Olympic TV Coverage -- NO SPOILERS

[RoyalCanadian]

Folks,

I've been watching the CBC coverage of the closing ceremonies for the Olympic Winter Games. Wonderful coverage. The Italians certainly know how to say goodbye to their guests and I got all choked up seeing Vancouver's invitation to the world to come play in Canada in 2010.

Just out of curiosity I wondered how the NBC coverage was going. I wanted to hear what the commentators were saying -- get their perspective on the festivities. To my shock neither NBC-Buffalo nor NBC-Seattle are airing live coverage of the closing ceremonies. They were showing Arena Football. NBC-Buffalo recently began tape delay coverage of the 50km cross country ski race. Not sure when that happened.

I'm quite convinced that NBC's motto should now be something like : We think the Olympics are so important that we wouldn't want to ruin them for you by showing them live.

 

[lbgraves]

NBC has been showing some of the live coverage on MSNBC & USA network during the day. They have been saving the "good stuff" for the prime time coverage because that is when they have been able to charge the high advertising rate. They can get higher ratings at night. This is how it has been since I can remember, except for in SLC of course.

 

[doxdogy]

Personally I think NBC has done a horrible job this year. The medals ceremonies were almost non-existent. From what I gather (according to what DH heard on the radio), they did not air Sasha Cohen skating until almost one in the morning. It definitely was not as good coverage as in years past.

 

[koopa]

Mary Carillo and Jamie Sale did a great job with their nightly skating program.
It was loosely formated, and it was good to see guests from the past such as Brian Boitano and Katarina Witt contrasting their olympic performances with the current crop of skaters. It was on USA Network (cable tv). Mary should be an anchorperson in the next olympics instead of Costas.

The curling announcers were good too, and I hope they get the same job in Vancover (2010). The bronze medal match between USA and the UK was aired live on cable tv complete with one fan breaking into songs such as Winter Wonderland and When the Saints go Marching In.

I didn't see one medal ceremony, since they aired way too late.

With the next olympics in Vancover, I hope NBC will broadcast more live events.

 

[iNTeNSeBLue98]

I can't say much about NBC's coverage of this year's winter Olympics....I was busy flipping channels watching American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives.

Usually we tune in for figure skating, but the coverage was so chopped up, sandwiched between other events and commercials. When I did catch an event during primetime, I couldn't tell who was competing - esp. in the ice skating. Anything that was timed, speedskating, downhill, snowboarding etc. you would see a banner with the competitor's name and country, but with skating you only saw the performer. There were only a handful that I recognized. Plus the commentators (other than Scott Hamilton) are so critical that they annoy me during the programs.

 

[Free4Life11]

I didn't even bother watching this year. I hate that NBC shows everything on a tape delay, it's all so edited, the commentators annoy me, and there is too much of the human-interest stuff. That and I never have a clue what events are on and when. Their website has so much crap it's hard to navigate!

 

[Planogirl]

One thing I did like was the tendency to not chatter endlessly. Sometimes commentators just seem to ramble on about nothing but the commentators fell silent during many of the performances which I really liked. The coverage wasn't fabulous but I hope that they continue to keep the chatter to a minimum!

 

[disneychrista]

What upset me most is that the results are all posting on the main pages of many popular websites. I know for sure YAHOO! had the results on their from page, kinda ruins it when you actually want to watch the events.

They deffiently could have done w/o showing some of the no change they are even going to medal contestants for events like figure skating. Since then the ones who are in the hunt aren't on until after 11pm. They also could have started coverage at 7pm instead of 8 - midnight.

 

[Nancy]

I live in Buffalo and we spent more time watching your channels (CBC)coverage of the Olympics. I am not a big fan of the way our stations carry the Olympics. The let's wait until prime time is so stupid...I'd rather see the stuff live or at least before all the results were published on the web or shown on the 24 hours news.