NBC and the Olympics, should we talk about it?

[A-Money1983]

If I'm doing the math correctly, NBC had three promos for "The Voice" per commercial break, five breaks per hour and 11 hours of coverage for 16 days.

That's 2,640 spots for one show.  I'd like to think more of those could've been used to air promos for the Paralympics.

The Para promos they have are well-shot.  I just wish the public could see them more.

[baron-pierreIV]

On 8/24/2016 at 5:34 PM, A-Money1983 said:

If I'm doing the math correctly, NBC had three promos for "The Voice" per commercial break, five breaks per hour and 11 hours of coverage for 16 days.

That's 2,640 spots for one show.  I'd like to think more of those could've been used to air promos for the Paralympics.

The Para promos they have are well-shot.  I just wish the public could see them more.

 

Uh-huh.  And how will promoting the Paralympics bring $$ and viewership #s to NBC?     Are you nuts?  

[A-Money1983]

Easy.

If NBC had doubled up on it's promos for the Paras, it would've likely not put much of a dent into their other shows…

[Quaker2001]

On 8/24/2016 at 8:34 PM, A-Money1983 said:

If I'm doing the math correctly, NBC had three promos for "The Voice" per commercial break, five breaks per hour and 11 hours of coverage for 16 days.

That's 2,640 spots for one show.  I'd like to think more of those could've been used to air promos for the Paralympics.

The Para promos they have are well-shot.  I just wish the public could see them more.

Very sure you're doing the math wrong there.  3 promos per commercial break?  You actually think they promoted The Voice 15 times per hour?  Not a shot.  According to this.. NBC Crams Over 3,000 Promos Into Olympics

That was through the first 12 days, so let's say for the full Olympics, it was 4,000 promos.  If you want to re-do your math from that, be our guest.

[Trylon]

NBC, for the first time, may have realized that nations other than the US send athletes to the Olympic Winter Games. Too often, NBC's broadcasts and color commentary is jingoistic claptrap.  For example, the endless telling of the story of Lindsay Vonn dedicating her final performances to her deceased grandfather who had fought in the Korean War. While it may have been touching the first time, hearing it over and over including as she was marching into the close ceremonies was way over the top.  NBC spent so much air time fawning over Vonn's every move it became borderline stalking.  And NBC's obsession with the daily medal count suggests the network hasn't got a clue that nobody actually "wins" the Olympic games.  So, maybe with the retirement of Bob Costas whose presentations were slicker than those of a used car salesman, the network found some humanity with Mike Tirico.  Nevertheless, the network still needs to find figure skating commentators who will actually shut up for a few moments and whose objective is not to steal the spotlight from the athletes with their over-the-top personality quirks and endless blather.  I'm old enough to remember the good old days of Jim McKay and ABC Sports coverage dating back to Innsbrck and Tokyo.  I've often wished ABC would win the chance to cover the games again, but that's never going happen.

 

 

 

[panamfan]

I watched most of NBC's TV coverage of Pyeongchang and I must say I've seen much improvement by NBC.  There was far less talk about the medal counts, the commercial interruptions were less annoying and more sensibly placed, and the announcers were generally better.  Mike Tirico did a fairly decent job, but lacked the poetic flair for drama of McKay or Costas.  The figure skating was boring, although I thought the Lipinski/Weir duo added a fresh twist to the coverage.  I'm still frustrated that NBC still edits out protocol stuff from the ceremony broadcasts (the oaths, any speech not in English - they didn't even show the Greek Flag/Anthem at the closing!) but overall there was much more sports events and almost no "Up Close and Personal" fluff pieces or exaggerated soap opera scripting this time.  My favorite moments were the Cross-country and Biathlon events - NBC's announcers for those events were terrific and really conveyed the excitement and drama of those events.  The worst thing about NBC's coverage is that it never stopped.  Between NBC, NBCSN, and CNBC alone the games were on almost non-stop 24/7 and as much as I have a passion for the games I was quite fatigued by the final day and ready for them to be over! (lol)

BTW - Check out this article by the Associated Press - NBC's on-air announcers managed to offend people left and right in Pyeongchang. (Ouch!)

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OLY_NBCS_GAFFES_NYOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

 

[paul]

On 2/27/2018 at 12:04 AM, Trylon said:

NBC, for the first time, may have realized that nations other than the US send athletes to the Olympic Winter Games. Too often, NBC's broadcasts and color commentary is jingoistic claptrap. 

i used to think NBC and US broadcasting was the worst, but try watching CBC for a week while stuck in Calgary.......it is 100% worse than anything stateside

On 2/27/2018 at 12:04 AM, Trylon said:

For example, the endless telling of the story of Lindsay Vonn dedicating her final performances to her deceased grandfather who had fought in the Korean War. While it may have been touching the first time, hearing it over and over including as she was marching into the close ceremonies was way over the top. 

....the narrative was contingent on her winning.......the bet on it.......she choked.

1 hour ago, panamfan said:

The figure skating was boring, although I thought the Lipinski/Weir duo added a fresh twist to the coverage. 

us skating seems dead.....more focus was on one mediocre skater cuz he was gay and bitchy....jonny weir is an embarrassing older gay man/nutbag

On 2/27/2018 at 12:04 AM, Trylon said:

So, maybe with the retirement of Bob Costas whose presentations were slicker than those of a used car salesman, the network found some humanity with Mike Tirico. 

Mike Tirico was a black guy i guess

[Quaker2001]

On 2/27/2018 at 3:04 AM, Trylon said:

NBC, for the first time, may have realized that nations other than the US send athletes to the Olympic Winter Games. Too often, NBC's broadcasts and color commentary is jingoistic claptrap.  For example, the endless telling of the story of Lindsay Vonn dedicating her final performances to her deceased grandfather who had fought in the Korean War. While it may have been touching the first time, hearing it over and over including as she was marching into the close ceremonies was way over the top.  NBC spent so much air time fawning over Vonn's every move it became borderline stalking.  And NBC's obsession with the daily medal count suggests the network hasn't got a clue that nobody actually "wins" the Olympic games.  So, maybe with the retirement of Bob Costas whose presentations were slicker than those of a used car salesman, the network found some humanity with Mike Tirico.  Nevertheless, the network still needs to find figure skating commentators who will actually shut up for a few moments and whose objective is not to steal the spotlight from the athletes with their over-the-top personality quirks and endless blather.  I'm old enough to remember the good old days of Jim McKay and ABC Sports coverage dating back to Innsbrck and Tokyo.  I've often wished ABC would win the chance to cover the games again, but that's never going happen.

The ABC of yesteryear has long since been dead and buried.  If ABC were to broadcast the Olympics now, it would be an ESPN presentation and I can all but guarantee there would be a fresh wave of complaints and criticisms because, well, this is the Olympics and that's what happens everywhere.  Jingoistic claptrap is what draws people in (thank you paul for the note about CBC.. I experienced 2 full Olympics with CBC and CBS/NBC side by side and I agree that we hvae nothing on Canada).  Not a coincidence that the ratings are the highest when Americans are competing and doing well.  I know that can be a self-fulfilling prophecy the way they push the Vonns and Shiffrins of the world ad nauseum.  If they didn't do that, would people be as interested?

The medal counts.. again, that's everyone.  They don't think it's a matter of winning, but then again, how many of their viewers look at it that way?  I'm all for expecting more of NBC where they are not as good at covering the Olympics as they should be.  But it needs to stop of where they are doing what every other broadcaster out there is doing just because Americans are dropping in on these sports for a couple of weeks every 4 years and couldn't care much less about them before or after the Olympics.
 

[Quaker2001]

2 hours ago, panamfan said:

I watched most of NBC's TV coverage of Pyeongchang and I must say I've seen much improvement by NBC.  There was far less talk about the medal counts, the commercial interruptions were less annoying and more sensibly placed, and the announcers were generally better.  Mike Tirico did a fairly decent job, but lacked the poetic flair for drama of McKay or Costas.  The figure skating was boring, although I thought the Lipinski/Weir duo added a fresh twist to the coverage.  I'm still frustrated that NBC still edits out protocol stuff from the ceremony broadcasts (the oaths, any speech not in English - they didn't even show the Greek Flag/Anthem at the closing!) but overall there was much more sports events and almost no "Up Close and Personal" fluff pieces or exaggerated soap opera scripting this time.  My favorite moments were the Cross-country and Biathlon events - NBC's announcers for those events were terrific and really conveyed the excitement and drama of those events.  The worst thing about NBC's coverage is that it never stopped.  Between NBC, NBCSN, and CNBC alone the games were on almost non-stop 24/7 and as much as I have a passion for the games I was quite fatigued by the final day and ready for them to be over! (lol)

It was definitely a refreshing change for these Olympics to be covered as a live event rather than the usual pre-packaged show.  A lot of folks (especially those without cable and that think that primetime is everything) weren't fans of the format and view it as a step backwards and they were the ones most vocal about it on social media.  I really liked it though.  Gave us much more honest coverage than we're used to.  If the Ledecka race happened in Sochi, NBC would have edited that together and presented it as if they didn't know it was going to happen.  Instead, we get a much more real moment where it was more "well, we thought it was over, but we were wrong, here's what just happened."  And I'm fine with that.

Stuff like the protocol segments.. it's been proven that there are certain elements of the ceremonies that viewers will largely tune out from.  So there's not really a good way to find a happy balance there.  But between NBC and the cable nets, we definitely got more coverage of events and fewer profiles/features.  And if your complaint is that there was too much Olympic coverage (NBC had to stay relevant during the daytime somehow, so I appreciated the 24 hours a day coverage for most of the Olympics), then that probably means they did something right.  Thankfully that last week provided some of the best moments of the Olympics, so it went out with a bang rather than 4 years ago, when it seemed to fizzle out over the course of the 2nd week.

2 hours ago, panamfan said:

BTW - Check out this article by the Associated Press - NBC's on-air announcers managed to offend people left and right in Pyeongchang. (Ouch!)

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OLY_NBCS_GAFFES_NYOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

A lot of that came from the Opening Ceremony and most of the comments referenced were in fact pretty dumb.  But again, that's the nature of the Olympics.  A lot of people are watching so any comments are going to come under scrutiny.  And in an age where people are ready to pounce on anything they find disagreeable (i.e. Adam Rippon makes a comment about Mike Pence and then every time they show him on screen, NBC is to blame for "pushing politics"), almost any sort of comment will grab the spotlight. 

[BTHarner]

The worst thing about NBC's coverage was all the Hershey's Gold ads. Now I'm addicted to the darn things.

I can't complain about NBC's with these Games. I mostly watched the online coverage, but Primetime and Primetime Plus helped with the sports such as Alpine skiing in which watching all 100 competitors might be a bit much for even the most ardent Olympic fan. Between the two, I think I managed to watch at least part of the finals in all but six events. When you can accomplish that, there isn't much you can gripe about.

[Quaker2001]

10 minutes ago, BTHarner said:

The worst thing about NBC's coverage was all the Hershey's Gold ads. Now I'm addicted to the darn things.

I can't complain about NBC's with these Games. I mostly watched the online coverage, but Primetime and Primetime Plus helped with the sports such as Alpine skiing in which watching all 100 competitors might be a bit much for even the most ardent Olympic fan. Between the two, I think I managed to watch at least part of the finals in all but six events. When you can accomplish that, there isn't much you can gripe about.

That's why streaming is a wonderful thing.  I care very little for figure skating, so if I knew NBC was going to go heavy on that, I'd pull something else up for streaming.  And that I had 2 Roku's set up, it's not like I needed to go through my computer or have some sort of wonky set up that way.  That's what made a huge difference in streaming this Olympics versus Sochi.. TV-connected devices were not as prevalent back then.  Now they're very much widespread.

[danderson4500]

One thing i'd wish NBC would do, IMHO for the medal ceremonies, is show the American and show his or her  family at the same time on a split screen, during the anthem. That's one thing i'd wish they had done in Barcelona in 92 or Atlanta in 96. They have the cameras in the stands, don't they?

[Quaker2001]

On 12/25/2019 at 1:17 PM, danderson4500 said:

One thing i'd wish NBC would do, IMHO for the medal ceremonies, is show the American and show his or her  family at the same time on a split screen, during the anthem. That's one thing i'd wish they had done in Barcelona in 92 or Atlanta in 96. They have the cameras in the stands, don't they?

Why?  That moment is for the athlete, not the athlete's family.  Show a shot or 2 of them during the anthem, but that seems like overkill to have it in a split screen.  

[danderson4500]

I have to agree, Quaker, that's one thing NBC will never do on an Olympics. That would be overkill for sure....

 

But one thing that NBC does right, iMHO, is showing the gold medalist close up as they are listening to the anthem. And if they are emotional, like we saw in Rio, that's a bonus for them.

[danderson4500]

On 8/16/2016 at 12:33 AM, Barcelona_'92 said:

When the big (American) stars perform well, I don't think tape delay has much, if any, negative impact on viewership.  In fact, we saw in London that tape delay actually drives more viewership.  Even with all of the live coverage this year, the three highest-rated nights so far were the first Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday - the nights that NBC showed women's gymnastics on tape.  The ratings are down this year, but they're still outpacing Barcelona, Sydney, and Athens by quite a bit, which is pretty amazing given how many more viewing options there are now than in the past (barely 50% of households even had cable in 1992).

In some cases, I actually think NBC should have been showing more events on tape during primetime this year.  Like tonight, for example - there was no reason to show all 45748 heats of the women's 400m hurdles.  They could have shown the event finals from men's gymnastics during that time and just shown the heats with the Americans on a short tape delay after they finished.  There have also been some great American performances here that deserved some primetime attention - like Kayla Harrison in judo, for example.  Her gold medal match lasted 4 minutes and surely could have been worked in somewhere.  That would be of more interest to people than yet another heat in track or semifinal in swimming, which could easily be shown on tape shortly after they happen.

Besides Kayla Harrison, there were a couple of  great American performances here that deserved some primetime attention- Helen Maroulis, Gwen Jorgsen, and Ginny Thrasher. But all of those were live on cable, so i'm guessing that NBC didn't want to duplicate what they aired live on NBCSN...