I’m not a sports fan in general, and that extends to the Olympics. Even the girly sports like gymnastics and figure skating, or the hot guys in speedos in swimming pools – boring.
My husband, however, is a fan. Somehow this escaped me with previous Olympics, but this time around I am keenly aware of his feelings. We were away for the weekend and whereas he usually doesn’t want the TV on, he was dialing it to the Olympics every time we were back in the hotel room.
And then complaining about them.
Getting the exclusive contract to air the Olympics is a big deal for any network, and this time around it has gone to NBC. And it seems NBC isn’t doing a great job.
1. They’re not really showing any Olympics. It’s not as though they don’t have enough competitions to show. There are competitions going on all the time. They’re just choosing not to show most of them in favor of this other programming. Sort of like MTV eliminating all the actual music videos in favor of Rob & Big Eat Porn Burgers or whatever they are showing.
2. They are showing lots of Olympic-themed segments instead. Every time you turn on the channel, they’ve got someone looking uncomfortable in their chairs by the fire set up doing an interview or they’re doing a man-in-crowd weather report or a segment on the wonders of Canada. What they aren’t doing is showing the actual competitions. And even I know that the Olympics are about the competitions.
3. The few things they are showing, they are putting on ridiculous tape delay. It’s not as though the competitions are happening half way across the world so they’re going on in the middle of the night here. I’m in the same time zone as Vancouver. And still, I’m watching these ‘live’ competitions at night and yet it’s clearly day out when they’re happening. Kind of hard to get into it when you know the result was actually hours ago.
4. Another network could do better. A network with more stations in its fold is clearly better suited to this sort of thing. That way, they could show the big-gun competitions on their main station, but still air the less exciting ones on their other satellite channels. And still have room for the boring Olympic-themed story programming. ESPN in 2012! Who’s with me?
Photo via NBC
Agree with you on coverage content. I have been DVR’ing the olympics to watch when I’m home from work. And out of 4 hrs of coverage from 8-12, they have about 2 hrs of sports and 2 hrs of interviews, fluff stories, and weather reports. Some of this stuff I would get if it were live, but with the large delay, it just is stupid filler. Then they could show more trials, more heats, and more actual events.
NBC ironically has a lot of other channels, but they aren’t using them the way they should. Hockey, curling, and some of the other sports (smaller sports) are on 3 other channels where I live. But they aren’t on all the time and often improperly labeled on the TV guide. It’s disappointing when the guide says curling and you get an hr DVR’ed of As The World Turns or some other soap. They should use these channels more, instead of just focusing on large chunks of NBC main channel coverage.
Oh, one thing I should say they did right- they did do a FANTASTIC job with nbcolympics.com. They show live sporting events all day long and have good info. Unfortunately, I can’t just sit at my desk and watch olympic coverage and keep my job. But at least they are putting good content on there.
They are doing a TERRIBLE job with nbcolympics.com. Not everyone has a cable or satellite subscription, and a lot of events are relegated to MSNBC or USA. No problem, I’ll just watch those events online! Except I can’t, because only people who don’t need to watch the events online, can watch them online, as full events and live streams are only available to cable/sattelite subscribers. I guess NBC doesn’t want to make any advertising revenue off of me…