I know the coverage in the U.S. will always center on American athletes, but I would have liked even a greater variety of events featuring Americans.
Imagine what the ratings would be like if they actually gave the public what they wanted? Yes, I want gymnastics live at 11 AM. I want any event shown live as it happens no matter what time it happens to be in the US. Not everyone works a 9 to 5 weekday job. And some people (like me) will actually take days off from work to watch the Olympics. They can always package the events like they want to and show it again at 8 PM.
Ratings showed that the people got what they wanted. Ok, so the west coast just gets screwed over as that would air at 7am. More people than not, do. There's a reason why TV schedules are in place. Most people work, at least people who participate in the ratings system. And if they packaged the mid-day stuff to air at 8pm, what about the things that are happening live at that time. When you're 12 hours off Eastern time, you've got to fill Noon-8pm as that's overnight in China and then you'll run all the afternoon events "live" at 3am? That would've been a ratings disaster.
D When they were showing the games, NBC actually didn't do that bad of a job. We got more of the games and more of the ceremonies, and I actually enjoyed that aspect of it. What I don't like is being screwed because I'm on the west coast and reading so many people having absolutely stupid comments like move to Canada or Move to the East Coast. Ah, no. NBC screwed the pooch with this one and even with the best parts of the games on at 10:00 at night, they still wouldn't show it live even though it would actually be in Prime Time. I mean given what happened, we didn't get much prime time coverage at all if you think about it. Prime time is from 7-11 PM at night. Well, the swimming and Gymnastics started at 10:00 so that gives you only one hour of actual prime time. I think what I hate the most is NBC is going to screw the pacific time zone again even though the next Olympics are actually going to be IN THE PACIFIC TIME ZONE. The ratings for these games were so good (West coast markets actually were the top markets surprisingly) that they are going to do it again for Vancouver.We live in an instantaneous society where we really get our stuff right away. Why NBC hasn't learned this I will never know. I hope I'm wrong about the vancouver thing (Hey NBC, it might be smart since you will go up against Dancing with the Stars and American Idol and I think the last time the winter olympics were on, it didn't do well) but I have a feeling because they are probably pounding thier chests about ratings today, it will happen again and the olympics are actually in this time zone.
Families participate in the rating system and those familes can have people who work at all times of the day. My neighbors are a good example. The husband works a 6a-6p job 3 or 4 days a week. The wife is a nurse who is on-call and can work any day or any time of day. They have two kids, one of which works at Dairy Queen during the summer any time from 9 AM to 11 PM. NBC had five channels to show the games on. There is no reason two or three of them couldn't be live all the time while NBC could show their crap in the evenings as usual. And we will never know what the ratings will be like until they try something different. Just because they got more viewers doesn't mean they couldn't have had much more with a different scheme.
That still isn't indicative of the majority of the population. You know those times in the morning and afternoon when traffic is really bad and how it's really bad at the same times on weekdays? That's because MOST people are going to or coming home from work. Plus, with time shifting, it's not much of an issue anyway.
So what? NBC can still show their packaged, time-delayed, show in prime time. All I'm asking is that they show the events live on another channel for the people that can watch them.
Well people have said the negatives already, I'll give some positives. Yeah, I watched most of it time-delayed (even more so than the broadcast ) on my DVR. Using a DVR and across multiple channels many events were shown that I don't usually see such as BMX racing, steeplechase, badminton, sculling, kayak and whatever. Plus, I was able to skip more of the inane chatter (though I had to stop on Bela Karoli (sp) and his rants plus an uncomfortable (for the host) interview with Michael Phelps about being picked on in school and enjoying a little vindication now). It was also great getting to see stunning HD coverage (including the beach volleyball) across multiple channels and they did spread out a lot of coverage on their satellite networks. NBCOlympics.com had both the television schedule and live event converage and made a nice companion to the television broadcast. Oh, and the Canadian coverage was very Canadian-centric this time.
I give NBC an 'F' as well. While I love to see the US win, I enjoy the Olympics for the chance to see the international competition as well. I resent that our own broadcasters seem to think that we Americans are THAT arrogant and small minded. Recall the past - Americans warmly embraced athletes like a Nadia Comaneci for example. Did our reporters even interview winning athletes from other nations? I saw one event where our reporter beelined to two of our athletes who did not come in first and never even talked to the winner. I read a number of articles criticizing the Chinese state-controlled media for their Chinese-centric coverage. From what I saw of our own 'free' media coverage, we were not much better. Maybe it was a reaction to the Chinese attempting to turn the Olympics into their own propaganda? And if I watch an event, I would like to see ALL the competitors. I recall one of the womens group gymnastic events where, at one point, Russia (I believe) was ahead in points. Yet all NBC could do was focus on US VERSUS CHINA. They did not even show the Russians performance at all for that event. Finally - who decided that only the gold medals matter? Why the obsession with the gold medal counts? Did we not used to count all the medals?
I'd give it a D. I didn't watch enough to feel confident in giving out the F, but it might have deserved it. The coverage I watched on CBC was much better, and that wasn't even in high definition like NBC. At least CBC had competent commentators and didn't tape-delay with "LIVE" in the corner on the west coast.
It varies from country to country, and the amount of focus on the country's athletes varies. One year we were in France and watched the Olympics, and they just showed the events - all different events - no matter whether there was a French athlete competing or not. Obviously, the Olympic coverage in the smaller countries could not focus solely on that country's athletes, or they would only be able to show one or two events (and about an hour of coverage) for the whole two weeks. Here in Australia, they do focus on the events that feature Australian athletes, but at least they do not do all those 'up close and personal' reports. Those used to drive me nuts when I lived in the USA. In Australia, we are also fortunate to have a second channel - SBS - that simply shows all different events and athletes, with no focus at all on Australian athletes. In fact, I think they seem to get all the sports that don't have Australian athletes in it. Can't complain.