NBC is planning to saturate August will more hours of Olympics coverage than all Olympics TV before combined. 2,000 hours will be featured online and the rest spread across NBC and its assortment of cable stations. But the big numbers cloud NBC’s flawed new media strategy that still focuses on limited, controlled content, missing the perfect opportunity to build new business models.

NBC is limited the popular events to its networks and leaving fencing and kayaking online along will lots of behind the scenes footages only the most die-hard will watch. Other news organizations are banned from using any videos of the events and even have to take down footage of the Olympic trials once the games start.  NBC is also hyping its anti-piracy efforts to keep footage off other video sites with China promising to “attack” websites hosting unlicensed footage.

Ironically, with all this effort, NBC plans to loose money on the Olympics.  Spending $800 million to air the games lets the network publicize its own shows and fall line-up.  If the Olympics are all about promotion, then why doesn’t NBC want it promoted?

By limiting how and when and where people can watch the games only means people won’t watch them or will go behind NBC’s back to get what they want.  If pirated copies of the games meet consumers needs, then that’s what consumers will find.

NBC had a gold mine here where they could flood the web with all the Olympics footage possible.  Provide some embedding code and let the steaming video spread. People could then watch the videos where they want when they want with streamed ads in tacked.  Providing the same content on demand brings more people to Olympics websites, where they can be exposed to more information on events, merchandise, and shows, even if the video isn’t found on an NBC affiliated site.

The fact that NBC already plans on taking a loss should encourage them to take risks with their online strategy.  Instead NBC is pushing leftovers on the internet and keeping the fresh meat for the networks. If its online strategy fails to meet expectations, NBC will unlikely consider the poor choice in content.  If it successful, whatever that means, then I’ll wonder how much better it could have done with real, shareable content.