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AP's Olympic Copy Policy: What do you think?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by daveevansedge, Feb 14, 2010.

  1. fishhack2009

    fishhack2009 Active Member

    If it's like the premium content on the MCT site, clicking on it will take you to a site asking you to pay whatever the per-story fee is.
     
  2. Mr. X

    Mr. X Active Member

    NBC's coverage of the Winter Olympics opening ceremony averaged 32.6 million viewers, third-most among the seven opening ceremonies where individual U.S. viewership figures are available, according to statistics released Saturday by The Nielsen Co.

    Viewership for Friday's ceremony from Vancouver, British Columbia, was up 47 percent over the 22.2 million average for the opening of the 2006 games, which were held in Torino, Italy. U.S. viewership traditionally rises for Olympic events held in North America because they are able to be shown live in prime time in most of the nation.

    Here is a link to the complete story: http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_14399292?nclick_check=1

    NBC’s Saturday prime-time coverage of the Winter Olympics averaged 26.2 million viewers, more than any night during the 2006 Winter Olympics, even without figure skating, according to figures released Sunday by The Nielsen Co.

    Here is a link to the complete story: http://www.sdnn.com/sandiego/2010-02-14/local-county-news/saturday-winter-olympics-watched-by-26-2-million
     
  3. BillyT

    BillyT Active Member

    Thank you, Mr. X.

    I know I was being lazy, and I appreciate that.

    I know we all judge interest based on our local area and space.

    It just seems that this is one that's actually on our cycle, so people are going to be more interested in the results.
     
  4. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    That's the difference right there. I'm in an agricultural community. Nearest snow is around Yosemite and nearest ice rink is about 40 miles away. Plus, too, there's always the local push ... and we're in the last week of regular season basketball, the first week of soccer playoffs and divisionals in wrestling are this weekend.

    Summer Olympics are a different animal though. Outside of youth baseball and the Saturday Night races at the fairgrounds, not much going on. Plus, I'm thinking more people can identify with athletes in swimming, track and field, basketball, ect., than, say, four-man bobsled (and don't even get me started on figure skating).
     
  5. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    It seems that if you are a big enough paper to run a lot of Olympics stories, you're a big enough paper to pony up for Premium.
     
  6. SF_Express

    SF_Express Active Member

    We are "counterprogramming" for the Olympics, making a fairly quiet and less-stress Games for us. We have to get the basics, and play them up as necessary, but generally, this is just another event for us -- a good thing.

    We're getting everything we need from MegaSports, by the way. I don't know how that relates to this other thing.
     
  7. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Once upon a time we had an "Olympics desk" which consisted of a designer, an Olympics editor and another 1-2 copy editors.

    Now it's little more than "Has the module from Chicago arrived yet?"
     
  8. daveevansedge

    daveevansedge Member

    I don't disagree at all, Stitch. But we're not talking about a lot of stories. We're talking about two, perhaps three.

    I go back to what AP provided on yesterday's budget for non-premium tier subscribers: A luge feature on all the questions still surrounding the Georgian's death (only a couple grafs of this story touched on the actual luge results); a luge commentary from John Leicester; and a roundup. Two of the three stories we're allowed to use are on luge, and they're not even results stories? Really?

    There was not a single "gamer" on the regular portion of the digest, and I think that's ridiculous. I've got no problem with features/columns/in-depths/etc. being on the premium tier. But give me two, maybe three gamers to work with, just to jazz it up a little bit, along with the roundup. I don't think that's asking too much of AP.
     
  9. Mark2010

    Mark2010 Active Member

    I guess we must be premium, because we are getting enough to fill 5-6 pages per day, even though we can only afford to give 2 pages (plus one story on the front) to it.
     
  10. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    TV ratings are up from Turin, which is to be expected, but down from SLC, the last time they were held in North America, if you like an apples-to-apples comparison. Or so I read in USA Today the other day.

    Personally, I've watched very little and don't much care for the Olympics in general. But that's just personal preference.

    We've got high school swimming and wrestling districts/state, Microville Tech MBB, WBB, baseball, softball, gymnastics and wrestling, and a popular in-state NBA team to worry about too, so we basically run an Olympic roundup each day and call it good.
     
  11. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    We are premium, too, for some reason, even though we have run the roundup for the past few days.
     
  12. daveevansedge

    daveevansedge Member

    Actually, I'm pretty sure AP is sending everybody everything. We're getting every story on the Olympics digest (which moves separate from sports digest) -- technically, we're just only allowed to use the three or four at the top of the digest, above the notice that the rest of the stories are premium tier.
     
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