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The biggest problem with the Olympics television broadcasts over the next couple of weeks is that when you and I see them in the States, the events are long since over, they're history, they're not news they're "olds". While it's true that NBC is offering some events via live streaming online, there's a reason why you have that giant plasma screen TV in your living room - it's to watch TV, not your laptop.
If you lived closer to the Canadian border, you could've watched the opening ceremonies live this morning instead of the packaged and edited and canned and stale re-broadcast of them on NBC over 15 hours later tonight. That kind of accessibility to live broadcast of the games seems to exist in every industrialized nation other than the United States.
Let's be clear that it's true that NBC is spreading broadcasts across 9 channels and will have live broadcasts on TV (starting tonight at 11:00pm on CNBC, Boxing Elimination bouts: middleweight and light heavyweight) but we will primarily be subjected to delayed content on the NBC flagship. What will be even more annoying about that content is its over-packaging: the profiles, the soft-focus, the crummy music, the not-to-speak-ill-of-the-dead Jim McKay-ification of sports broadcasting. What we're talking about here is the ridiculous half-hour+ spent on back story and build up followed by 3 minutes of competition.
While there must be a lowest-common-denominator appeal to Jim McKay-ification (or else why would we be beaten over the head by this every 4 years?) there has got to be a significant percentage of the US population that wants the simple immediacy of sports competition without all the bullshit of what town some competitor grew up in and at what tender age they witnessed the death of their dog thus inspiring the competitor to run like the wind or whatever it is that they do. When more time is spent on backstory than on competition, we, the viewers, are shortchanged, and the network does not deserve the time we spend pointing our eyeballs at the ads they present us.
Resources available to schedule your broadcast viewing, DVR programming, and online viewing inlcude:
- NBC's TV and Online Listings
- MySports TV
- The Online Video Guide - OVGuide.com 2008 Olympics in Beijing Guide
Yesterday we had a chance to talk about the Olympics and media with Chad Cooper, marketing and editorial content director at OVGuide, the aggregator and guide for online video content from several thousand outlets :
LAist: When it comes to watching the Olympics on TV, why are Americans stuck with such limited choice?
Chad Cooper: You have to look at what we're dealing with here and that's network television. They are all about high production, the focus on primetime, and being able to sell ads [NBC Sells Over $1-billion in Ads for Olympics]. They do offer a lot of content [2,000 hours] online and they have been getting much better about providing access to produced and online-only content over the last year or two.
LAist: Why is there so much focus on certain events, why are some events completely absent from broadcast?
Chad Cooper: NBC, and network TV in general, acts as a filter based on popularity - that's why NBC has channels devoted exclusively to basketball and soccer, probably the two most popular sports in the world. Also, NBC will be focusing primarily on events that have Americans as contenders which is unfortunate because the United States is a multi-cultural country, with people from all over the world who might want to watch contests that aren't so American-centric.
LAist: So if I want to watch a 4-person kayak sprint between Finland and Hungary I'm out of luck?
Chad Cooper: You probably won't be seeing that on TV and you might not even see it at NBC's online resources but what we're hopeful of at OVGuide, is finding video content that are either produced by enthusiasts or are the product of new outlets. The next few days will tell us if this is happening.
[The 4 1/2 hour (re)broadcast of the Opening Ceremonies at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing begins at 7:30pm tonight on NBC]
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Oh, good lord. Boo freaking hoo. Of course everything is going to be delayed. THEY ARE IN CHINA. And the selectivity of what games you can view is not a new thing at all, is it? And I would even go so far as to wager that you are in the minority of people who don't enjoy hearing the biographies of these extaordinary athelets. Meh. To each his own I guess...
yeah it doesnt bug me too much either. i'll stay up till 4am to watch the US men's soccer team play
The point is that we should be allowed to stay up and watch whatever event is going on LIVE at that time - not some packaged garbage from NBC and by garbage I mean the ponderous and boring biographies and other meaningless and extraneous programming foisted upon the viewers.
Why should Canadians have better access to the Olympics than Americans? NBC, get out of the way and let us see the games, not your overproduced soft-focus smut.
I like the bios and the lame travelogues and I couldn't care less if it's delayed. It's the Olympics! It's still exciting. Besides, I've got a life, people. Maybe Canadians can stay up all night to watch it live, but even if I could, I've still got to work in the morning. Maybe they can lounge around, watching t.v. and having some free health care, but I've still got to get out there and schlepp.
Well, isn't CBC broadcasting it in Canada? So that's like PBS, right? So obviously they have a different mandate than NBC who is driven by ad revenue, etc. Seems simple enough. So they don't really have a reason to "allow" you anything...
Isn't it at least better to have stuff available online in some form, compared to before the intertubes?
Heck, I'd be stoked to see some live broadcasts as well, but apparently that's not the way we're livin' in the USA.
well if u have that big Plasma TV you should have some HD channels, right?! like Universal HD! Channel 74 covering every aspect of the games! Get on it Sucka MC!
http://directv.com/DTVAPP/global/contentPageNR.jsp?assetId=P4800026&CMP=EMC-MQ-OM&ATT=120-8E-080806final&m=
NBC is stuck in the stone ages. Several of the other major countries have multiple streams covering multiple sports. NBC is just interested in saving its legacy broadcasting and gives the U.S. no options.
For example, you cannot watch the beach volleyball games on TV on either the NBC website or live. They'll just be showing snippets of coverage throughout the weekend.
It's ridiculous for those people who are actually interested in watching the whole thing - especially for sports that are not that popular.
hp (and anyone else!) CBC is not at all like PBS. Broadcasting is run far differently in Canada, but CBC (and Global and CTV, the two other major networks) are still commercial networks and are not run by public and corporate donations--there are no pledge drives on CBC. All broadcasting in Canada on radio and tv is a mix of private and public (for and not for profit) and is monitored by the CRTC, an organization that reports to the Parliament. While on the whole there aren't many operational differences between US and Canadian networks, original programming content does differ. Most Canadians who live close to the US get the US networks and can watch them, too, although if a Canadian network is broadcasting the same show at the same time the Canadian network will override the US one (so you'll be tuned in to NBC but it will air CBC's commercials and promos). And CBC and other networks still do a lot of the same over-producing the Americans are guilty of (sappy backstories and biographies) only they are, of course, focusing on the Canadian athletes. They may be opting to air some events live, but they are in a unique position to pick up viewers who are looking to watch coverage in addition to what they may see on NBC. They also might be covering events that aren't as interesting to American audiences.
In general, because of commercialism (which in the era of DVRs is evolving, or devolving back to tv's roots of in-program advertising and product placement) any large-scale broadcasting endeavor is going to get the full-on over the top treatment (it's why Kitchen Nightmares on Fox has dramatic music, a smooth voice over guy, and tells us before and after each commercial what happened 3.5 minutes ago and the UK version is far more subdued)--the American viewing audience has come to expect it, and we get pandered to. We need Bob Costas to gasp and say "dreamkiller" when some girl falls off the balance beam. I think the way our Olympic content is being produced is symptomatic of the way the business of television is as a whole. It's a shame, but at the end of the day I'm still going to watch a lot of it. But I'm glad I have several of their affiliate networks so I can catch the "less popular" stuff--it's stuff like the equestrian competitions and synchronized swimming that I came to love as a child, watching the Olympics in...you guessed it...Canada.
^ Cool, thanks for more info and analysis on differences between national coverage.
Thanks for that info on CBC Lindsay and thank you for the discussion everyone!