At around 6pm on Feb. 21st, I learned who won the ladies figure skating short program at the Torino Olympic games. Sasha Cohen had won by a mere .03 of a point. Impressive! My wife and I had wanted to watch the figure skating program and I made sure not to tell her any of the results. She had wanted to remain surprised. So my wife put our son to bed and I worked on painting the baseboards in our front room (that is to become the library—though right now it looks like a room that has a bunch of mismatch furniture crammed in the center with plastic sheets covering everything).
We were bad last night and ordered pizza and hoagies so at 8:30 pm we were settled for the night, eating dinner in front of TV, thinking that we’d watch figure skating. NBC showed a few of the girls skate and then they switched to their bobsled coverage. And then they switched to their speed skating coverage. And then back to a human interest story on one of the female bobsled riders. At this point it was after 10pm, and I had had enough. I’ve been recovering from being sick and haven’t been feeling well so I went to bed. I read in bed for a bit and then passed out. But before going to bed, I taped the remaining hour and a half of figure skating. The next morning I woke up, turned on my DVR, and then jumped to the points of the broadcast that I wanted to see. Why? Because I’m sick and tired of NBC’s coverage of the Olympics. There’s no recap of any of the hockey matches at night. Either I need to tape them and watch them at night or I’m screwed. Sure, you can find the scores online, but there’s no audio or video Webcast of these events. If you miss them, then that’s that. You’re done. Instead, I have to sit through a bunch of commentary crap on NBC and tons of commercials.
NBC’s coverage of the Olympics has been horrible, to put it bluntly. I’m tired of their human interest stories, their crappy sports coverage, the sub par high definition feed, and their plain disregard for content that viewers want. I don’t want to spending 3 and a half hours sitting in front of the TV watching all those commercials and coverage of events that I don’t want to see. What’s most frustrating is that there is no forward thinking model of watching content: You can’t purchase highlights of the events on iTunes, you can’t use Comcast’s On Demand feature to pull up games you missed during the day, and there’s no Webcasts to watch of the events. Heck, you can’t even listen to the events live as they’re happening. Instead, a big event like figure skating, it chopped up and you’re given what NBC wants you to see. I believe there were 29 women who skated last night. We’re lucky if we saw half of that. I understand that there are challenges in putting together a show that cannot fully embrace the magnitude of the events as they’re occurring overseas in Torino. I’m not sure if the lack of technological advances being used in the Olympic broadcast is caused by the IOC or NBC, but it is frustrating and annoying. With my Comcast cable bill being so expensive, I expect to have great content and excellent quality. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. But I have no options. Either I watch NBC’s coverage or I miss out. There’s no other option. If highlights of the major college footballs games (Rose Bowl, etc.) were available for sale on iTunes after the games, why isn’t there a similar deal with Olympic coverage? Or, better yet, why isn’t NBC offering On Demand coverage to Comcast subscribers?
Let’s face it: With Netflix, other major networks, podcasts, video podcasts, games, and books, there are about at least five other activities I could be doing instead of watching the Olympics. Our time is precious. I’m not going to waste it watching a zillion commercials and in not seeing what I want to see. In a world in which time shifting is part of my everyday routine, I’m downloading video podcasts, podcasts, and taping TV shows to watch later, there’s no reason for me to sit through the advertising. Of course, advertising pays for the shows. I do understand that, but there’s better ways of advertising. There are commercials that I will watch: If they’re funny or educational.
In the year 2006, you would think that the media could come up with better ways to show Olympic content. If NBC doesn’t find a more effective way of showing the games, the audience is going to continue to drop (I believe I mentioned that viewer ship for these games are very low—lowest since the 1988 games). When people can download TV shows via BitTorrent to watch whatever they want, why wouldn’t I just try to get content from BitTorrent for the 2008 games? Heck, with China being 12 or so hours ahead, if there’s no Webcasting, we’ll have to wait more than half a day to see the events. It just doesn’t add up.
The problem is: Too many people don’t care any more and they’ve moved on. With a remote control on your hand or a laptop by you, there are too many other choices to make. If the show you’re watching doesn’t grab you, then you’ll stop watching it. To make a comparison, in podcasting, commercial experiments are taking place: Earthlink is allowing listeners of podcasts to make their own commercials for Earthlink. I’ll listen to those commercials because it’s funny to hear what normal people can come up with. But on TV, there needs to be a new way of providing better commercials and programming.
I understand that NBC wants to make money, but their coverage didn’t work for the last games and it’s surely not working for these. I only hope they wise up and learn how to come up with more innovative ways of showing the Olympics on TV. Maybe they’ll take some of my advice and think of adding content to iTunes or On Demand cable services. Both options would be a step in the right direction!
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