Ridiculous Content Restrictions Mean NBC Loses Viral Buzz For Emmy Clips

I’m not a big fan of award shows and can’t remember the last time I watched one, so it’s no surprise that I missed the Emmy’s this past weekend. However, in an age where mocking the hosts of these shows for doing a terrible job is considered common practice, apparently a lot of people were impressed by some of Jimmy Fallon’s work hosting the show. Too bad NBC can’t let people see why. Staci Kramer, over at PaidContent notes that the opening musical sequence (a play on the TV show Glee with Fallon and various other TV personalities singing a Springsteen song) got a really good response online… but NBC can’t post it online due to “restrictions.” That is, NBC didn’t secure the rights to repost the song online, losing out on any potential benefits from helping make the video go viral.

Of course, it’s not clear who’s “at fault” here, but either way NBC ends up looking clueless (yet again!). It had to know that there would be value in getting such things online, and while the license holders might not have wanted to license it, NBC should have made the point that if it wasn’t put online legally by NBC, surely plenty of others would put it online elsewhere for all to see, without NBC or the rightsholders getting any direct benefit. It’s really a tremendous “head-in-the-sand” approach to dealing with these issues. Anyone who says they can license music for the show on TV, but not online, is missing the point, and NBC’s inability to explain this to them coherently is a negotiating blunder. And, because of that, others get all the benefit of the viral content, and NBC looks clueless online.

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