'Red Widow' Gets The Axe
'Grey's' Isn't Going Anywhere
NBC's Olympic Coverage Stinks, But It Gets Results
by Joel Keller, posted Feb 22nd 2010 8:22PM
Complaining about how NBC covers the Olympics is almost an Olympic sport all by itself. Pretty much ever since the Atlanta games in 1996, NBC has been raked over the coals for tape-delaying events and concentrating on stories instead of the sports themselves.The outrage has been especially loud when the Games have been held in North America, mainly because the time differences are minimal. The hue and cry has been louder than ever from Vancouver, mainly because, in a world where results can be shot around to every computer and cell phone in the world via Twitter and Facebook, NBC is shooting itself in the foot with what seems to be 1990s thinking.
Here's the rub, though: The Olympics are kicking tail in the ratings, despite all the complaints.
The latest complaint is that NBC decided to shuffle last night's highly-anticipated US vs. Canada hockey match to MSNBC, which not everyone gets in HD, and put more nichey, and tape-delayed, sports like ice dancing and ski cross on the NBC broadcast. NBC explained that they felt that they'd rather commit the three-hour live time block they needed for the game on cable than burn a night of network coverage for it. What they were really trying to say, of course, is that "ice dancing gets the 'Dancing with the Stars' demographic."
This follows a litany of bad press about the coverage:
- West coast viewers protested that, despite being in the same time zone as Vancouver, they were subjected to heavy tape delay.
- NBC News' Chuck Todd got hammered by people on Twitter for tweeting results that hadn't aired yet.
- Viewers in cities along the Canadian border carped to The New York Times that they were stuck with NBC's coverage because CTV now has the Canadian rights to the Games instead of the CBC.
- Alyssa Milano tweeted "NBC = Nothing But Curlng."
- Stephen Colbert crawls into the "fireplace" in NBC's Vancouver studios, revealing it to be as real as the WPIX Yule Log.
OK, the last one wasn't such a big deal, but the way NBC has been pilloried over the last ten days, I figured we could just add that onto the pile.
But, despite everything, NBC's coverage of the games has been getting the network its best numbers in quite some time. On Wednesday it beat 'American Idol,' giving the FOX talent juggernaut its first timeslot loss in almost six years. It also beat 'Idol' for the week. It's the highest ratings for a Winter Olympics since the 1994 Gilooly Games in Lillehammer.
It could be the lousy weather, the lack of counter-programming from the competition, sparkling HD content, or the crummy economy. But clearly NBC's "plausibly live" method, while a relic of the 1990s, is something most viewers either don't notice or just don't care about. It almost makes me long for the days before Twitter -- almost.
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