What will we not see on TV this season | Golden Skate

What will we not see on TV this season

Joined
Jul 11, 2003
Certainly not the Japan Open

The "B" competitions including Liberty and Lake Placid.

Skate America? Would that be prime time as in the past and only 5 competitors? or maybe more on UniSport? Will unisport or icenetwork charge a fee?

US Nationals? divided between icenetork and NBC with a limited unisport showing in the evening?

Euros are out of the question.

4CC maybe on icenetwork with a fee?

Worlds will have limited showing by unisport and from Cannes should not be a difficult hour to watch, and how much will we see? A fee?

There are hot competitions in Ice Dance and Pairs; the retun of Ms Kim in Ladies; and the Men's Field is overwhelming. How much will see see? and by whom?

Please, this is not a prediction thread, but you can start one in the other folders. it's about sitting at home and watching the competitions on some sort of vehicle. If you have any firm information on showing any of these competions, please provide.
 

mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
Why would local, non-qualifying competitions like Liberty, Indy Pairs, Lake Placid, Golden West, Glacier Falls, and Skate Detroit be televised? Sometimes a local cable network will pick up a local competition (I think one year the Boston Open was on a channel that had pay access on the internet real time and free access later which drove traffic to their site). Yes, those are all large local competitions that are of interest to true skating fans (to see how Nagasu, Zhang, Carriere, Denny and Coughlin, etc are doing in the summer and how their programs are fleshing out), but they wouldn't generate revenue - who would pay to advertise? Heck, they don't even typically charge spectator fees or if they do it's nominal...
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
and my point is that we will not see them until the major competitions are scheduled. My question is more about which sources of showing skating we will see. Icenetwork? Can they afford to transmit the GPs? the Worlds?. How much will Unisport carry, and will it be LIVE? Has NBC found a sponsor for figure skating?

Maybe Red Dog will give us some information. He's usually more up on TV information.
 

janetfan

Match Penalty
Joined
May 15, 2009
and my point is that we will not see them until the major competitions are scheduled. My question is more about which sources of showing skating we will see. Icenetwork? Can they afford to transmit the GPs? the Worlds?. How much will Unisport carry, and will it be LIVE? Has NBC found a sponsor for figure skating?

.

Skating never gets as much attention the second year after a winter Olympics and NBC will be focusing on the London games next summer.

The London games stand to make NBC double or even triple the profits as opposd to the possible loss that will follow in Sochi.

The Rio Summer games will make NBC a huge profit and the Winter games from Korea will probably be a loser although 2018 is still far off and the economic climate and interest factors could change by then. Maybe someone will get kneecapped again. ;)

I can't blame NBC if alot of their energy will go into producing the London games. How much interest can they have in a tape delayed broadcast of a GP event that gets what, a 2.5 share if that?

ESPN picked up an 8.6 for the WWC final yesterday.

ESPN most likely made a good profit yesterday broadcasting Women's soccer.
They used to broadcast figure skating but declining ratings were not recognized and dealt with failrly by ISU so ESPN dumped skating.

Just another one of Cincuanta's blunders.
 
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janetfan

Match Penalty
Joined
May 15, 2009
I guess I will watch most of my skating on the YouTube Channel.

I think you will get to see skating on TV this season. Parts of Natls will be broadcast along with something from SA.

Most likely NBC will continue showing limited taped delayed broadcasts of some of the GP series because Sunday afternoon is a graveyard for them with NFL football dominating the ratings.

4CC and Worlds is another story but hopefully there will be something of Worlds shown.

Don't forget there will be many "Summer sports" holding their Olympic qualifiers and NBC will need to show them to build interest for London.

So CoP skating with it's low TV ratings will not be the biggest priority this season.
 
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mskater93

Record Breaker
Joined
Oct 22, 2005
Last year, IN carried for their subscribers:
US Regionals, Sectionals, Junior Nationals (Juvenile + Intermediate) and Nationals (Novice, Junior, Championship) in their entirety (Final groups of Championship were available at a later date due to NBC broadcasting rights)
The SGP series in its entirety and the JGPF (since it was combined with SGPF)
Seven shows (Halloween on Ice, Brian Boitano Skating Spectacular and the like)
US Synchronized Skating Sectionals and Nationals
US Adult Sectionals (Championship Events Only) and Nationals (All Events)
World Championships
The quality varied depending on who the videographer was for Regional and Sectional events and who had broadcasting rights for international events

A number of people are kind enough to post Eurosport coverage on Youtube pretty soon after the event is over.

If you search the internet carefully, you can usually find live coverage on Justin TV (France), a British (non-Eurosport) channel where Robin Cousins is the broadcaster, a Russian TV channel, a Turkish TV channel, CCTV (China), or some other broadcast, but you have to be patient and get in early or else the feed freezes and you don't mind (for most of the mentioned channels) getting commentary in a language you may not be familiar with.
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
I think you will get to see skating on TV this season. Parts of Natls will be broadcast along with something from SA.

Most likely NBC will continue showing limited taped delayed broadcasts of some of the GP series because Sunday afternoon is a graveyard for them with NFL football dominating the ratings.

4CC and Worlds is another story but hopefully there will be something of Worlds shown.

Don't forget there will be many "Summer sports" holding their Olympic qualifiers and NBC will need to show them to build interest for London.

So CoP skating with it's low TV ratings will not be the biggest priority this season.
What happend last year does not mean it will happen again.

I don't blame NBC caring more about the Summer Olympics. There will be plenty of sponsors for that. Sports are a business and when Figure Skating lost in popularity the business suffered. Understandable.

NBC never carried more than Skate America anyway. It was ABC that gave us snippets of the GPs, but they saw the fall in revenue early on and just discarded figure skating. (I saw Terry Ganon on TV, btw, at the British Open Golf.)

Nationals will be the most likely showing by NBC because it generates revenue, and if it works with Icenetwork, I'll be able to see the early groups too.

In the meantime, I await news from NBC, Unisport and Icenetwork on what their plans are for international competitions. It's still a bit early for this but next month there should be some news. Youtubes are nice but there is no competitive spirit about them, but it is something.
 

R.D.

Record Breaker
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Maybe Red Dog will give us some information. He's usually more up on TV information.

Red Dog doesn't have any information. But, perhaps R.D. might. ;)

Anyway, NBC has the USFS contract until the 2014 Olympics. This means we're guaranteed at least Skate America and Nationals coverage next season on NBC/Universal Sports.

Additionally, I believe Universal Sports has the ISU contract until 2013 (?) which means that those who get the channel will get coverage of international GPs, Euros, 4CC and Worlds, likely on tape.

The past couple of seasons, USFS has worked something out with ISU/UniSports which allowed it to show weekend packages of various GP events (including the final) on NBC. Not sure if they plan on doing it again this time.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
Since ComCast bought NBC, Universal sports has been appearing on more and more comcast lineups.

I was happy to find that I now can get Universal sports!
 
Joined
Jul 11, 2003
R.D. I knew you would give some information. Thank you..

While I am not crazy about US Nats, I will get to see some skaters and Teams not at Skate America, that is if Icenetwork will show the early skaters. In fact, it's Icenetwork I have to count on showing international competitions. Much depends on whethe I renew my subscription. There will not be any LIVE competitions on Unisport, but it will be worth watching their selected skaters later on TV with better sound.

Doris - You are lucky to also get a Canadian stream in your neck of the woods. I can't they wont show Mens and Ice Dance.
 

Tonichelle

Idita-Rock-n-Roll
Record Breaker
Joined
Jun 27, 2003
a local network here in AK streams universal sports on one of their channels so we get it - didn't get it while I had cable at the place I was renting, but now that I've moved back home (working on getting a mortgage) I get universal again. Very happy about that! :)
 

silverpond

On the Ice
Joined
Jun 18, 2011
Why would local, non-qualifying competitions like Liberty, Indy Pairs, Lake Placid, Golden West, Glacier Falls, and Skate Detroit be televised? Sometimes a local cable network will pick up a local competition (I think one year the Boston Open was on a channel that had pay access on the internet real time and free access later which drove traffic to their site). Yes, those are all large local competitions that are of interest to true skating fans (to see how Nagasu, Zhang, Carriere, Denny and Coughlin, etc are doing in the summer and how their programs are fleshing out), but they wouldn't generate revenue - who would pay to advertise? Heck, they don't even typically charge spectator fees or if they do it's nominal...

Good point -- it's a matter of obtaining television commercials to broadcast the skating competitions, the "B-level" competitions would probably not qualify on a national level. Perhaps local television would film/broadcast those competitions. Skate America has not exactly attracted huge audiences, at least not in my memory. What I remembered almost as well as the great performances was the thousands of empty seats at these events.

Has anyone seen televised coverage of the regionals and/or sectionals? I would think these could be of definite local interest.
 

dorispulaski

Wicked Yankee Girl
Joined
Jul 26, 2003
Country
United-States
I have, but not for a several years. Comcast New England used to have a program hosted by Nancy Kerrigan that routinely aired Junior Nationals and Easterns.

These days, Comcast's regional sport network does not seem to cover skating.

It does cover collegiate gymnastics in Florida & Georgia, though.
 
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