Sharp Criticism of NBC's Olympic Coverage

[RicoGregg]

Both barrels loaded:

http://www.deadlinehollywooddaily.com/cheers-jeers-for-nbcs-beijing-olympics/

 

[mjlarochelle]

Some of the comments on this article make me laugh. I don't want this to turn into a political discussion, but I do take exception to those who believe we should forget about politics during the Olympics in broadcast coverage. I'm sorry, but the responsibility of broadcasters is to present all sides of the story, not just the good side, to its viewers.

Once again I'm glad I'm in Canada and get more than one side of the story from our broadcasters, including the issues in China.

 

[Markxxx]

I can see both sides to the issue, but since the Berlin Olympics in the 30s (maybe even before), the Olympics have been used to promote an agenda. The only way to end this is to establish a permanent site.

 

[neo11]

I was also surprised at the amount of NBC apologists who commented on that article. Overall, I have to agree that NBC's coverage this year was terrible, but it goes above and beyond just bad timing/scheduling for Olympic events. The non-stop Michael Phelps coverage was complete overkill, as if they were NPC (National Phelps Channel) instead of NBC. The insistence on pretty much only showing coverage of sports where Team USA had a shot at a medal took away from the coverage of so many interesting events at the games. The oohing and ahhing over Beijing's opening ceremony (but muted coverage of all the negative publicity which came out of it) was a bit much. Most strikingly, I feel that the coverage was soulless and emotionless. Where were the street scenes from Beijing? We hardly got a taste of China outside of its Olympic facilities and some aerial shots of Beijing. I recall during the Athens games, the Sydney games, the Atlanta games, etc., viewers were treated to a taste of the respective host cities' and countries...not so much during the Beijing games.

 

[Corky Marlowe]

I find it interesting that back in the day, ABC was able to show stuff like kayaking, weightlifting, velodrome bicycling, and wrestling as part of their Olympic coverage. To be fair, if they had the games today, that stuff would probably be dumped on ESPN Classic, ESPN U, and ABC Family.

 

[formeraa]

I was also surprised at the amount of NBC apologists who commented on that article. Overall, I have to agree that NBC's coverage this year was terrible, but it goes above and beyond just bad timing/scheduling for Olympic events. The non-stop Michael Phelps coverage was complete overkill, as if they were NPC (National Phelps Channel) instead of NBC. The insistence on pretty much only showing coverage of sports where Team USA had a shot at a medal took away from the coverage of so many interesting events at the games. The oohing and ahhing over Beijing's opening ceremony (but muted coverage of all the negative publicity which came out of it) was a bit much. Most strikingly, I feel that the coverage was soulless and emotionless. Where were the street scenes from Beijing? We hardly got a taste of China outside of its Olympic facilities and some aerial shots of Beijing. I recall during the Athens games, the Sydney games, the Atlanta games, etc., viewers were treated to a taste of the respective host cities' and countries...not so much during the Beijing games.

Remember the Chinese government still exercises a lot of control over what's broadcasted out of the country. I'm sure that they weren't interested in having Western journalists trotting out "with the common folk".

BTW, I was in Ireland during the first week of the Olympics. SkyNews only covered the British athletes and didn't even give any other results. They did mention Phelps very briefly but that's it. Ireland's RTE did a much better job of coverage (probably because Ireland didn't have as many athletes in competition). But they didn't have any coverage of China outside of the Olympic venues.

 

[whit979]

I really believe that we ultimately saw what China wanted us to see. Sports Illustrated wrote a very interesting article in last week's issue about how the real Beijing was totally covered in 'Olympic duct tape'. NBC played their role in the whitewashing of China throughout the Games, and that could end up as an unneeded knock to NBC News along with their Olympic coverage. I'm sure China was happy that Americans were oohing and aahing over Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt the entire two weeks. Makes one wonder what they would have been talking about if it had been a more 'typical' Olympics.

 

[lugnuts6]

To be fair, NBCs coverage was about a C-
I do applaud NBC for pulling it off by showing it on "THE FAMILY OF NBC NETWORKS" even its new arrival Oxygen (now laughingly known as "BRAVO LIGHT"), but "THE FAMILY" over shadowed its mother A LOT, even if 80% of it was done in NYC looking at the BOB feed.
Telemundo raked in their own gold medal on site even and not in Hialeah, they scored some good marks!

Now then, to the thorns:
1.Too Much Micheal Phelps, granted he was about to eclispe Mark Spitz, there were other swimmers there..the calls reminded me of the Monty Python "Queen Elizabeth Race"

2.Too Many Damn Commercials!

3.The phoneyness of the opening ceremonies and chinese govt. these olympics were more a paid off travelouge than an event..it was too damn anal and antiseptic for my taste


Now lets hope Vancouver (2010) and London (2012) do better

As for the big border olympic broadcasting war....No Contest! CBC again came out with a good broadcast.
With a special gold medal to CBC Olympics host Ron McLean who did the broadcast with a heavy heart as his mother passed away.

It was the finale for CBC as next olympics will be shifting to THE NETWORKS OF CTV

So NBC...meet your new competition CTV/TSN/RDS oh by the way NBC, TSN/RDS are co-owned by ESPN..arent they in the running for 2016??? hmmmmm?????

 

[BrigThomson]

My former wife was part of a medical missionary crew that visited China twice in 1988 & 1989. The group took primarily heart doctors to China to perform operations that the Chinese couldn't even begin to do. They were in China for 2 months at a clip. As it was they were considered "guests" of the Chinese government and were treated as such. But I can tell you..American TV audiences saw EXACTLY what their Chinese hosts wanted them to see and no more. One picture that sticks in my mind from her trips was when they were in a city that was fully closed to outsiders (as most Chinese cities are). They were being taken thru a street marketplace and my wife turned behind her to snap a picture. The picture shows what looks like 100+ people staring down the street looking at the group because they had never seen a white person before. She went on to become very good friends with a Chinese doctor who was originally assigned to her group as a spy.
He told her later that's that was what he was placed there for..to spy on the western doctors who were in the group. China is a VERY closed country. And none of that has changed. The Chinese showed us what they wanted us to see, and answered no questions they didn't want to. Those items aside, I had commented in another thread that I was very disappointed in NBC's coverage. They paid little attention to anyone other than Americans, and my opinion is that if you've accomplised what it takes to get to the olympics as an athlete, you're entitled to your 15 minutes of fame, and NBC should be reporting the olympics, not just waving the U.S. flag.

 

[oldvnewschool]

To be honest, I really don't see what the fuss is about.

I know the Olympics is one of the toughest sports to broadcasts because of how many sports there are, and deciding what to put.

To me all that is irrelevant, You want the sports and the events that will be talked about.

NBC is the main channel for the Olympics, so it makes sense that they will get the bigger sports, and the bigger hype for these events.

The other channels did their part, even though they broadcast things that may not have any appeal outside of the U.S., they did the best

that you could ask for.

As for Phelps build-up, I don't think anybody outside of Balitmore would expect him to win 8 gold medals, 6 maybe, but not everyone one of them.

So it made sense for all the hype.

I'll be honest, I saw as much as I could, but they did their best to showcase as much of what was China as a state as they possibly could fit in their

schedule.

The only complaint I saw was that when Team USA (Women's Swimming) finished silver, Andrea Kramer skipped the Gold Medal winning team, and

went with Team USA, I guess they didn't have "time" on their schedule to interview everybody.

As for the tape delay issue, hasn't that always been around since Olympics been broadcast on TV so that viewers can see the big events on primetime?

They also did a superb job (other than the commericals promoting their new shows that I think won't last beyond November ;D) of controlling the

commercial intake so that we saw a lot more action on the networks.

I know it's not ABC circa 1976, but there is a reason that NBC has been the olympic home since 1988, and to me, it comes down to the two best

Olympic Anchors of my lifetime: Jim Lampley & Bob Costas ;D

Not to mention the ratings were very good during the Olympic period, and that is what matters sometimes.

 

[bpatrick]

Michael Phelps was THE story of these Olympics,
so naturally NBC played him up.

If you want to know what truly bad Olympic coverage
is, you should have seen NBC's coverage of the Winter
Games in Sapporo, Japan, in 1972. Virtually nothing live,
shoddy camera work (or NBC may have even taken the
pictures off NHK), and the winning athletes had to be
helicoptered to a studio some distance away to be
interviewed. Had it not been for the incredible coverage--
and ratings--generated by ABC in Munich that summer,
the Olympics might have become a thing of the past on
American television.

 

[JeeperOne]

Hi everyone:

I can see both sides to the issue, but since the Berlin Olympics in the 30s (maybe even before), the Olympics have been used to promote an agenda. The only way to end this is to establish a permanent site.

That's not the answer and won't change anything. In fact, it's a band aid. Nothing more. Nothing less.

The Olympics should NEVER be about politics. It should ONLY be about sportsmanship. That said, it is all too unfortunate that those who aren't competiting see the games as a platform to preach their political agenda (Whatever it may be). But as I said before, establishing a permanent site is no cure.

The only reason it's worked for the [iLittle League World Series[/i] in Williamsport, PA for as long as it has is because A). Children are the competitors, B). There's only one sport featured in the LLWS - Baseball and C). Baseball is an international sport played by many nations (Including the US).

Soccer's World Cup falls under the same category as the LLWS even though it, like The Olympics, doesn't have a permanent site.

Bottom line is this - As long as there's politics - NO Olympic games are safe REGARDLESS of what The IOC tries to allieviate the problems. It's just that simple. Providing security for the games would be like providing security for all 42 Super Bowls AT ONCE. Munich 1972 brought that out.

JMO...

Cheers

 

[DaytonRadio]

Honestly, I think NBC did a MUCH better job with the olympics this year than they have since they obtained the rights in 2000. Many of the events were shown live, virtually every event was made avaliable to view, and they cut back on amount of "puff pieces" they did on the athletes... still more than I would have liked.. but it was better than it has been in years past..

 

[mimo]

Every time I tuned to NBC and saw the "live" logo on the screen, it was for an even that I had just seen on the CBC an hour or more earlier. Even comparing the CBC/TSN feed to the website feed that was on a 5 minute delay. I never caught a single event on NBC that was happening as it was occuring.

 

[KML0224]

Beijing is 12 hours ahead of New York City (Eastern Time). When the gymnastics team competition was on with Shawn Johnson, Nastia Liukin and the Chinese girl, a red LED clock could be seen in the background matching the time it was here each time, save for the AM/PM part of it.