NBC's broken Olympic coverage

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/02/nbcs_olympic_coverage_manages.html?sc=fb&cc=fp

by aarghh • 16 years ago

49 56 16 years ago

I've only been watching the curling, and as a Canadian living in America I was annoyed by the lack of diversity in coverage, but it sounds like in some of the other events it's much worse.

mbreese4• 16 years ago

You can watch most (all?) of the curling events live on the nbcolympics.com website. I've usually had a curling or hockey game streaming while at work for the past week.

One annoying thing about that though: you have to subscribe to a cable or satellite service in order to actually view it. Why should NBC care if I have DirecTV or not? It also requires Silverlight, which begs the question: why aren't they using Hulu for this?

trafficlight• 16 years ago

I have the HD only programming from Dish Network. Even though I get CNBC and MSNBC, that doesn't count in NBC's eyes, so I can't watch live coverage.

xelfer• 16 years ago

This is pretty much the exact problem we're having here in Australia. We get 3 hours of coverage a day at 9am, which is summarised further and shown at 9.30pm. They only show us events that Australians appear in and barely show the rest. I think they showed about 5 minutes total of that USA vs CA hockey match in our prime time.

We have a 'pay tv' network which has 4 channels dedicated to Olympic coverage, and it costs $65 extra for the privilege.

shib71• 16 years ago

Try http://media.olympics.com.au/.

AndrewS• 16 years ago

In addition to that, I get tired of the channel 9 commentators pretending that every moment of whatever they're watching is a dramatic historic event. Can't we just enjoy it for what it is without all the crap?

It also seems like half of the broadcast is just montages and irrelevant interviews like Grant Hackett interviewing Michael Phelps.

sailormoon• 16 years ago

Yeah that "USA-Plus" label applies to us a bit too. Didn't we win gold in something? You can count on seeing that happy event in slow-motion about 3000 times over the next week.

zzygan• 16 years ago

I'm one of the probable few that paid for the 4 channels. I did get in early and get it for $50, but thats almost irrelevant.

I must say it's by far the best way to get it. Its the best coverage I've seen of the olympics here. Way better than Beijing. Every event is on live and then replayed at night. Very slick, good commentating, and not too much australian person who came 22nd hyperbole.

pkulak• 16 years ago

I was amazed that NBC shuttled the Canada/US hockey game to their SD cable news station. I remember watching some guys skiing with guns, and shooting at stuff... I guess, in HD, then having to switch over to SD to watch the only game anyone I knew actually gave a crap about. What a joke. But, I'm a Canadian, so I guess at least I didn't have to watch them lose in more resolution.

mbreese4• 16 years ago

That royally pissed me off. Why did I have to watch the one game that I cared about in standard def? At least they could have moved it to CNBC, which was broadcasting curling in HD.

bugs• 16 years ago

Hey I very much have enjoyed the curling matches this year :)

I didn't get to see the hockey game though.

Mongoose2• 16 years ago

At least you got to see it at all. I don't get MSNBC, so I was left in the cold. However, the Russia/Czech Republic game on NBC was a decent consolation prize. Turned out to be a great game down to the last minute.

Towle_• 16 years ago

I was amazed as well...but moreso infuriated. I was at a friend's place when I realized the game was starting soon and flipped to NBC. We watched about 20 minutes of skiing and figure skating before concluding that it couldn't be on that station. (That realization took so long solely because we thought it impossible for them not to air the USA/Canada hockey game. After all, we're in America and hockey is the most popular winter sport over here; it'd be inane not to air that game.)

It being really cold and my being a poor college student, I decided to just resign myself to my fate and asked my dad to send me score updates via text.

The scores were inspiring enough-- we were keeping pace with the Canadians in hockey. But then Dad starts throwing in extras like "they're wearing 1980 throwback uniforms," "our goalie is having the game of his life," "huge fight at the end of the 2nd." Fuck fuck fuck. How am I missing this? Then he drops the bomb: "This is the best game I've seen since 1980." Fuuuuck!

Right then in the middle of watching Family Guy on Fox with everyone else, on Taco Night of all nights, I just jumped up, explained I couldn't just sit there, and left. I powerwalked down to the near-campus area and walked up and down the street till I found somewhere with the game on (which took a long while) and-- no joke-- stood outside in the freezing cold on the phone with my dad through the entirety of the third.

Christ, it was so worth it.

silverpen3• 16 years ago

I'm not quite sure I understand everyones frustration. Why don't people just watch whatever events they want whenever they want online (it's all available there for free and with fewer commercials).

mkinsella• 16 years ago

Because watching it on my computer isn't nearly as easy (stuttering, finding URLs, downloading players), convenient, relaxing, or high quality as sitting on my couch while watching an HD broadcast on my 50" LCD.

silverpen3• 16 years ago

Easy, convenient: In the past I would have agreed with you. But by far, this year's olympics online broadcast has been very well managed. High quality with little to no stuttering (even for live events), content well organized and timely (replay of complete event available only minutes after they are complete).

As for the couch and large TV aspect, I suppose I would have to agree with you.

Sukotto2• 16 years ago

My family doesn't own a tv. For the Summer Olympics there was lots of official online content. The winter games? ... not so much.

Sure there are lots of official stats out there, but I was unable to find the figure skating for my wife. In the end, she was reduced to watching it in Greek (we think) on a tiny Justintv station.

NBC paid a lot of money to secure coverage of the games. I wish they had put more effort into making them actually available to people.

silverpen3• 16 years ago

Is http://www.ctvolympics.ca/video/index.html available to those outside of Canada?

Because CTV (Canadian company with broadcasting rights to the olympics) really did an excellent job of presenting the olympics this year.

retro• 16 years ago

West-coast residents have been particularly incensed that they wait an additional three hours after the East coast gets whatever "live" coverage there actually is in prime time, even though they are in the time zone where the Olympics actually are. What this means is that even if NBC is showing "live" coverage of its big events in New York, which is across the continent from Vancouver, it delays them three hours for Seattle, which is less than three hours south of Vancouver.

Is there a business reason for giving the East coast preferential treatment West coast events and vice versa?

dasil003• 16 years ago

Is there a business reason for giving the East coast preferential treatment West coast events and vice versa?

It's not preferential treatment per se (east coast is seeing taped events as well), it's just that most people aren't home from work yet at 5pm.

walkon• 16 years ago

Is it particularly surprising that a company broadcasting primarily to the USA would focus more on its participants? For the average American watching sports they know little about, with participants they've never heard of, it helps if there is something they can grab onto to maintain interest, such as rooting for their home country.

With that said, the other complaints this article raises I agree with.

azm• 16 years ago

This is one the primary reasons I have not watched anything sports related on NBC for a long time. The rah-rah, the overly obsessive coverage of only US players and related history, the focus on all the wrong parts of the games, I can (with great effort) tolerate. But once you add the absolutely useless and inane commentary and the tendency to shove the schedule on me, I prefer to switch to other sources and I strongly recommend that to as many people as I can (while trying not to be a grouch).

This was done to such a degree during the last FIFA world cup that I chose to watch it in Univision even though the only two words I understood were pelota and goal. And even that was oodles better than NBC. I wish I could stream CBC from somewhere or at least pay for coverage that just keeps the damn commentators quite unless absolutely necessary. Unfortunately AFAIK the way the whole thing is setup, there really is no choice in the matter.

blahedo• 16 years ago

I was following the 2002 World Cup fairly closely and watched on Univision for a different (but related) reason: they actually broadcast the games when they happened. 4 in the morning? No problem. There was no question of knowing the results before the broadcast, which was already eight years ago a typical problem for those of us with decent internet connectivity.

mbreese4• 16 years ago

One of the comments at the NPR site suggested the IOC not have an exclusive broadcast partner and just open it up for everyone to cover it as they'd like. I think that this is interesting, but hardly a way to fund an event as massive as the Olympics. In order to any changes to work, you'd have to be able to make up the $800+ million NBC ponied up for the games.

So, here's an idea: why not let others (even competitors) bid on individual events. This could work from either the IOC doing to brokering or even NBC itself.

So, for example, if another network wanted to broadcast the USA/Canada hockey game, they could have bid for the rights to show either that game, or all of hockey. I'm sure that would be worth something. Why should a large part of the country have to miss out on a great event, just because NBC decided to show ice dancing?

Split the games up into smaller biddable packages, and I'm sure you'd end up with as much, if not more, revenue for the IOC, and more people could get to see a greater variety of events. Imagine if ABC/CBS/NBC/Fox/ESPN were all showing a part of the Olympics? Wouldn't this be more in the spirit? You'd get a greater variety of events and more depth in individual events.

razerbeans• 16 years ago

To build off of your idea, what if the IOC had their own camera crews that would cover the live events and rather than bidding out the events? They could license access to the raw footage to buyers (i.e. NBC/ABC/ESPN) who would then choose how to use the footage as well as applying their own commentators and technologies (such as scores, replays, etc.).

Seems like the IOC would benefit from licensing to all the different networks, the networks would all benefit from being able to carry the olympics, and the people would benefit from the competition between the networks to provide better replays/commentary/analysis.

dboyd• 16 years ago

I have to believe that a lot of the action is covered with Olympic provided cameras. There are a lot of cameras on track systems, which there can only be one of. There are also a lot of cameras in venues that only hold a single set of cameras; e.g. curling and hockey rinks.

Other than 'backstage' interviews, I suspect most footage is shot by IOC crews.

JimmyL• 16 years ago

This is pretty much what happens.

There's an IOC subsidiary called Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), which has crews/cameras/directors at every session of every event. If you're watching an event happen (as opposed to an interview), there's a 99% chance it's coming from an OBS camera. If the shot is coming from a site-specific camera - like the track-side camera at speedskating or the overhead curling shots - it is coming from an OBS camera. OBS cameras are the only ones allowed to go into the field of play; all other cameras have to stay on specified media risers outside the competition area.

When you watch an event on CTV, you're actually watching the OBS feed (with OBS graphics) overlaid with a CTV-supplied commentary track - the only sound OBS supplies is the ambient environmental ones, and it doesn't cut to any interviews or anything. Those of you who watched the Beijing Olympics on the CBC website may recall that there were eight or nine feeds available, but only one of which had CBC commentary. The commentary-free ones (which also didn't have commercial breaks or explanations) were the raw OBS feeds, without any additional CBC editing/directing.

When a broadcaster pays for exclusive national rights to the Olympics, one of the main things they're paying for is exclusive access to the OBS feeds. As for why they don't sell that feed to multiple networks? I assume they've worked the math and determined that they'll make more money by selling it exclusively, as opposed to cooperatively.

mattm2• 16 years ago

Thank goodness I'm in Canada.

We have three channels that are broadcasting the Olympics probably 12-16 hours a day. And it's not just because they're in Canada this year, it's pretty standard to have great coverage.

I remember being in the US during the Atlanta Olympics and couldn't believe that they were only shown for a few hours a day with limited events.

Mongoose2• 16 years ago

I'm glad it turned out nicely for you guys, given that the Olympics are in your backyard. I would've liked CBC to have Olympic coverage though, as it's the only Canadian channel broadcast in the Seattle/Puget Sound area. I could've then watched the US vs Canada hockey game yesterday, given my lack of MSNBC.

halostatue2• 16 years ago

We've got three channels broadcasting, but not a one of them is as good as CBC. Hopefully this is the last Olympics CTV ever gets. :|

p_h• 16 years ago

yeah, it's just weird not having CBC cover the olympics

KC8ZKF• 16 years ago

The events shown on NBC are so heavily edited, overproduced and filled with backstory glurge, it is like watching a made-for-tv movie about the olympics instead of the olympics themselves. Bah.

rmanocha• 16 years ago

Reading through these commends, it seems like us people in Malaysia have it better than you guys in the US. I've been a bit disappointed with all the attention paid to Ice Skating/Dancing etc. but for the most part, they've (ESPN) shown a good mix of the events going on in Vancouver.

hristov• 16 years ago

I have been cursing at NBC for their screwed up coverage for a week. It is really really bad.

Did you know for example that they have a channel called Universal sports that is owned by NBC and that is an over the air and cable channel that broadcasts nothing but sports. You would think that would be the perfect place to broadcast the olympic games. You know what they broadcast? They broadcast winter sports, but not the olympics. Instead, they have replays of winter sports events that happened months ago. So for example, while the men's downhill was happening and it was not being broadcast live by any NBC channel, that universal sports channel was showing an old replay of another men's downhill that was not an olympic event (it was part of the world cup circuit and happened several months ago). While the US women hockey team was playing without being broadcast anywhere, the universal sports channel was broadcasting a fricking documentary about the US women's hockey team.

I mean it is as if they intentionally want to piss me off.

Oh and dont get me started on primetime. First of all they take up half an hour of prime time coverage with a show that is about the olympics but does not feature any olympic sports. Instead it is a freaking infomercial about Vancouver and british columbia, and various random products, restaurants, that may have a minor connection to the olympics. So NBC is broadcasting infomercials in prime time that is how far they have fallen.

The actual sports coverage is so badly presented that you always know who is going to win the race before hand. That is because the idiot commentators are not commenting live, they know what happened and they just keep talking about the people that they know are going to win. And they usually put in a human interest story about the athlete that is about to win. So why watch the race?

Here is a piece of advice to nbc execs -- the main reason I watch sports at all is because sports are NOT predictable.

So yes, in general it is not surprising at all that these are the same TV execs that thought up the entire Leno Connan fiasco.

banana2• 16 years ago

If you are in Europe, you can access all the OBS live feeds, highlights, as well as all the stations broadcasting the event (bbc, ard, zdf, etc..) for free here: http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/olympics/

bshep2• 16 years ago

Anyone tried setting up a VPN server ( as a sort of proxy ) in Europe to stream the coverage to the states ( for personal use of course )?

I might try this later, if it works I'll report back.

EDIT: I got it working, the location I am right now has less than 1Mbps down so I cant tell if the lag is due to the VPN and the distance or the BW limitation. In a little bit I'll be home and I can test with a better connection (8Mbps)

bshep2• 16 years ago

Just got home and I have to say that it works great if you have a decent connection! I can even watch the 'HD' version.

ianbishop• 16 years ago

If you are able to access the CTV webplayer from the US, I definitely suggest it. It has to be the best live web player I have ever seen.

miked• 16 years ago

Let us put aside for a moment the rah-rah, "Go Team USA" focus of the NBC coverage that often bugs viewers who would like a more global view of the Olympics.

That was the first sentence, and they lost me right there.

The first night I watched they went on and on (and on) for so long about how absolutely desperate Canada was to win a gold (and on and on) I thought I was viewing Canadian TV. Later they showed the mogul skiing event (I believe it was) and were so focused on the fact that a Canadian had won gold that they never even mentioned how the US skier did. Only later did I find out he took bronze.

AndrewO• 16 years ago

Agreed—I've watched many events, shown in their entirety, where the US (and often Canada) were not even factors. E.g. just recently I've seen multiple biathlon and cross country skiing events where Europeans dominate. There's cursory mention of an American back in 20th or so, but for the most part the coverage is focused on leaders. And these are long races too.

It sounds like the author was just mad that the US-Canada hockey game was pushed to MSNBC. I would have loved to have seen that game in HD on the main NBC, but that's a long way from the coverage being "broken".

NBC's broken Olympic coverage

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