I’m an Olympics junkie. Every two years, all I want to do is watch round-the-clock coverage of sports I wouldn’t otherwise care about, except that I’m sucked in by jingoism and sappy human interest stories. This year, NBC has apparently decided that it would like to do the crappiest job possible of televising the Olympics, and is making my life miserable.
The Olympics are in Vancouver, so that should be great for TV in the USA, right? No need to tape-delay stuff for ten or twelve hours until prime time. I’m cautiously optimistic that the live prime time coverage will be good, but it looks like NBC is going to suck horribly at everything else. I’ve been looking through the TV schedule and this is pretty much the way it works on the average day (all times Central):
NBC: mixture of sports/feature pieces from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. (weekdays) or 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. (weekends), the big-name sports from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m., then recap/medal ceremonies/some sports coverage from 10:30-11 or 11-12.
MSNBC/CNBC/USA: USA curling & hockey matches, some other hockey matches.
And that’s it. Even if the prime time/afternoon coverage is stellar, that’s still 18 or so hours of the day in which the only other things to watch are curling and hockey. Now, I enjoy watching curling far more than I should, and I’ll watch hockey during the Olympics because I’ll watch anything during the Olympics, but some variety would be nice. During Beijing 2008 I’d watch badminton and rifle shooting at 2 in the morning. It seemed like just about anything that could be streamed live was streamed live. Obviously with the time zones there won’t be much going on at 2 in the morning this go-round, but surely I could be watching some cross-country skiing or bobsled or whatever during the daytime.
But NBC has decided that instead of streaming 2000 hours of live footage like they did in Beijing, they’d rather keep you from watching anything other than their primetime package. (This cnet article details some of the thought process—that may be too loose a term—from the bigwigs at NBC on what they’ve done to the Olympics this year.) The only live competition footage you can get online is curling and hockey. That’s it. It’s utterly pathetic. You never know what live event might turn out to be utterly gripping. Today’s Nordic combined event had a thrilling finish, and thankfully it was televised live. But for all I know there’s a dozen other exciting events we didn’t see. I think there was speed skating this afternoon, but NBC couldn’t be bothered to show it. (Granted, long track can be pretty boring, but still.)
And thankfully, I don’t live on the West Coast, or I’d be up the wall right now. Even though the Olympics are in Vancouver (which is in the Pacific time zone, in case you didn’t know), no one on the West Coast can watch the primetime coverage live on NBC. (And so far NBC has had quite a few live events on primetime.) Watching tape-delayed sports frustrates me immensely. If I want to discuss the events online with people from around the world, I can get screwed over when other countries’ TV stations broadcast more events live than NBC does. Or if I venture on to facebook or twitter I can see results posted before NBC has a chance to air them.
And this go-round, you have to be subscribed to a participating cable or satellite provider—in Beijing anybody in the USA could get all of NBC’s online video. This year’s coverage is a clusterfuck on so many levels that I hope NBC never wins the Olympics TV rights ever again.
Dear Soulless Mega-Corporation,
Congratulations. Your mindlessly verbose, needlessly tape delayed, prepackaged, overly hyped Olympic coverage has almost sapped every bit of life out of this special event. Until this year I’ve been somewhat immunized by the fact that in Seattle (where I live) we could watch the Canadian coverage of the Olympics. Those unenlightened hicks north of the border actually show the events as they happen. They find the live events so compelling that they actually don’t have to package them with mindless drivel and explain them before and after. Sadly, CBUT is not broadcasting the Olympics this year (another Canadian network has it), so I’m stuck with your blow-dried version of the games. I’ve also lived in Europe where the coverage is equally “quaint” and I also remember that there was a time when American Networks could also do live coverage. What has happened to you? Do you think that the “Miracle on Ice” would have been better in a tape delayed format?
You are broadcasting these Olympics on five different channels, yet it is seemingly impossible for you to show us the drama of events as they happen. That has meant that your coverage here in Seattle didn’t begin until 2PM on Saturday and Sunday (even thought events were going on) then you take a break for local news and your coverage runs until midnight. I can understand you tape delaying Olympics held in another part of the world where the time zone difference makes it difficult to show events live, but the only reason to do this on the West Coast for an event that takes place in the Pacific Time Zone is corporate greed and/or incompetence. You are a bunch of jerks. Once the Olympics are over, I will do my best to NOT watch your network.
Actually, the Miracle on Ice was tape-delayed, at least according to Wikipedia.
[edit]–but aside from that, I’m pretty much in complete agreement.
i’m with you kevin, i’m a total Olympic zombie. my biggest gripe, is that the internet (yahoo and all the others) post the results before i have a chance to watch them. so, like a goon, i look the other way when i log on – i’m not kidding.
tonight was amazing for our Americans. really an outstanding night.