Despite NBC banning sexually explicit ad content from the Super Bowl broadcast, Comcast customers in parts of Tuscon were exposed to about 30 seconds of a pornographic film which interrupted Comcast's Super Bowl coverage on Sunday.
According to The Huffington Post, Comcast suspects the work of hackers.
The company is paying each of its affected customers a $10 refund.
Blog reader Philip Ravenscroft e-mailed us with this question: "How did they decide $10 was the correct amount?"
Furthermore, if $10 is Comcast's estimation of the damage 30 seconds of porn incurred on the average viewer, should it have paid more to families watching the game with small children, or -- since the porn clip interrupted the game right after Larry Fitzgerald's last touchdown in the game -- Cardinals fans?
And most important, what about the people who enjoy porn? Should they send back the refund -- perhaps with an extra dollar or two?
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ResponderEliminar(Costs they may have incurred from out of court settlements with everyone who may have tried to sue them)/ (number of people who saw it) = $10 ??
ResponderEliminarHow about apologizing for showing Bob Dylan advertising Pepsi. That had more marginal damage than 30 seconds of porn; the average viewer probably watched another 30 min of porn during that day, so the marginal damage was lower than from the Dylan commercial.
ResponderEliminarNo, I don't think anybody benefited. If anybody preferred to be watching porn, rather than the super bowl, they would have been watching porn. So I think the lowest cost per customer to comcast is $0, rather than -$1
ResponderEliminarat $10 per head, if everyone of COMCAST's customers who were affected seeked the refund they would pay $800,000.
ResponderEliminar"Adult entertainment studio Pink Visual announced today that it is offering its Tucson, Arizona-area customers $10 off subscriptions to its flagship mobile and 'mega pass' adult sites to compensate Comcast customers who might have wanted to see the rest of the porn movie that interrupted Sunday's Superbowl broadcast. "
ResponderEliminarmsnbc.msn.com/id/29017752/
I want a refund for having to watch those awful GoDaddy commercials.
ResponderEliminar@#2 Hello From DC: Close, but I think their calculated Court Costs / # of Viewers would probably be significantly greater than $10.
What is the value of not watching porn? If it's less than the budget of the FCC, we're getting robbed...
ResponderEliminarI don't think their concern was as much from potential legal settlements as much as a concern that something like this would lead toward a loss of customers to competing satellite or other providers. I don't know if $10 does much of anything other than highlight their responsibility for the problem. I would have taken a slightly different approach and gave customers an incentive to use more of the product, something that would drive increased loyalty....things like, Sign up for HBO and get your entire cable bill free for one month....or here's 3 free certificates to pay-per-view movies. These are rebates in a sense, and they could lead to more long-term loyalty and revenues. For the people who enjoyed the porn, they would certainly enjoy the free pay-per-view for some 'late night' movies :)
ResponderEliminarConvenient that is happened in the heart of Cards territory exactly at the moment that it did.
ResponderEliminar@#7 KS
ResponderEliminarehh, it was a shot in the dark. never actually considered the numbers realistically =)
@#7 James: Actually, we call Tucson the spleen.
ResponderEliminar@ #8 X:
ResponderEliminarExactly!
The FCC budget is ~300 million.
The US population is ~300 million.
I don't know about you, but if porn was transmitted over the air I would lose more than $1 worth of productivity annually, but my enjoyment may increase.
Wait, are all of you suggesting that throwing money at the problem might not be the right solution?
ResponderEliminarRead the reader comments as well.
ResponderEliminarI could see worse things happenning. Like watching porn and suddenly having it replaced by a speech from [insert politician's name here] at a crucial moment.
ResponderEliminarWhat about me? I had to watch bruce springsteen's crotch slam right into my tv. That's at least worth $5.50.
ResponderEliminarWell, I enjoyed the porn. But I will also enjoy the $10 they are sending me. So, win-win. You're keeping this customer, Comcast. :)
ResponderEliminar"Comcast suspects the work of hackers. "
ResponderEliminarThey've been watching "Used Cars" too many times...
The move seems nothing more than a PR exercise. The impact of clip, especially on children who might have watched it, would be hard to monetize. So the best the channel could do was to offer some amount of money as token fine for the error. It will definitely generate publicity and also show the customers that network cares for them in some way.
ResponderEliminarI have a book talk on Feb 12th in our University...and guess what, I'm going to discuss FREAKONOMICS!
ResponderEliminarAny chances of having a Filipino version of the book? (Though more than 95% of our people understands English).
#8 is dead on.
ResponderEliminarHow could something like this happen? Wouldnt comcast get sued? How did they come up with a ten doller refund? Im sure there were many children watching i think giving $10 is not enough with how many children were affected by this.
ResponderEliminarSo ... I'm a Comcast subscriber in Massachusetts. I saw the porn clip after the fact.
ResponderEliminarFrom what I've read:
"Comcast customers who viewed the porn interruption may get a $10 credit by calling 1-888-315-8219."
intotemptation.net/2009/02/03/super-bowl-porn-postmortem/
(180,000 or so people watched the clip online within 24 hours of the game.)
So can any Comcast customer claim the $10 after watching the online rerun? :-)
What I don't really understand is why this refund had to be paid at all. I guess it's a typically American thing to pay people for unintentional (!) damages suffered. So someone made a mistake, well, tough break is all I can say.
ResponderEliminarA sum of money of the magnitude of $10 is not going to make up for any potential damages suffered, is it now?. Besides, people with kids will have changed the channel long before the penis came into view. And why do these people make their kids watch such a violent sport anyway?
So what happens if someone thinks they're entitled to more than $10? Do they sue? Will there be a class-action lawsuit? Anything to keep the 1.1 million licensed lawyers in the US working!
They should apologize for excessive violence on TV. Why do people freak out about sex but not violence which it is probably more damaging to children?
ResponderEliminarI was far more offended at the ad that kept yelling at the poor woman with the box of roses ... I refuse to remember what it was for. I want $10 back for THAT!
ResponderEliminar