Feb
23
Here’s a beautifully written post from NPR on how NBC’s coverage of the Olympics is broken, my emphasis in bold and commentary at the bottom:
Let us put aside for a moment the rah-rah, “Go Team USA” focus of the NBC coverage that often bugs viewers who would like a more global view of the Olympics. Let us also set aside sport-specific beefs, like the way Scott Hamilton’s groaning has gotten completely out of hand when he’s calling figure skating, or the way the curling announcers make it sound like only a three-year-old wouldn’t know precisely how to win every single game with ease, because they certainly could.
The mere structure of the NBC coverage has left a great deal to be desired this time around, and it came to a head last night when they shuffled the much-anticipated USA-Canada hockey game off to MSNBC, in part to use NBC as a showcase for probably the least anticipated of the figure skating events: ice dancing. (Along with some speed skating, bobsled, and the men’s super-G, which happened earlier in the day — oh, and the much-hyped ski cross event.)
The basic problem with NBC’s coverage is that they haven’t improved the fundamentals of the coverage in spite of massive changes in the way people take in content. The prime-time coverage is largely as it’s always been: a few events (including figure skating) are heavily showcased, a few other events (most skiing and speed skating fall into this category) are usually shown in an abbreviated format regular viewers instantly recognize as “USA-Plus” (meaning you see the Americans, plus a few other people who are relevant because they either do very well or wipe out spectacularly), and two events — hockey and curling — are shown as complete events, but they’re shoved off to cable.
West-coast residents have been particularly incensed that they wait an additional three hours after the East coast gets whatever “live” coverage there actually is in prime time, even though they are in the time zone where the Olympics actually are. What this means is that even if NBC is showing “live” coverage of its big events in New York, which is across the continent from Vancouver, it delays them three hours for Seattle, which is less than three hours south of Vancouver.
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Because what NBC perceives to be the high-profile events are frequently shoved into the evening, the ones that happen earlier in the day are dealt a particular blow. This has particularly plagued some of the skiing events, where NBC chooses to sit on the tape of the events for hours and hours, during which time other news outlets inevitably report on them (see the recent discussion from the NPR ombudsman about why news organizations can’t really ignore news events just because somebody else is withholding the tape from viewers rather than airing it).
With the hockey game last night, everyone knew it was going to be an important game, and if you were anywhere near Twitter, you knew that it was whipping fans into an absolute frenzy. NBC eventually cut over to show about the last 30 seconds, but by then, the opportunity had been missed.
This just isn’t the way people follow … anything, really, at this point. At one time, you could broadcast events hours after they happened, and you’d have a reasonable chance that people could live in a bubble while they were waiting. That is not the world we live in anymore. The fantasy that is indulged when Bob Costas speaks breathlessly about an upcoming ski race where he already knows exactly what happened is no longer even a fragile fantasy; it’s a blatant fiction that everyone knows about.
Naturally, NBC wants to kick the big events into prime-time for ratings reasons, and it’s hard to argue with their ratings successes for these Olympics, which have been massive. Nevertheless, they’re clinging to a broadcast model that’s not only on its last legs — it’s on the last toe of the last leg. This isn’t Wide World Of Sports — people don’t want to wait around for when your big sports show happens to take place.
Self-scheduling is the rule, at this point. It’s harder and harder to tell people when they will watch things, and in what form. I can’t prove it, but my sense is that part of the reason so many of us have taken to watching curling is that you can see entire matches, without the break-ins from Costas and the cutaways to other sports.
There’s probably too much action in a set of Olympics for absolutely everything to be shown top-to-bottom, and perhaps that would be boring, anyway. But if the broadcast networks who cover this stuff don’t find a way to stop pretending it’s still 1976, where an event happens when the person who owns the broadcast rights tells you it happens, they’re going to wind up being left in the dust by whatever manipulator of technology figures out how to do it better.
via Linda Holmes of NPR’s Monkey See Blog
Head on over to the article and check out the 250+ who have weighed in on this opinion, some ice dancing fans have called foul, but I think we can all agree that showing highlights & commentary in prime time is still great, but they can’t lock down events when so much live-as-it-happens media coverage works against it. Not only do I have to fight the East-coaster bloggers/twitterers/facebookers, but I know so many Canadians watching their coverage live or in many cases are at the events themselves… I cannot avoid FREE live coverage even if I tried!
Show all the events live streaming on the internet (LIKE THE BEIJING OLYMPICS FORCRYINGOUTLOUD) give us all of the interest pieces, technical breakdowns, highlights of all the days events in a two hour special each night and leave us fans to decide which events we want to watch in full or which we’ll skip… I can honestly only watch so much cross country skiing before I get so tired from straining for the athletes and pass out..
As for live streaming online, it can be done with profit. Make us watch ads, but for the love of all things HOLY please add some variety! I watched the US Women’s Hockey team throw down against Sweden yesterday and nearly went postal after hearing the 10 second Budweiser clip at least 40 times (no joke) with some mind screwing breaks of it running 5+ times in a row.
Equivalent to Chinese Water Torture.
NBC, get with the program! Throw in 3 or 4 different sponsors at the usual intervals, heck you can even make them interactive so I have to click the link to continue the programming, as annoying as that is, I’d do it!
Yes there are people out there who don’t watch TV on the internet, nor do they use a DVR (my gram is a prime example: she is constantly asking if she needs to change the tape for the recordings we’ve been keeping) but I guarantee you the SMALL portion of your advertising dollars aimed at those folks are lost during the late night coverage at 12:30pm and 2am nor do retirees have expanded cable packages on their fixed incomes so they aren’t watching MSNBC coverage either.
Front load all of your prime time coverage with Centrum Silver & Prescription Benefits ads, throw all the Doritos and Bud (worst beer on the planet BTW) ads at the 20somethings watching your online feed and give your upscale additional coverage on MSNBC the Jag and Audi ads. Your viewers would be happy, your advertisers would be happy, and I wouldn’t be forced to stay up til 3 am every night trying to watch the rediculous late night coverage for a two minute downhill run I heard about from people at the event.
I sit in front of a computer 8+ hours a day. I space out doing my work by watching Hulu and I’d gladly be watching Olympic coverage during the day AS IT HAPPENS. I’d also go home from work, watch an hour or two of events on demand from your website, watch the primetime recap of events I didn’t track during the day and sleep like a baby at 10pm. That is Olympic bliss…
