NBC is on my sh*t list right now
The women’s beach volleyball gold medal match was at 11 AM Bejing time, or 11 PM Eastern/8 PM Pacific. Does NBC show the match live on the West Coast? No, they make everyone in May and Walsh’s home state (California) wait until 11 PM Pacific to see the match.
You wouldn’t think it would be that hard to show it live on both coasts. On the East Coast, you have your normal programming, starting with all the diving and recorded track and field. Then, when the match is about to start, you air it live (as normal). On the West Coast, you start the night with the live match at 8 PM PT, and when it’s over, you go back to the diving and the track and field. The only downside for NBC is Bob Costas has to record a few more transitions in between events so that the West Coast feed makes sense. Since the match would reach a wider audience if it aired earlier on the West Coast, you’d think that it would be worth NBC’s time and trouble if it generated higher ratings.
This whole unnecessary three-hour Pacific Coast delay becomes even more troublesome for those that spend any time on the internet while they’re waiting for the match. I’m halfway through the first game of the gold medal match right now, but I already know the outcome because the news is splashed all over the internet, which includes my MSN.com home page.
(By the way, we here at The Scores Report have made a concerted effort not to post results of these Olympic Games until the event has aired in the U.S. Here’s an idea – maybe I should make The Scores Report my home page. Hmmm…)
All right, I’m going to quit my bitch session now. Misty May and Kerri Walsh are running around in wet, white bikinis (it’s raining in Bejing) trying to win a gold medal. And they’re in high definition. I really need to focus.
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Posted in: Television, The Olympics
Tags: Kerri Walsh, Misty May, Misty May-Treanor, NBC, Olympic coverage, Walsh and May, women's beach volleyball
I think you raise some decent, important points, but NBC has committed a ton of more egregious sins. I find their coverage really poor – and I’ve written about it in 5 different blog postings since the Olympics began. Your readers might be interested in a woman’s point of view. I usually write about sex, but I’m a complete Olympics addict – too!
Sue
Dude,
It sounds like to were a little frustrated that you couldn’t polish the dolphin a little earlier, no?
Ha! Nope, I just get irritated by nonsensical practices.
First of all, it must be said that NBC has succeeded in marketing a successful Olympics. The primetime broadcast averages 30 million viewers a night. Despite being held abroad, in China, this has been the most widely viewed Olympic Games since Atlanta in ’96.
Needless to say, I’ve been disappointed with how they’ve handled that key broadcast, from 8PM-12AM on their home network. John raises a good point: if there’s an opportunity to show a “high-drawing” event live, such as beach volleyball, then by all means, do it. For the past week and a half I’ve stayed up at least till midnight watching the main coverage, and often I have to stay up till 2AM to watch soccer games I’ve been waiting for. This is my main gripe. Some of us get tired. For someone who has to get up relatively early, and for someone who loves the Olympics, it’s a struggle staying up to watch everything you want to see. NBC, listen: as much as we all love the diving quarter or semifinals, and as much as we all were skipping Two and a Half Men reruns to watch the “closing gymnastics ceremonies.” Ha, nobody was! For those of us on the west coast, give us a live match for once. We watched those other events because we were waiting to watch Misty and Walsh win the gold. And I fell asleep, not because I’m lazy, but because I’ve been putting up with your absent-minded coverage for west coast viewers for the past week.
And John raises the most important point. If life rotates on some sort of media axis, it’s the Internet, not television. For many of us, we need to check our email throughout the day. I can count three times where casually checking websites has spoiled an important event.
Look, I give Bob Costas and NBC all the credit with pulling off what has been an enthralling Games. You just have to wonder, with 30 million people watching every night and a chance to really endear sports fans, wouldn’t you have created an all-live network? You had the USA Network practically begging for it. I say USA because that channel is at least on basic cable. I think people could have done without “Law and Order SVU” shows from six years ago (or new bombs like “In Plain Sight”) and would have rather watched Walsh and May win in real time.
If not USA, I noticed you created two channels for expanded cable subscribers: an all-soccer channel and and all-basketball channel. Why not have made one that was simply all-live? I know it sounds “nuts,” but some people would have gotten up at 4AM to watch key events. And I know these people could be the same people that post comment #238979 on a Yahoo! Olympics board saying “Phelps won! Phelps won! I’m spoiling for you.” Yeah, they could. But the die-hard getting up at 4AM are probably the same ilk that know when to keep their mouths shut and not ruin it for others. And, hey, it’s happening anyway with the east coast getting a live feed. I’m not bagging on them for posting the stories as they see fit, I’m just saying I wish we on the other side had that same coverage.
Chris – You make some good points there. I like the idea about an all-live channel.