NBC's coverage of the Winter Games isn't drawing the accolades they might have hoped for:
...NBC has little hope of recouping its losses on the Olympics. The network paid $820 million for broadcast rights to the Vancouver Games, a 37% jump over the cost of the last Winter Games. (And, as FanHouse wrote recently, NBC paid all that money for the rights and isn't even broadcasting the game in high-definition.) Even apart from the licensing fees, the cost of covering the Olympics is astronomical, requiring an army of reporters, cameramen, and producers. The network expects to lose $250 million.
If the Olympics doesn't make economic sense, why is NBC shelling out so much to broadcast it? Some analysts believe the network benefits from the "halo effect" of millions of viewers who tune in for the Games but stay for the network's other programming. NBC is ranked last of the big four networks, but an Olympic halo could help pull it out of that hole.
Yet NBC's stingy coverage is tarnishing the halo. An estimated 138 million viewers are struggling to watch their favorite events in the face of restrictions and time delays. The network's coverage seems more likely to taint its image than enhance it.
To me the most disappointing thing about the Vancouver Olympics is that those of us on the West Coast, located in the same time zone as Vancouver, cannot watch many of the key events in real time. All of the prime time events are broadcast to us three hours later, long after I've already read the results on Twitter or on a news feed. There isn't much suspense, or for that reason much reason to watch, when you already know what's going to happen.
For instance, my wife enjoys the figure skating events, but we have yet to stay up until midnight to watch the coverage because by 9pm we already know who won and it's not worth the loss of sleep to watch the event. I don't even TiVO them.
The most exciting broadcast that we've had so far was the USA/Canada hockey game on Sunday afternoon. That one was broadcast live on MSNBC and it was fun to watch and at the same time read along with the comments from others around the country on Twitter or Facebook. I think the West Coast audience would have been much greater had they broadcast the evening events in real time as well.
What other live sporting event broadcasts to a major part of the country on a tape-delayed basis? Doesn't happen.
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2 comments:
It's not just you! The 'star' players come on well after 9, and we get up early, so after 9 is bedtime. I think they could start primetime earlier in the afternoon for things like the Olympics.
They at NBC need new leadership! Who cares what MM&AA do? They are stupid looking trying to do some of the events.
NBC has a first class crew of dunce's running their operation.
Like you, we love to watch figure skating, but what do we get, skiing events, etc. and by bedtime they haven't even started the skating events. NBC's rating as far as we are concerned is at the bottom of the barrel and I would hope money wise they lose their socks.
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