NBC’s olympic coverage needs to join the 21st century
Published: February 23, 2010
Updated: February 23, 2010
NBC's fabulous full-screen streaming player, complete with a mandatory banner ad.
If you thought NBC choosing Jay Leno over Conan O’Brien was bad, evidently it was just a warmup for a whole lot of other terrible choices during the Vancouver games.
The Spectator wrote an editorial last week about the games so far where we called out NBC for tape-delaying events for most of America. This is a problem, but it’s also how its been done for years and years. Even the “Miracle on Ice” in the 1980 games was not seen live in the United States. For the most part, Americans are used to seeing delayed Olympic events.
The biggest problem with NBC’s winter game coverage is what they are choosing to show, where they are showing it, and how they are chopping up the events to be more “easily digestible” and “universally” appealing.
For example: You may have heard that the United States beat Canada in hockey Sunday in one of the most anticipated events in the entirety of these games. You probably didn’t watch it, however, even if you wanted to. Despite the game being the most viewed TV event ever in Canada, NBC gave the game the cold shoulder. It was relegated to cable network MSNBC and online, so you could either watch the game in standard definition or badly streamed with frequent dropouts. Trying myself to watch the historic game, I was forced to first prove to nbcolympics.com that I subscribed to a premium cable package (I don’t, I had to call my parents to get their Comcast account information) and then was presented with the lovely atrocity you see above as a full-screen player. It was even worse on my HDTV: that banner ad stays the same size no matter what resolution you’re viewing at, so a lower-res display like a TV will have almost 1/3 of the total screen space taken up by ads and blank space that it’s impossible to get rid of.
In the meantime, real NBC is showing a tape-delayed bobsled race from 5 hours ago. After that, they cut to in-depth coverage of ice dancing, a sport they says caters to their “largely female” Sunday night audience better than hockey. I don’t think that’s the real reason the game wasn’t on real NBC, and one of NPR’s bloggers seems to agree.
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)
Hockey can’t be shown in this format. A hockey game lasts around three hours, and provides little time for cutaways to other sports or commercials, which is a staple for the network.
The way NBC is covering these games is a blow to actual sports fans. The real excitement and suspense of watching sporting events is ruined when the winner has been spoiled to you by print and web media hours before the event even shows on TV, and in this day and age those sorts of things are impossible to ignore. Meanwhile, perhaps one of the biggest stories of the games so far is pushed aside to cable and the internet while the coverage on the main network is people dancing around in frilly outfits. Sure, not a whole lot of people in the United States watch hockey, but not a lot of people watch figure skating outside of the Olympics either. Olympics viewers will watch events that are compelling and have athletes that they connect with, and a USA vs. Canada hockey game has all those.
I’m tired of having to avoid Twitter and Facebook and seattletimes.com so I can live in a bubble and have at least some amount of suspense. I’m tired of only seeing Americans doing their ski runs and having 3 minutes of commercials per 5 minutes of content. I’m tired of the hassle I have to go through to watch any kind of live events. NBC: it’s 2010. You’re being scooped by PRINT MEDIA. People consume media differently now, and you better get your shit together before ESPN comes in and shows you how to really cover sports.
I agree… I was in Canada last week and in the States this week.
And the Canadian coverage is WAY better! Everything is live!
NBC will not air any remaining USA Hockey games live to Seattle on any of the NBC networks.
This is a crime. Thank god I can hack into a stream from Europe and NBC can’t do a thing about it.
MSNBC does have an HD feed, but it’s like less than a year old… and basically, which would you prefer: seeing it on a crappy cable channel, or on tape?
The real problem is that NBC a) doesn’t treat the Olympics like a sports event (seriously, they’re brilliant when covering anything else), and b) doesn’t have a real sports network like ESPN (Universal Sports doesn’t count). Had the Comcast-NBC merger already gone through, that game would likely have been shown on Versus, and at least you wouldn’t have to use a crappy online video player to see it in HD. Though a lot of people would need to use one to see it at all…
If the Comcast-NBC merger doesn’t go through, I have a feeling it will doom NBC’s coverage of the Olympics to be lost to ESPN – although I think the contract is up for renegotiation this year, so the merger will still be uncertain at this point.
Maybe for the 2012 London games facebook and twitter will merge to take over media rights. But really you can only blame el nino. Go USA
I fully understand that everyones’ interests can not be satisfied, but the NBC coverage of these Olympic events have been the most abysmal offering to date. We had a very tired fixture in Bob Costas, who seemed hopelessly preoccupied with the fashions of his cohosts. We endured the sketchiest coverage, with many events getting little more than a passing by-line, while curling (a bit of an affront to true athletic competition) received day and night attention throughout the Olympic run. The chauvinist approach to the reporting of a peaceful global gathering has become insufferable. What can we expect of the Summer Olympics… more flag waving around non stop coverage of shuffleboard and lawn bowling. I hope the folks at NBC do some soul searching before then, and find some integrity to introduce into their reporting.
I couldn’t stay up late on Sunday so could somebody please tell me whether NBC broke up the closing ceremonies or did they end at 10:30. Bob Costas said there would be more after the new show marriage ref and local news. I was beginning to suspect NBC wanted to capture its audience to watch marriage ref instead of running the closing ceremony in its entirety prior to local news.