On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 11:30 AM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > On Thu, Aug 9, 2012 at 3:47 AM, JW <[email protected]> wrote: > >> It really is written by Joe Posnanski this time: >> >> >> http://sportsonearthblog.com/2012/08/08/for-dick-ebersol-its-simple-were-here-to-make-great-television/ >> >> While I understand what Ebersol is saying (and NBC is doing), it's an >> approach that makes the Games less interesting to me. >> > > Again, it really is necessary to distinguish between the primetime Olympic > show, and the actual Olympic Games. Ebersol is talking about the former > monstrosity, which for the most part must be seen as some kind of Reality > Show, and is where NBC makes most of its money back. But a majority of the > Olympic events can be seen, on a live or near-live basis, in non-primetime > hours across the family of networks, and NBC is doing a pretty good to good > job covering the events there. By my calculation (see below if interested) > portions of at least 80% of the Olympic events have been shown on a live or > near live basis, and for a good number of these events we have seen > complete, live or near live coverage of substantial games or matches, in > many cases including a good selection of non-USA competitors, almost always > with competent announcers and expert commentators. > > (SNIP) The really tragic victim of Ebersolization is the track and field > tournament. I can find a reasonable excuse for almost all of NBC's > primetime sins, except for when it makes Americans wait sometimes 10 hours > to see the finals of the signature, defining events followed by hundreds of > millions around the world. Putting an embargo on the 100 meter sprint > really is very close to to NBC spending millions on rights to televise the > SuperBowl, and then putting it on in a primetime 10 hour tape delay. They > just butcher the premier track and field tournament in the world - which > hurts all the more because they really do have excellent commentators > working the event. And the worst of it is that it is so unnecessary. Most > of the 80% of the audience that Ebersol says prefer to watch the games > after dinner would still watch it even if the events had been shown live on > the NBC Sports Channel earlier in the day. Certainly there is no reason to > think that showing it live on an NBC niche cable channel would > significantly increase knowledge of the winners in an American audience > that has so much access to the results from other, much more convenient > sources. >
I should add that NBC does not even embargo all of the Ebersolized events. For example, we got the Men's Beach Volleyball live today, and I think 4 of the Decathlon events. -- 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. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
