NBC’s Unconscionable East Coast Bias

I try to be tactful and respectful when leveling criticism at those who deserve it. Today, however that goes out the window. If someone screws up something that only occurs every four years, then I am allowed a once-every-four-years disrespectful moment.

NBC Sports is run by a bunch of lying, self-important morons.

How else to explain the inexplicable decision to tape delay all Olympic events for both mountain and pacific time zones yet present them as if they were live?

To be fair, let’s return to my comment above and break down each element of the name-calling and why it is appropriate in this context:

Lying – Every time I see that little ‘Live’ in the corner of my screen and hear an announcer talk about showing us some event live I get a little more insulted. Late, late last night, I had the surreal experience of having msnbc.com’s homepage up on my computer trumpeting the U.S. women taking gold and silver in the gymnastics all-around while at the same time my TV sat in the background with the ‘live’ telecast of the floor exercise – the final and deciding event. Needless to say I didn’t exactly hold my breath on each of Nastia Liuken’s tumbling passes.

NOTE: Am I the only one that finds her dad just a little bit creepy? I’m afraid that the next time we see them he will be applying sunscreen in unmentionable places.

Self-Important – If it wasn’t bad enough that we have a graphic to tell us that something we are watching is live when it isn’t, then it gets worse every time one of NBC’s announcers open their mouths. Bob Costas, Dan Hicks and Al Trautwig seem to be contractually obligated to remind us 437 times every hour how fantastic it is that NBC has been able to bring us these medal events live from Beijing. I am sure that the athletes are absolutely thrilled to have the most important moment of their lives before lunch, because that is so common for sporting events. Oh, and did I mention that for roughly half the country all of this patting on the back by NBC announcers, is completely and totally untrue?

Morons – What is most amazing about this fiasco is that there seem to be very simple remedies to the situation, yet NBC execs aren’t smart enough to figure them out or decided it would be easier to just insult half of the country:

1 – Change the graphic – If something is not live; quit telling us it is live. Put up a ‘Previously Recorded’ or just take away the graphic completely if you want to maintain the illusion with a little more subtlety.

2 – Interrupt for live events – Would it really kill us to interrupt the 8-hour old beach volleyball or synchronized diving tape to show a live event? One of Michael Phelps’ races take less time than a commercial break, we couldn’t bounce away from diving long enough to show it really, honestly live and then go back?

Of course there is one good reason to not show these events live – good old fashioned greed. If the marquee events of the night are completed earlier, then you might turn off their 47 hours of coverage you don’t care about. By making you stay up to midnight to see the one or two events you actually care about, NBC is forcing the other 4 hours of coverage down your throat first.

But what if it backfires? What if instead of sitting through more diving, we all turn away and then come in only for the events we care about? Last night, I got caught up on Generation Kill on-demand (a phenomenal show by the way) and only checked in on the Olympics to watch Phelps. I happened to finish the most recent episode just as gymnastics was hitting the final rotation so I could have the experience described above. It was 11:45 MT by the way. I am sure the parents of all the little girls dreaming of becoming the next Nastia were thrilled to keep their daughters up to midnight.

You can even take this further by checking the results first and then deciding whether to tune in or not. One of your beloved Americans chokes? Why waste time watching that. Find out what happens and go watch something else. Heck, if you spend any time on a computer or flip channels you are probably going to find out anyway. In just the first week I have already found out several of the swimming and gymnastics results before seeing a moment of footage. Some of them coming with the results posted on ESPN.com (an occupational hazard) as well as the results running during other programs (Monday Night Football for example). Thankfully the best moment of the games so far – the 4×100 fresstyle relay – I was able to enjoy completely innocently because I happened to be at my parents’ house which is the technological equivalent of 1993.

So will NBC learn or change their bone-headed approach? Probably not. The Olympics come once every four years; they know we are going to turn in. They can screw with us as much as they want and know we will simply say ‘thank you sir, may I have another’. Well, not me. I am done with spending my evening watching their coverage except for the few moments I want to see (the 100 takes less than 10 seconds to run).  If maybe a few more of us in the mountains or on Pacific coast take this approach they will get it through their thick ‘New York–is-the-center-of-the-universe’ minds.

Thankfully in just over a week we can go back to completely ignoring NBC Sports outside of 3 hours every Sunday night.

You will get no complaints from me if they decide to tape delay Notre Dame games.

Tape Delays until 1 am sound about right.

east coast bias NBC Olympics TV coverage

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