities of a public broadcaster, diversity, non-commercialness etc).
In a comment, Tod Maffin provides some answers.
Bonjour!
My name is François Lefebvre. I’m a broadcast research engineer at CRC. This blog helps me explore some thoughts about the future of broadcasting. The views expressed here reflect my personal opinions and not necessarily those of my employer. Please do not hesitate to write your comments or to suggest stories.
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