Let's briefly travel back into time to the year 2019. We will jump past 2020 because Covid screwed everything up. In 2019, Indycar qualifying was on NBCSN with races being broadcast on NBSCN or NBC. It was super easy to watch as both channels were included with my Dish Network and YouTube TV subscriptions. This included DVR functionality. Now let's fast forward to the current year of 2021.
Currently I use YouTube TV as my TV provider, which has both NBC and NBCSN channels. However, Indycar content has changed. Most of the races this year are on the main NBC channel, with a few of the races being on NBCSN. This is fine. However, all qualifying sessions are now on Peacock premium, which requires a subscription. This is an issue for several reasons. The biggest issue is that I already pay for a TV service, so it seems ridiculous to now pay for a secondary service just to watch qualifying. Additionally, separating qualifying from my main TV provider prevents me from using certain functionality such as DVR for delayed viewing. To be transparent, I have never used the Peacock app. However, I have heard from one of my friends that the app is somewhat wonky. My experience with the Fox Sports Go app and NBSCN app is that they don't rewind or fast forward well. This is in addition to having to login frequently. My friend said the Peacock app has similar idiosyncrasies. So now they've created an experience that not only takes you away from the normal TV viewing experience to a lesser one, you also have to pay extra for it.
I decided to keep the title of this post straight forward and self explanatory, but I came up with several titles in the process including be careful what you wish for. On the one hand, we are living in a boom age of great television. I don't think there has ever been so much great content to consume on TV. A la carte viewing seems ideal so that you can pay for what you want and not have to pay for channels and content you don't care about. The downside to this is that the TV experience becomes fragmented. You have to go to one app to watch racing, another app to watch your favorite show, etc. Along the way you also pay a little here and a little there. Suddenly, the idea of having a one stop shop for TV viewing becomes appealing, which is what cable offered. I think the most frustrating part of this is that there is a perfectly fine channel available to show qualifying - NBCSN. Moving qualifying to a separate service behind a paywall so that they can show monster trucks or car auctions on the main network absolutely feels like a money grab. But Indycar is very much a niche sport and a lot of the hardcore fans will pay for access and NBC knows this. The rumor is that NBCSN is going away by the end of the year, and if that is true then this move was inevitable. The trend is concerning, as it means the fragmented TV experience becomes more of a reality along with nickel and diming every ounce of viewership.
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