Olympics Coverage: Question & Comment

[Seeker47]

So, I happened to be watching a bit yesterday. (via DirecTV, in HD.) For much of that time, the picture kept fluctuating from HD to SD to minor macroblock fuzziness and back again. (This may have been more evident on the outdoor stuff like track or equestrian events . . . though not exclusively so.) NBC has supposedly spent a billion bucks on this. Why can't they provide good, consistent technical results ? I'm not thinking this is more a fault of DirecTV, but I could be wrong. The stuff I saw today (Thurs., 8/9) was all indoor events, all HD, all technically flawless.

On another front, too much of this coverage really blows. Lots of emphasis on obscure sports fewer viewers will care about. Where have they been hiding away the men's basketball, for example ? Nary a trace. And when was the last time you ever saw so many and so frequent commercials, for any broadcast ? Despite the fact that a lot of the events are tape delayed by many hours, they return from commercial and you see that the point scores have jumped, so obviously they are not holding any of the match content for us through the commercials, despite the tape delay. Why ?

On the plus side, at least some of the events have been exciting and of a high calibre, such as the Volleyball matches -- both the beach and indoor varieties.

[KBeee]

This might amuse you concerning the tape delayed coverage -
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2012/07/a-message-from-nbc-about-...-coverage.html

Thank goodness for the BBC - no adverts, every sport covered live... Having no time differences helps of course

[jman98]

There's a reason why NBC is the least popular of the 4 major US networks. The coverage of the Olympics illustrates it. They really just do not have a clue. My co-workers who have talked about it have been overwhelmingly negative with some saying that the coverage is too US focused.

Unfortunately NBC paid a fortune for the coverage because they need it to stay relevant. The only major sports they carry are the Sunday night NFL game and hockey, but honestly few people watch hockey on TV. They need commercials to make back what they spent, but it really does seem that every decision they make about the Olympics is as flawed as it could possibly be and if given a choice they consistently make the wrong one. But then again they really do not have a clue at all about how to run a TV network. Last fall they very briefly ran a show starring Hank Azaria. I like Hank, but this show was terrible. Stunningly bad. Someone should have seen a pilot and never given the project approval. Yet NBC tried for a few weeks to get people to watch it before they pulled the plug. No other major network would have even tried to show that kind of crap on TV. They are just clueless.

[KBeee]

I guess it won't improve either, cos NBC paid about $4.3 billion for 2016 & 2020 Summer Olympic Games, and the 2014 & 2018 Winter Games. Didn't they try to do PPV for the Barcelona games?