Poor Olympics Broadcast

[Spot's Meow]

I think the NBC coverage has been terrible, for the reasons you listed. I've been especially irritated that they don't show gymnastics routines from other countries very often, and they pretty much never show the scoreboard. Every now and then they show who is in the top 3 positions, but that's it. Maybe I want to know who got 8th place, you know? I don't JUST care about the two American gymnasts performing. It's so irritating.

I do like the gymnastics commentators though.

I hate the primetime coverage because they intermix the events, so that you can't just sit down and watch, say, swimming, you have to fast forward or wait through crap you don't care about to get to one race, then wait another hour to get to two more races. Ridiculous.

And the delay is just stupid. Especially for gymnastics, which is one of the sports that people talk most about, yet they are delaying it for around 11 pm to midnight. Most people have to work the next day, they aren't up that late to watch. So you have to record it, hope no one spoils it the next day at work, and then watch it the following evening. If you're going to stupidly delay events for up to 12 hours, at least play them at a reasonable effing time that most people would be able to watch it at, like 7 pm.

 

[cylkoth]

Can someone explain to me why NBC just doesn't show the entire thing 24/7 until the whole thing is over with? Wouldn't they get much better ratings that way?

Somehow they seem to feel that their regular daytime programming is more important than an international event like the Olympics.

NBC doesn't have regular daytime programming; between 11 AM and 8 PM all the programming is the local station's, not the network's.

NBC still has one soap-Days of Our Lives, airing afternoons, which has been pre emptied since the Games started.

 

[tomalak301]

NBC cut out some of tonight's broadcast on the west coast to bring breaking news of Mitt Romney's running mate, which right now is just speculation. I thought that breaking news was taped delayed as well and kind of freaked out. Kind of odd they cut out already taped delayed Olympic coverage and didn't show the race in it's entirety.

 

[Brolan]

I'm just looking forward to the fact that after Sunday there will no reason to watch NBC.

 

[tomalak301]

^Unfortunately I still watch Football, 30 Rocks final season, and the new season of Parks and Rec. I wish 30 Rock and Parks and Rec were on different channels, but I won't be watching any of the new stuff on the channel. Even that Revolution show looks like a Lost Wannabe that will go on and on before we actually get any answers and I don't feel like following that type of show.

 

[tomalak301]

It's Saturday Night, you have no social life so you don't go out and decide, hey, it's the final night of Olympic competition, let's see what's on NBC because that's the only coverage (Tape Delay and all) that you can get. So you turn on NBC, all pumped to watch Usain Bolt for the final time for the next 4 years because this country is so infatuated with Football that they don't care about these Olympic sports after the Olympics end and by Monday everyone will be back talking about Tim Tebow and ridiculing Mitt Romney for his pick for VP (Based on the comments, and not being judgmental here, but does anyone actually like the VP pick because my father, who is a staunch republican does but I know know the guy), and what do we get? A Documentary on the British in World War II that has probably been done much better on the History Channel.

Talk about taking the wind out of ones sails ha? I think that's the worst thing about NBC's coverage. They bait and switch you. You are their captive audience because you can't get the Olympics anywhere else (Despite the world, through social media and the internet, becoming a much more tight-knit community than it was 10 years ago) and everything is region blocked so you can't get other countries channels.

I'm glad they decided to live stream the olympics though, but their Prime Time Coverage sucks and the reason people watch is because they still hold the idea that the Olympics are a good thing that should be watched all over the world. I think these last two weeks have made me wish so badly that the system in determining who gets what channels and where wasn't all screwed up by those who control it. I mean if I wanted to see CBC (Hockey Night in Canada) or the BBC, why isn't there a way I can pay to get those channels. Why do we have like a thousand channels and about 2/3rds of them suck so badly. I long for a day where I could get other countries channels and we do bring the world closer together, but I'm not sure if that's going to happen in my lifetime. We brought people together through the Internet, why not through TV and other forms of media?

Anyway, so I see this documentary on NBC and so much for Olympic coverage. At least I saw it all online today. Hopefully, one day, the Olympics will be broadcast the right way (Or a way I would expect), but until then, unfortunately, this is all we got and that is why the Ratings are up so much. Not because of the quality of the coverage, but because of the monopoly of the coverage and the lack of choice to how people should have their own Olympic Experience.

 

[stoneroses]

BBC was fine with 24 channels accross all media.

 

[MacLeod]

Not to mention with the BBC aside from online and interactive they had 4 channels to spread coverage over.