When I was in college I had a roommate whose brother wanted the United States to have a government-owned service like the BBC, and he didn't mean PBS. His reasoning was that there would be less of the ABC-style of sitcoms popular at the time (the '70s) and more documentaries and other programs not aimed at the 12-year-old mentality, as people have called it for decades. The United States has a long history of companies being privately owned, even if the government has been known to help out (think the railroads in the nineteenth century)
I have never envisioned this country having a government-owned service like BBC, but the idea doesn't strike me as unthinkable. The channel knob used to go all the way to 83. That would have been enough space for a single government-operated national network having a transmitter in every market. As long as the remaining 82 channels stayed in the hands of the people (commercially and non-commercially alike), then I can't see us having our own version of the BBC going against the American spirit of free enterprise, provided it avoided religion and politics and focused on the types of content your roommate's brother suggested.
For Olympics coverage specifically, my thinking was just more along the lines of PBS already receiving a lot of government funding, and how in exchange for that, it might seem workable to mandate that PBS act as the main, "high quality" conduit for Olympics coverage, in the public's interest -- seeing as how they are "special" as far as being an irregular world event and a matter of national pride, whereas ordinary sports (football etc.) are ongoing 24/7 and are only matters of local town/city interest/pride. We already use "the public interest" as the logic behind making private broadcasters (who don't receive government subsidies at all) give up hours of airtime every week, all year long, to air all that obnoxious E/I material. Compared to some cheap show filmed with a Digital-8 camera of singing pre-schoolers learning about puppies, at least there are countless millions who actually
want to see the Olympics.
Also, where would PBS get the commentators for the events?
Aren't the IOC feeds provided with optional announcer tracks (as opposed to unnarrated, clean event audio)?
First, the American team isn't a government operation. USOPC is a private non-profit.
I don't understand this point. The Olympics wouldn't need to be a government operation to be carried on either a state-run network (like BBC) or a partly state-funded public network (PBS). NASA TV broadcasts Elon's private rocket launches. C-SPAN 3 covers random book authors' signing events when not covering the hill.
Second, NBC has a contact, and no administration is going to nationalize a television contract.
Unfortunately so. But contracts begin and end and changes can happen before the new ones get signed. Perhaps by the time NBC's current deal ends, their coverage will have become so bad that even you, rather than just the rest of us so far, will also favor a switch to coverage by a high quality broadcaster.
Third, why should PBS affiliates (there are no owned stations) give up their daytime programs, much of which is excellent children's programming, for a sports event?
As if NBC doesn't shut down its regularly scheduled programming for that sports event? I inferred how PBS and its affiliates would benefit when I mentioned the radio cume effect as an example. PBS having the Olympics would draw in untold millions who have little to zero existing brand awareness of them, translating to multitudes of new viewers (donors) after the Olympics end. Imagine the Olympics drawing more than 35% of the entire adult U.S. population (
source) to PBS for almost three weeks straight, and throughout that whole period, all those people being exposed to the network's customary ~5 minute top-of-the-hour promo breaks showcasing their regular programming. Imagine if each affiliate even used 30-60 seconds of each such TOTH break to politely hold out its cookie jar -- in the form of some celebrity coming on-screen with a QR code, an 800 number, and a web site address, saying "please support this public television station's ongoing efforts to keep bringing you and your community commercial-free, high quality programming each and every day -- including this year's completely commercial-free coverage of the 20## Oylmpic games." The effect of so many people seeing those brief pleas once per hour would go entire astronomical units toward that station's yearly budget requirements. I can't see why an affiliate
wouldn't suspend its programming for just a few weeks to take that much pressure off its fund-raising efforts. Especially given, again, as I also brought up earlier, the ATSC factor. They could technically keep their regular stuff going on a subchannel for all the people who just couldn't wait. Every affiliate has a "Create" or an "NHK World" subchannel it could replace the content on for 20 days, preempting any need to make people re-scan their TVs or get cable companies to add new subchannels to their lineups.
Fourth, the NBC coverage is really quite good even if you can't stomach it.
That's like saying McDonalds happy meals fresh from the heat lamps are really quite good even if you can't stomach them. If you can't stomach something, you can't stomach it. This is the crux of the matter. The number of people who can't stomach NBC's coverage has grown beyond just some handful of snobs here and there. People are pirating other countries' broadcasts by the droves using VPNs, or are just not watching anymore, it's so bad. And unlike conventional sports that tend to appeal to particular demographics (and whose coverage style therefore is typically matched to the intellect, or lack thereof, of its demographic -- see for example the difference between wrestling coverage and golf coverage), the Olympics are a special event. They appeal to an incredibly wide spectrum of people at all income, education, and cultural levels. Letting NBC say "well, the biggest sub-demographic for the Olympics are happy meal eaters, so let's force happy meals on the steak eaters too and use contracts to deny them alternatives" is B.S.
And 55+ is an undesirable demo to try to sell most stuff to (especially new brands) no matter the medium, and that's who's doing most of the complaining about this issue. But I'd suspect most of the complainers are still watching, and complaining to their spouses and kids during every commercial break.
Then I'm apparently one of the minority who is well beneath 55, has been complaining since his 20s, and now simply avoids NBC entirely so as not to have to complain any longer.
