Tuesday, February 16, 2010

On watching the Olympics

I love the Winter Olympics. I may love them even more than the Summer Olympics, since I don't care much about most running events. What I have noticed about the Winter sports, though, is that they are WAY more dangerous than the summer events. I mean, obviously we all know that the luge is not safe. But also, what about speed skating? Those blades? And even just regular figure skating can lead to injury, especially when skiing in pairs. And ski jumping? I don't know how much that helmet can help if you mistime a jump and land on your head, you know?

Of course, this makes sense. Summer weather lends itself to basically doing whatever you want, mostly on your own two feet. Winter weather and the attendant snow and ice require all sorts of funky contraptions and strange adaptations. Plus, snow and ice are slippery. So of course Winter events are more dangerous. Still, I love the Winter Olympics and have really been looking forward to watching them.

As those of you who follow me on Twitter (and haven't un-followed me after my 20-30 tweets of rage on Friday night) probably know during the opening ceremonies, I was a little upset at NBC's decision to air the ceremonies on a delay for those of us not on EST. I feel worse for West Coasters, though--they had a much longer delay than we did.

Coverage seems to have aligned since then, at least a bit--I'm not sure if we're still on a delay or not. I am really enjoying NBC's commentators, all of whom seem to really care about and have experience in the sport in question. (For example: during the biathlon, someone asked if the course was too easy, and one of the commentators had actually just skied it himself the other day, and was able to respond with great knowledge and insight that someone like, say, Tom Brokaw could never have attained.)

HOWEVER. NBC's coverage, as a network? Blows. I don't know how many of you have had the opportunity to experience other countries' televised Olympic coverage, but it blows ours out of the water. I was living in France during the 2002 Olympics, and the way it worked was fabulous. Channels had selectable thumbnails of all the events going on simultaneously, and you could pick which sport you wanted to watch in full screen. Events were re-aired later in case you wanted to see something you missed the first time. There are very few, if any, commercials. You see all the competitors and watch the competition unfold in a logical manner. Torsten says German coverage is similar.

Let's compare this to NBC, shall we? They show a few things on their other networks, but we don't get USA, CNBC, or MSNBC in HD, so that's very frustrating for us. In any case, the program you watch gives you no choice about which events you'll see and in what order. They deliberately hold the good events until prime time, and the most popular events are used as leverage. The figure skating (which I assume is the most popular) gets interspersed throughout the entire evening's telecast, basically forcing people who want to see it to watch the full program to make sure they don't miss anything.

They show only a handful of the athletes, and a disproportionate number of American competitors, including those who have no shot at a medal. With the men's mogul qualifying round, they didn't even show the top-scoring guy's run. And they showed a figure skating pair's performance but not their scores.

Plus, they seem to have a new set of commercials every three minutes.

Basically, NBC is driving me crazy. A delay plus insane jumping back and forth plus very limited coverage plus American-heavy coverage plus tons of commercials? Basically, what it comes down to is that their coverage of the Olympic Games isn't about an optimal viewing experience for those of us who actually want to watch... it's about maximizing ratings and cashing in as much as possible. And that's really sad for those of us who would really like to be able to just watch the Games as they happen.

27 comments:

  1. I agree! I think a main reason I don't really watch it is because I can't handle watching in on the network channel with a hundred million commercials. I don't have a tivo anymore but I'm guessing that might help alleviate some of my commercial rage.

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  2. I agree about NBC's limited coverage -- it's totally annoying. I was listening to a really interesting piece on NPR a couple weeks ago about the new Ski-Cross event so I decided I definitely wanted to watch that. I log on to NBCs website to see when it is on and I don't see it anywhere. Like, at all. Maybe I'm just blind, but that kind of irked me!

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  3. This is one of those topics that I am really irritated about. I too enjoy the Winter Olympics much more than the Summer Olympics, but the coverage, commercials and tape delays are ridiculous. I haven't watched any of it yet because I'm too irritated that I could have (theoretically) hopped in my car, driven to Vancouver & seen the opening ceremonies sooner than I could have by sitting on my couch watching them in my living room in the same damn time zone everything is taking place in. So I didn't watch out of respect to my blood pressure. Which sucks even more because I adore Sarah McLachlan & still haven't seen her performance. I told myself that is what hulu & you tube are for, but I'm still too irritated to even seek any of it out.

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  4. So far our coverage is doing a great job - I know we're the host country and all but yeah. We have two canadian channels, CTV and CBC, and CTV beat out CBC FINALLY for the broadcasting rights this year, and they're doing a FABULOUS job.

    We have that thumbnail thingy of six that you can flip between and all the channels that are covering the olympics (10, if you count French) grouped together in our guide.

    (Oh and about the risk of injury, you learn how to fall. I realized yesterday I've never seen a speed skater fall on their head, and they don't wear helmets.)

    Of course we're 3 hours behind, so our stuff automatically gets pushed back and we have to flip between the three channels of coverage we get - CTV, TSN & Rogers Sportsnet during primetime to cover everything. Last night we were flipping between figure skating and speed skating, which slightly blew but it was dealable.

    BUT, if we miss anything, because it has such a long delay in the morning, they do interviews with athletes families, past olympians, re-cap any events the night before, report on the scene in Whistler & Cypress, etc. AND, they have this doctor guy who gives a low-down of what the athletes' bodies are doing/what they go through as they do their sport, like moguls. Owwwiee.

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  5. oh man, i've never seen the olympics done by anyone but US networks - i had no idea it could be so wonderful!! am now sullen and jealous that we have to deal with NBC's tyranny.

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  6. i mean, jealous of other countries. that didn't make a lot of sense, but you know what i mean.

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  7. The amount of commercials that NBC airs drives me insane! There seriously is a break after each leg or performance, which is totally not neccessary. And I noticed that one of the skating couples didn't get a score, and that drove me insane.

    Having TiVo helps though, because I can go back and watch last night's late night events today, or I can speed through commercials and other things that don't interest me as much as the actual events.

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  8. I get annoyed with the jumping around for sure, and the figure skating commentators the last two days have driven me up the wall, but I still love watching them!

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  9. We are fortunate enough to live near Canada and are able to watch the Olympics on CTV, while it's not as good as the French coverage you've described at least it's live and they show everybody competing. Personally I'd rather not watch ice-skating :)

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  10. A lot of countries have state-run TV, meaning there is no competition (or very little or in a controlled environment). I'd think they have the flexibility to show games in a more objective manner.

    I think all networks in the States operate airing the Olympics in the same way (this issue shouldn't just rest on NBC's shoulders). The reality is they have to show the events that will garner the most viewers in order to keep costs of advertising up. It's how they make money. Plus, most people won't complain (i.e., writing a rant on a blog is a lot different than a country-wide boycott of watching the games because we want it done differently).

    Personally, I've really enjoyed watching the games. Then again, I'm not all that into them. So, if they're on, I'll tune in. But, I don't ache to watch any particular event (which means, I don't bemoan the fact that some aren't shown).

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  11. I love the Winter Olympics. Except for maybe curling, there isn't one event that I wouldn't want to watch. Our coverage has been fairly decent, but the French system you describe sounds amazing!

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  12. Ugh-- the tape delay is KILLING me! I understood it a little better with Torino, Beijing, and Sydney, but come on...I'm in the same time zone as the games! I'm right there with you, too, on the annoyance of the limited coverage, though I did appreciate the background on the Chinese pairs skaters and Alexsandre Bilodeau (I may or may not tear up whenever they show him and his older brother).

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  13. I love the Winter Olympics, too. Much more than the Summer Olympics.

    I agree about the coverage. We gave up last night and went to bed rather than watch that twirly-tummy-inducing cell phone commercial with the figure skater on the phone while the hand holding it is walking around. VOMIT.

    And I am going to scream if I see another Subway commercial. I just want to watch the Olympics!

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  14. I also heard a piece on the radio this morning on how miserable NBC is making it to re-watch clips on their Olympics website. You have to REGISTER with your cable provider and ACCOUNT NUMBER(!!) in order to view anything. Ridiculous.

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  15. Lifehacker had an article the other day about watching Olympic coverage, and it suggested streaming video from other countries. You might have to use a proxy server (I do not know what that means, but I think it means tricking the website into thinking you are from that country), but they had some good suggestions, and that way you might be able to watch some of the other performances. Just a suggestion. :)
    NBC's coverage drives me nuts too, although I agree that it would be the same no matter which network was airing it in the US.
    PS. Why would you need to enter your cable info on their website? I heard that too, but it makes no sense to me. NBC is an over-the-air broadcast, not a cable network. That is dumb.

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  16. I agree with Alice. Sullen and jealous. Grump.

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  17. My post today about the Olympics was different from yours, but I do agree that NBC's coverage is completely whacked. I HATE all the bouncing around from event to event, and the figure skating Tease. (Just like gymnastics in Summer.) Grr.

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  18. I just wrote something about how hard it's been to try to watch the Olympics! I'm pretty fed up with the coverage and am just missing out on a lot of stuff, which is sad because I LOVE the Olympics.

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  19. I'm so with you on this. NBC coverage sucks. We used to live near the Canadian boarder so we got the CBC on our TV and have always watched their coverage. This is my first time watching US coverage and it's so, so awful and sparce. I screamed at the TV last night because they took time not only to show a fluff piece on polar bears but took the time to promo the fluff piece 3 times! How about showing some of the damn events, NBC?

    And I hate Bob Costas with the heat of 1000 suns.

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  20. I totally agree. The coverage is not nearly enough. As far as i'm concerned, if it's Olympic time, you should be able to find Olympic coverage (live or taped - i don't care) around the clock, dammit. There's stuff going on out there that they're not showing us and it's not fair. I want to see it all.
    Does anyone remember in the 90s, they set up three Pay-Per-View type channels for the summer Olympics? It must have been in '92 or '96... They showed everything on those 3 channels, but of course, you had to pay for it. They tried it that one year and it bombed, so they never did it again.
    I would probably pay for it now...

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  21. I have been so frustrated with the availability of the Olympics this year. I would love it if our problem was a tape delay. We don't have a TV and it has been impossible to find live streaming video of any of the events. I was crushed that I couldn't watch the opening ceremonies and had to settle for NBCs web encore of only part of the ceremony the next day. NBC.com won't even let us watch live events on their website unless we provide them with proof that we....get this...have a TV provider. What? We don't have a freakin' television..that's why we want to watch it on the internet! So...excuse my frustration...I have had to let it all go and only watch highlights the next day that are already titled with the winner on the video link. This is a total bummer!
    So, I concur with your 'NBC is sucking it up this year' entry.

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  22. One year, there was a Pay Per View package for the Summer Olympics. There were three 24 hour Olympic channels. You could watch all events in real time, with limited (if any) commercials) and many of the events were repeated throughout the day. It was awesome.

    Only because of my DVR have I seen the finals of any event, but I'm missing A LOT. I just can't stay up that late. When I live in the same time zone as the Olympics, it doesn't make sense to have to watch the events at midnight.

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  23. Wow... every day I get another reason NOT to watch NBC. Seriously, someone over there must be on some REALLY good drugs to think that all of the decisions being made lately are good.

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  24. ...and then there's Denmark, which only airs the events live as they happen, which means.... yeah, you can see a lot of if you're up around 3 a.m. (They don't show any of it later, either!)

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  25. Ugh, I hate NBC's coverage! And we have no other coverage so we're stuck. Hate.

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  26. Oh, Canada is great. You can watch all events live without commercials (but also with commentary) online, or you can watch them live on TV but with a few commercials. Not very many, though. They show all Canadian athletes and most of the good people. Like they'll really go into detail on Lindsay Vonn or Apollo Ohno, for example.

    Canada has fewer athletes than the states, I guess, because we have segments on all athletes that do pretty well, where we meet their families and learn about their training routines. We also have segments that explain the biomechanics of each sport to make us go, "cool!" (at least, that's what I do). They REplay the highlights during primetime but they interrupt to show things live. I've been super happy with it! See if you can find an ip address blocker and then you can acccess ctvolympics.ca!

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  27. The BBC is generally pretty awesome for Olympics coverage. They have an extra channel for it plus highlights and a lot of live events on one of their 'normal' channels. But I have to admit I haven't watched much at all this time around, despite being a figure skating fan. Maybe I'll tune in now...

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