Addendum: I did not schedule a recording of the Ryan Seacrest show last night, so when Bob Costas told us that they were going to show the rest of the Gymnastics on the midnight show I was at first screwed (it was already 1:00 am my time when I got to that). I would like to know how much of the actual event they showed on the midnight show - I have not been able to find it anywhere online.
It was obvious by the way they covered it in primetime that the US Men did not win a medal, but like I really believe most fans of the Olympics, I am not only interested in events that Americans do well in, and I wanted to see it. I went to both the Comcast On Demand menu (which does have a lot of stuff) and online. In both places I found two main options: I could either watch all action at each piece of apparatus (kind of cool, I watched about 30 minutes of the pommel horse, but it would have taken like 3 hours each, and there is no announcing at all, or even much scoring information) or a real time online feed of the overall event, with different announcers than NBC. This was appealing at first (obvious plus, no Al Trautwig) but it looked like the announcers were in Connecticut, and they were limited to what was almost a random video feed that shifted from apparatus to apparatus and team to team with little rhyme or reason. The announcers did not know any more than I did what was going on other places on the floor, and often would report things like "The US just got a 42 on the rings - I would like to have seen so and so's routine, he must not have done very well" - and we are left thinking - yeah, I would like to have seen that too. In the end I was up to like 3:30 in the morning watching most of the overall online feed, and got a pretty good idea of what happened. But I did learn some empathy for how hard it is to televise a gymnastics event; there are lots of things going on at the same time. It made me think the best solution is not to try to do a live TV show, but maybe show the top 5 teams on each apparatus one at a time, showing the standings after each apparatus, so you are comparing apples to apples. On Tue, Aug 9, 2016 at 10:04 AM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Mon, Aug 8, 2016 at 9:35 PM, David Lynch <djly...@gmail.com> wrote: > >> One interesting thing from tonight: the medal round for men's team >> gymnastics, normally a marquee event, didn't start airing until well after >> 11:00 ET and was partly pushed to late night. Of course, it was kind of >> obvious from the way they covered what we saw that there wasn't a comeback >> from the early stumbles that made it into the prime time show (i.e., there >> were neither leaderboards at any point nor any coverage of any of the other >> teams.) >> > > I had to pull this out for special comment, because I thought what NBC did > with the Men's Team Gymnastics illustrates the worst abuse of their prime > time tape delay policy. NBC has embraced the fuzzy line between sports, > entertainment and profit in their Olympic package, and I am willing to cut > them some slack, given how much they spend both on the rights and on the > production. But if they do not honor some basic rules about sports, then > the Olympics become a joke; they become not just a reality show like > "Survivor", but junk TV like "Battle of the Network Stars". > > We know Men's Gymnastics does not have the appeal the Women's Gymnastics > have, but it still is a a prime time event, and I have to believe that > NBC's initial plan was to cover it in prime time. They obviously chose not > to (at least, not very much of it) once they saw that the US team did not > do very well. This is ridiculous, first because it just violates what to me > is fundamental about sports: you don't know the end from the beginning. > Your team may win or lose, the game may be close or a blowout. More than > that, while the US did not do well, the event itself was very interesting, > with lots of movement and dramatic stories. For a little while it looked > like the home team Brazil might finish in the medals; Japan came from way > behind to win the Gold - led by what most experts call the greatest male > gymnast in history; Russia got Silver after a lot of frustration. China > came from as far back as the US to get the Bronze. And the US, dead last > after the first round, actually make it interesting for a little while and > looked like they might make the podium. > > In other words, it was not a case of the event not being competitive (for > many years networks might switch from one NFL game to another near the end > if it was a blowout; this was not like that). The event was very > competitive, and interesting, with lots of great story lines. It was a case > of NBC making the cynical calculation that the US not making the podium was > a downer of a story that might turn viewers off to the whole Olympic vibe. > It was the application of Trumpism to television sports coverage - an > effort to "make America great again" by only showing half naked US swimmers > and beach volleyball players pounding foreigners, and denying any facts > that might make Americans feel bad about themselves. > > NBC's ratings for this Olympics (which, overall, so far I am enjoying) are > way down. Most of that probably is due to what has been observed here > already - a critical mass of Americans live much of their lives every day > online and already know the results when the primetime show comes on. > Again, NBC really should show the events live on cable, and then do their > primetime show like a modern, daily "Wide World of Sports". > > But I suspect part of the problem is the utter contempt with which NBC > holds its own viewers. Women may be its core demo, and a larger fraction of > women may not be traditional sports fans, but women are not morons, and do > not need to be treated like they can only watch Lifetime soap opera movies. > This is what an NBC executive had to say: > > "The people who watch the Olympics are not particularly sports fans. More > women watch the [Olympic] games than men, and for the women, they're less > interested in the result and more interested in the journey. It's sort of > like the ultimate reality show and mini-series wrapped into one." > > That is some serious sexist bullshit, and I think NBC is paying for it in > their ratings. > -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. 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