Posted 9:26 a.m. by Jim Courtney

Earlier this week I wrote about my experience installing a SlingBox so that I could watch the CBC "Live" coverage of various events in real time. And I have had a few days now to experience SlingBox working at a distance of 2500 miles from my cable box.

This morning my hotel-distributed USA Today ran a feature story on how viewership of the Olympics is down - 36% from the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, for instance. But they make several points:

More Americans are checking the Internet for results in real time; by the time NBC runs their daily prime time coverage, the information has largely become stale. One quote: "Even when they try to tell gut wrenching stories, it just doesn't motivate me to watch".

Website visits to NBC's Olympics site are up significantly. "For anyone who can't see the Winter Olympics live, the Internet is the obvious outlet of choice."

A couple living near the Canadian border in Troy, MI is quoted: "My husband and I have discussed the fact that watching NBC's coverage is frustrating because they edit it so much we only get to see what they want us to see," Taylor says. "We like all of the athletes, and Canadian TV provides that."

For the 2010 Winter Olympics at Whistler-Vancouver watch for the following from the US coverage:

Real time coverage (from a site only three hours behind the key US Eastern market), probably with expanded coverage on the US rights holder's affiliated cable channels such as MSNBC and CNBC.

Much more Olympics via Video on Demand (as Rogers Cable is currently providing for this year's Olympics)

New business models for advertisers who want to reach their target markets more effectively

And from SlingBox: opportunities to watch from not just your home cable box but from a range of sources, such as the Canadian rights holder for 2010, contracted by SlingBox Media to provide a remote "reality Olympics" video source.

One more Internet-driven media transformation leading to one more business model disrupted by the Internet.


Now, while in my hotel room in southern California, back to watching Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards being interviewed about her Bronze medal performance in Skeleton yesterday.