NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Prior to today my main problem with NBC's coverage of the Olympics was their determination to impose some kind of melodramatic sob story onto almost every athlete, especially the American ones, but what they did today really seriously pissed me off.

The Mrs and I turned on the telly just before 4pm ET today expecting to see live coverage of the men's 100m final. It is, after all, the most high profile event of the games, and there were three Americans in it. But instead we saw boxing and rowing, with not even a hint that said event was even happening today. No, we had to wait until 11pm to see it, by which time any sense of drama or occasion had been lost and the result was well known.

My first thought when I saw that the final was scheduled for 10pm Athens time was that it was to enable US TV to show it at a decent time, but my Mrs says that NBC does this sort of thing regularly, in order to try and hold the audience and get them to watch a million adverts, but really, isn't it taking the piss to wait until 11pm????

I was even moved to write off a stroppy complaint email to NBC earlier, which made me feel marginally better but I'm sure will be roundly ignored. It's only the second time I've written to a TV network to complain about something - in about 1990 I wrote to the BBC about an episode of Casualty that wound me up. I really really really miss the BBC now.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I'd like to see a medal ceremony from time to time also. NBC seems to just like to talk about winning medals instead of us actually seeing the atheletes receive them. Considering this was a weekend and considering the money NBC has pumped into the Olympics coffers for the right to show the games, you'd think that at least they could show the blue ribbon event in track and field live considering the American interest. During the week, I could understand, but on a weekend of no other extra special sporting events, NBC should have pushed the boat out and gone live. Its the first time I've really missed the Beebs coverage of a sporting event.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I have to agree with you regarding NBC's coverage. It is driving me crazy. Even what they do show in 'Primetime' is a mess.

I know the BBC and ITV can lean towards coverage of British atheletes and are not entirely impartial, but they will also show sports with no British interest such as gymnsatics or diving, and I'm sure the 100m final (with no Brits) was live.

However, of course, over here, if there is no American interest in a sport, forgetabout it. Oh, except for the Iraqi football team (!)

So we get plenty of coverage of Basketball (isn't there enough on normal sports TV), Volleyball, Beach Volleyball (!!!!), Boxing, and Softball (!)

I miss the overall feel of the many nations taking part in the Olympics, and being able to share the highs of Pinsent stepping out of Redgrave's shadow and winning his fourth successive Olympic gold, Chris Hoy repeating Jason's Queally's cycling gold, and the drama of Paula Radcliffe's retirement from the marathon. Having said that, NBC did at least acknowledge Paula Radcliffe as one of the greatest distant runners of all time and showed her withdrawal in their primetime show. Oh, then again, an American came third as a result...

Don't get me wrong. There have been some fantastic American performances - Paul Hamm and Carly Patterson in the gymnastics, Michael Phelps in the pool, and obviously the 100m athletics gold.

One of the great things about the Olymics, for me at least, is getting to see sports that you normally don't get a chance to see, such as diving, rowing, cycling that isn't the Tour de France, canoeing etc. They often have their own drama which make for great viewing. Although, I really don't care if I never see beach volleyball again...

Oh well. Oh, and I agree with you also about the dramatic 'sob story' edge given to the American athlete's performances.

thing2

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

They are C-R-A-P you just can't figure out if and when an event will be on. For example, they showed bits of the heptathlon and that was it. Well, why did they show the heptathlon long jump, but not show other events from the heptathlon (like the final 800M)? Maybe I blinked and missed it.

Local paper is just as bad - no Olympic results page! They "report" (tell stories about) one or two selected events, but there's no page with times, scores, positions, etc. I can find about 10 times more detailed info on the little league baseball games this weekend than the biggest sporting event in the world! Bizarre!

Auntie Beeb, I miss you!

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

This is the first Olympics since 1968 that I can remember not wanting to watch on tv. The US coverage has been worse than useless. Personally I have been devoting my time to listening to England thrash a poor West Indies 4-0 via BBC 5 Sports Extra on the net. This after a great 3-0 win over the Kiwis.

Who needs steroid enhanced athletes, 'women' who look thinner than lollipop sticks and dodgy judging when you have England winning 7 tests on the bounce !

Will the S Koreans be allowed to have an appeal for the way the judges 'erred' and gave the Yank the gold medal in male gymnastics ?

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I'm glad to see I'm not the only person less than happy with NBC's Olympic coverage. Watching their coverage sometimes gives the impression that the only country competing is the USA. I don't mind networks in different countries being biased towards their own country, but I think NBC are taking it a little too far. It's not just the Brits who are unhappy, I was speaking with someone at work who says they're watching the Olympics one of the Canadian television channels, because they wanted to see how other countries were doing as well.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Americans like me are also disgruntled with the bias toward our own athletes, and the 'sob story' back ground on almost all of them, additionally with the timing of coverage. It just plain sucks.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I've gotta say I totally agree, NBC coverage is CRAP with ALL the emphasis on American sportsmen and women. The saga over Paul Hamm winning the gold in gymnastics is a mess, he still says he deserves it ..but then so does the competitor who was wrongly judged ! Overall the gymnastics this year has been the poorest I've seen in years, it seems too much emphasis is put on 'power' and not enough on style resulting in so many 'hops and steps' its a wonder anyone got over 9.5.
I even tried to see what the BBC was showing on their website but as NBC has bought up ALL rights within the US the BBC can only show 2.5 seconds of video :(

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Well no disrespect to anyone here, but I think you're all smoking crack.

So far I have witnessed.

A Ben Ainslie interview and him winning the Finn class.

Brad Wiggins winning the 4km pursuit.

Matt Pinsent winning Gold.

That cute swede who won the Heptathlon and her medal ceremony.

For some reason NBC showed South Korea v Taiwan in the Archery final.

some Russian bint winning the trampolining.

So it's not all one way traffic folks.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

http://davejustus.blogspot.com/2004/...-olympics.html


This is a very interesting perspective on press coverage of the olympics by an American......

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

NBC=American Network.

sorry folks but that is the plain truth. You are in America, and watching American TV, you are going to see the American team and the stories of their lives.

It makes laugh to think that somewhere in Thailand there is some person whining "I can't believe all I'm seeing is the Thai teams and their stupid sob stories..."

:confused:

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Funny that, the BBC coverage always featured other nations. Guess that is the difference between quality tv & yanks.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

see my earlier post though Scrumpster.

They do, and that was from my viewing this weekend.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I do appreciate American networks focusing on American competitors but not all the time. It is an international sporting competition and should reflect this in the broadcasts. Otherwise, it would be better for the Americans to pull out of the Olympics and compete against themselves in a separate competition in the Olympic sports. Then, neither the US TV networks nor the public are fooling themselves about what is being broadcast.

Of course, there are probably reasons way beyond the Olympic ideals why there is unrelenting focus on American competitors. i.e. the sponsors of the American competitors, teams and sports.

Personally, I think the broadcasts would get even more viewers (regardless of content at this point) if they were made before 11.00pm.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

NBC invested a lot of money in the Olympics and has to pull high ratings for the national telecasts, so they feature the events and stories that Americans care most about.

NBC's cable partners feature many other non-American competitors in other events (badminton, handball, table tennis, field hockey). Check out MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, and Telemundo.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

We expect them to show American performances- nothing wrong with that. We don't expect to see the sob story of every flaming medal contender (these can take up to 30 mins of airtime EACH that could be spent on showing the flipping events!). We don't expect to see lengthy profiles of past Olympic champions, who aren't bloody competing this time. We don't need engineered attempts to dramatise things- the Olympics creates its own drama....the broadcasters just don't get it.
The last three Olympics there's been a storm of protest about the broadcasting here...and they still don't get it! People want to see the events it's that simple. There's enough airtime to show about 75% of the events but its wasted on irrelevant attempts to make it more entertaining and to keep people watching...they simply can't grasp the concept that the Olympic events are entertaining enough as they are and always, without fail, produce high drama...that can't be bloody scripted.
The US coverage sucks big time and drives people who appreciate the sports nuts.
The next Olympics I'm timing my trip home to watch it on the BBC- who do a magnificent job of covering the whole competition.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

While watching the women's marathon yesterday, I got to the point where I was fully prepared to throw something at the telly if the commentator reffered to the Japanese winner as a "hydroplane with a V8 engine" one more time.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I did enjoy watching the womens high dive yesterday. The lady who was commentating must have been one great diver, because she was being way to over critical on just about every dive.

I don't mind NBC focusing on the Americans. As I've said before, I just want to see some live action and the odd medal ceremony.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

It's better than the coverage they get in Egypt. I was over there during the Barcelona games of 92. For the full 2 weeks they had 24 hour coverage of the weight lifting room... which was empty for the most part. :rolleyes:

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I'm not that bothered now - was irritated at first about the predominantly US coverage just because I wanted to see how the Brits were doing - watched a fair bit of CBC (Canada). But that changed - Manc is right - I've wathced plenty of other countries and complete events suc has rowing and water polo that had zero US interest.

The thing that started to piss me off was the holier than thou attitude of some of the commentators on both NBC and CBC regards gymnastics and swimming. The US commentators were evil to everyone in the gymnastics. They seemed to want to make everyone out to be complete cack. And the Canadian commentators whinging about swimmers not talking to them was very annoying. They even asked one who did talk to them why swimmers odn't talk to them! Duh!

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

It's not getting any better - I can't find any mention of the women's 800m final anywhere in NBC's schedules. It sounded like a fantastic race as well.

And while I was in a moaning mood yesterday I was tempted to fire off a quick one to the BBC asking them to stop their over-use of the phrase "crashes out" on their wesbsite every time an athlete doesn't do as well as was expected. It's starting to get on my tits.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Extensive coverage of the women's beach volleyball, ladies gymnastics and the diving event. We know which part of the body the NBC execs do their thinking with. ;)

Token coverage interrupted by adverts and a 15 minute in profile build up of an American in a 30 second race.
Somehow NBC managed to suck the life out of the whole thing and I'll echo everyone else - I miss the Beeb at times like this.

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12.37 am :rolleyes:

800m final on now.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I get digital cable, which enables me to see the "supposed" schedule - they advertised the 800m final for Primetime (i.e., the 8-12 slot). I watched the whole flippin thing before going to bed at midnight. Why on earth would they not show the closest 800m final in ages on primetime?

THIS is what I think is so crap about NBC's coverage - you can't figure out what they're going to show, or when they're going to show it. You should at least expect to see the T&F finals during prime time coverage, IMHO.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Yep, especially the 800m! They didn't show it in Primetime because the American didn't medal probably....and the commentator had the cheek to call the crowd in Athens partisan LOL. The 800metres is a prestige track event- unbelievable that we had to hunt to find it. I watched NBC prime and had Tivo taping another channel and the video running on the bedroom telly, searched through this morning and found it on NBC's Late night show. Excellent race, four top class athletes fighting to the tape, thrilling stuff -one of the best in the Olympics so far...didn't manage to find any medal ceremony for it though...I guess that's too much to ask for :rolleyes:

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Something that amazed me was one comentator saying what a disapointment the womans gymnasts must be feeling to lose the gold...the poor mights only got silver..boo hoo! :)

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I checked the NBC website last night and it was scheduled to be shown during the 11pm to midnight slot. They obviously ditched to the late night because the american only came 7th.
The coverage of the Decathlon last night particularly pissed me off. Seems that there are only 2 competetors in the event (guess what nationality they are) Did anyone else notice the comentator say Tom Pappas would be coming to glory in Athens? Seemed a bit premature to think that, especially as he's limped out of the competition today :rolleyes: .

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

When that young girl from Texas won a team silver in the first meet, the interviewer gave the poor lass a right grilling, you could tell the girl was totally taken back by it!

in the individual gymnastics, carly won gold, so hopefully she can tell the NBC interviewer to shove it up her arse....side ways :)

then after that "so Phelps, how does it feel to not beat the record of 8 golds in the swimming?"......I mean what the flip? the guy is only 19 and had to swim like 17 races and still ended up with more golds than team GB put together?

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

was there olympics on? I didn't see it, guess I must have blinked between the adverts

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I know what you mean. I keep expecting one of the announcers to say something like "We interrupt this commercial break to bring you 2 minutes of the Olympics".

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

LOL. After the, lack of, coverage of the Sydney Olympics, the TV guide ran the statisitics for airtime spent on commercials, sob stories and the events . I think it was something like only 10% of the Olympic airtime was spent on the actual events. There was so much protest I thought things would improve for this Olympics....silly me :rolleyes:

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

I will say this tho - I watched the 1500 meters which was the last stage of the Decathlon last night. I watched it cuz BBC Online mentioned Dean Macey ran a damn good 1500. Unfortunately NBC didn't show Dean Macey at all. In fact they didn't even show the race being won - they fixed the camera on the US guy who finished 2nd overall - they didn't mention who won, or even think to say anything about it. That was dire - for the first time it really did seem that nobody else mattered, just the US guy.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Oh my God......Cannot believe what I heard on the radio this morning... The broadcasters were complaining that the olympics had too many foreigners and that there should just be a US olympics instead........... :eek: :eek:

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

You weren't by chance listening to Michael Savage were you?

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

No it was Bob & Tom...I listen to them every morning and they tell jokes by the bucketload but this was a serious comment...was a little disapointed in them. But will continue to listen every morning :D

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

On Wednesday last week our local newspaper, The News-Press, had a headline :-


Right next to the headline was a half page photo of Carly Patterson performing on the parallel bars. This was the day before she won Gold for all-around gymnast.

I wrote the Editor with the following, which they had the decency to publish :-

"I am appalled at the headline in the Aug 18 Sports section, "US women gymnasts flop". getting a silver medal in the Olympics is not a flop. This headline was an insult to the team members and belittled their hard work in getting to Athens. Taking your logic, there may as well be no silver or bronze medals at all. It is interesting that the gymnast in the accompanying photo, Carly Patterson, subsequently became the first American woman since Mary Lou Retton to win a gold medal for all-around gymnast. Some flop!"

I have frequently complained to my American wife of the bias exhibited against non-American athletes but the degradation in the media of any American athlete who does not win a gold is quite vile.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Oddly enough, I was walking through the living room and on the TV was Carly Patterson doing the floor exercise (how come it's mostly tumbling these days - they used to have those colourful ribbons a few years ago?). Anyway, after doing a really high tumble and she slipped onto the mat upon landing. As soon as she had completed her performance there was no comment whatsover and it went straight into an advert....and after the advert ended it was straight into beach volleyball (yawn). :rolleyes:

On the radio yesterday afternoon Bill O'Reilly proved what a total idiot he is. His theory why the US and Australia (per head of population in Oz) has so many gold medals compared to Russia and Canada is that the US and Oz are go-getting societies which don't rely on welfare handouts so people have to work harder to achieve, even in sports.

I nearly spat my tea out.... Australia is very similar to the UK as regards to having a welfare state and they even have a term known as 'dole bludgers'. It's just the culture of the country that most Aussies are sports mad. O'Reilly really ought to do his research before opening his big mouth :rolleyes:

(Does anyone else like that Canadian high-board diver? I think the female commentator has the hots for him, she hasn't said a single negative thing about him compared to the Chinese and Russian guys!). :D

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Yep, I saw that too.

They did actually show macey right at the end after the race had finished, all the other runners were rolling around on the track, looking like they were about to die, ol' macey was still standing tall, unlucky to get 4th again though.

Anyone see that canadian 110m hurdles take a fall on the first hurdle and proceeded to take out a russian girl. she must be gutted after all that effort getting there, then being took out by the very first hurdle.

The russians are trying to protest and want the race ran again.

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Yeah, but going by the semi's where that Russian girl did her personal best, she would have been out of the medals anyway. Not a nice way to go out though.

Re: NBC's Olympic coverage sucks a big one
 

Just got back from England, and I have to say that the coverage over there was focused on the Brits...most sports they showed had Brits competing, but I thought that was to be expected that they wanted to focus on there own people.

They didn't have too many of the sob stories over there, the only one I saw was the marathon runner lady crying.