NPR nails it:
The basic problem with NBC’s coverage is that they haven’t improved the fundamentals of the coverage in spite of massive changes in the way people take in content. The prime-time coverage is largely as it’s always been: a few events (including figure skating) are heavily showcased, a few other events (most skiing and speed skating fall into this category) are usually shown in an abbreviated format regular viewers instantly recognize as “USA-Plus” (meaning you see the Americans, plus a few other people who are relevant because they either do very well or wipe out spectacularly), and two events – hockey and curling – are shown as complete events, but they’re shoved off to cable.
Yep. They grew addicted to doing it this way when the Olympics were held on the other side of the world…all the events are happening at crazy hours relative to US television schedule so the delay-and-repackage thing feels less blatantly false…and but so why bother to change anything when the games are inconveniently held right in our neighborhood?
This goes to NBC’s entire approach to television of late: when in doubt, fall back on the old ways, the old models. Ride them to the bitter end and, probably, for a few years beyond the end. If an incremental change proves insufficient, retreat back to the older thing.
And this has always been their approach to the Olympics. They have three networks ostensibly available to them to broadcast the games and yet still manage to show a vanishingly small fraction of the actual sporting events. As NPR notes, complete games/events coverage is limited to some hockey and curling matches. Period. Add in more or less complete coverage of opening and closing ceremonies and you’ve got a “complete” events list that numbers four covering an event spanning two weeks. Unless, of course, you count the skating; there you get USA-first style coverage, with the Americans, the ultimate winners if they don’t happen to be ‘Merican, and one or two nobly failing foreigners to pad out the necessary space for commercials.
This is indefensible. Does the West Coast typically have to wait three hours to watch a highlights package of an East Coast Superbowl? Or, even more to the point, does the West Coast have to wait three hours to watch a highlights package of a Superbowl played in Los Angeles? Would that seem a reasonable approach for the TV production of that game? The Olympics are no different. Or shouldn’t be.
Last night, rather than show something, anything actually sports-related on the main prime-time broadcast, they spent an entire segment chatting with…swimmer Michael Phelps, who won’t be seeing any Olympic action for another two years. Clearly it was critical to get his thoughts in place of covering the actual games going on that day. Likewise the interminable recaps of whatever figure skating outrage is queued up for the day.
I’d wager that most people are past ready to dispense with the old model of tape delayed spoon feeding and endlessly narcissistic “Up close and personal” side stories that only serve to distract from whatever it is that’s going on in the first place. Such a broadcast could be accomplished with far fewer individuals on the payroll, and without weeks of run-up production time and the expense of same. Just place some cameras, hire some operators, and have a bit of talent stationed around to interpret where necessary. Honestly, it’s in your financial interest and that of your shareholders to run off as cheap a broadcast as you possibly can. Actually broadcasting Olympic sporting events is just how you do that.
I, for one, would pay to see it done that way.
Lemkin 