Seriously, NBC?
In an effort to look dumber than how Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric looked in this harmless, cute video in which back in 1994 they exposed their lack of Internet acumen on the air, NBC fired the employee who put the clip on Youtube according to Rob Pegoraro of the Washington Post and has been racing around to pull copies of the video from the web (apparently they hadn’t heard of the Streisand Effect).
Here it is.
Oh please NBC hit me with a cease and desist, I would love to write about that.
Again, that was from 1994. How much about the Internet did you know back then? Were you even in your AOL phase by then? This clip is nostalgic, not humiliating. In terms of Internet knowledge, the only one who looks dumb here is NBC for thinking they could expunge a video like this from the Internet without not only looking like jerks, but getting more eyes on the video and turning the firing and attempted removal into a story, the kind they could do without having created. The fifteen minutes on this clip had already expired.
NBC, don’t make me organize a boycott of MSNBC – put the Youtube clips back up and offer the man his job back after apologizing to him. And damnit stop blocking Google TV. What the hell is wrong with you. Damnit.
Doug Simmons
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Doug Simmons
Biographical info.. hmm. I have a history of not being able to strike the balance between what is "safe" to put into these forms and what is, in my mind at least, funny. Can't do it.
While I don’t agree with their censorship of the video, especially after they re-aired it themselves on The Today Show a few days ago; good for them for blocking Google TV. Hopefully more content providers will wise up and protect themselves from Google like NBC is. Then again, Google TV is pretty bad anyway.
Do you know that man that got fired name is? Did he just get caught leaking it or was he dumb enough to post it himself?
Mark: You’re right, I didn’t think of it that way. Google TV is a huge threat to all content providers whether it’s NBC or HBO, CNBC and other content providers that are happily in a symbiotic relationship with Google that does not involve a collaborative shakedown. Way to be NBC. CNBC on the other hand, watch your ass.
Smith: Don’t have his name, but given that it would have flown over my head at least that this would get me into any trouble at all, I wouldn’t go to far out of my way to cover my tracks.