Olympics XXX

The Olympics are marked by a number of clear and unwavering characteristics:
Competition
Suspense
Athleticism

This year NBC has decided to add some of their own:
Banality
Artificial dramatization
Homogeny
Spoilers

I’m going to preface this by saying that I love The Olympics. Both summer and winter. I remember watching Keri Strug hobble her way to victory in 1996, gawking at the awkward Svetlana Khorkina also in 1996 but then again in 2000, and the horror over the Nancy Kerrigan attack by Tanya Harding in 1994. I’m also a competitive person, so watching the ultimate competition is very exciting for me. I don’t watch or even care much to pay attention to all of the sports, but like I’m sure most people are, I have my favorites and make sure to pay attention to those. Somehow NBC has managed to so severely mangle the Olympics XXX that watching them gives me more agita than joy.

NBC’s coverage of the London 2012 Olympics has been nothing short of disappointing. They boast over 5,000 hours of content that is streamed either online or on TV throughout NBCU’s many networks.  They have a huge stronghold on the content however, that should you miss something on TV it’s nearly impossible to catch it anywhere else. They’re website is a cluttered mess. And should you G-d forbid want to watch another country’s events, forget about it. In an age with such a proliferation of video everywhere it’s bizarre to have it so unavailable. But NBC proved during the Opening Ceremony that they think Americans don’t care to know about the rest of the world so I guess it’s not that surprising, but I’ll get to that soon. In the meantime, talking about cluttered messes, their prime time coverage is a disaster of scheduling – interweaving swimming, diving and gymnastics (the big ratings grabs) with beach volleyball, rowing and basketball (smaller ratings grabs). This way they get you to watch everything just to weed out what you want. For those of us who DVR, we’re forced to record giant chunks of time (8-12pm!) and needing to delete other shows which we’ve been saving only to fast forward through most of the coverage to get to what we want. I understand that they don’t want to break it out into chucks and risk people not watching the entire. four. hours. per night, but I’m guessing a lot of people DVR it anyway to avoid the banal commentary the voice overs are offering. And of course I am severely sleep deprived this week because I have to watch everything THAT NIGHT or else risk spoilers at the hands of NBC or any other media outlet, but also more on that later.

Let’s also take a minute to talk about the Opening Ceremony. If the actual show wasn’t odd enough, we had to endure Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera’s vapid commentary. Thanks Meredith, for explaining to us simple American folk that the UK includes the British Isles, that’s Isles with an “I.” Ohhhhhh! Thanks for the explanation. Otherwise we would have surely thought the consisted of British Aisles. Then, NBC had to add to the perception of American ethnocentrism and cut a segment commemorating the July 7, 2005 terrorist attacks in London that they didn’t think would be relevant for us because we’re American and gosh darn it, we only care about ourselves. Guess what, NBC, we Americans could stand a little insight about how the rest of the world operates.  And of all things they had to replace it with a Ryan Seacrest interview of Michael Phelps. What is Seacrest even doing there?! Oh, I guess if they’re going for vapid and banal commentary it’s a requisite to have him there. I take it back, good call.

As for them games themselves, all of the prime time coverage is tape delayed by about 5 hours to accommodate the time difference which gives NBC ample time to fabricate narratives that may or may not be there. Take the women’s gymnastics. First of all, you have the disgusting and intrusive attention paid to Jordyn Wieber right after she lost the chance to compete for the individual all-around medal. You can see the camera man changing his angle to make sure he can see her crying in during Aly Raisman’s post-qualifying interview where she (rightfully) expressed pride and gratitude in her success. Then during the team competition they fabricated a sense of close competition with the Russian Women’s team to make for good television, despite the fact that it was inaccurate. As Gawker notes, NBC didn’t even show the Russian women’s floor competition in which they fell so far behind that the US was in no danger of losing the gold. However, if they had shown it as it actually happened, we simpletons at home would have lost interest and perhaps have even changed the channel. Then there are the medal ceremonies. Has anyone else felt like there have been some missing? I watched all last night as NBC dragged out the Men’s All-Around to four hours and then they didn’t even broadcast gymnast Danell Leyva’s medal ceremony! He got the bronze medal and was thrilled at placing and would have been a heartfelt sight to see him up there but apparently if it’s not our anthem being played then NBC has decided that Americans don’t need to see it.

The coverage also hones in on athletes they have decided to make celebrities and focuses on them, neglecting any others. For instance, we know pretty much all there is to know about Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. However, what about the rest of the US Swimmers? You wouldn’t even know they were here with a whole team. How about ANY OTHER SPORT? Other that gymnastics and swimming (at least for the first half of the Olympics) if you are an athlete in any other sport NBC doesn’t care about you. Sorry.  And if you’re a viewer who wants an all-around understanding of the American team, well you lose there too. You only get to know the handful of athletes NBC wants to introduce you to. Forget how they bragged during the march of nations at the opening ceremonies how we had so many athletes, we only really want to get introduced to 4 or 5 of them.

Fans of the games who are not impressed have taken to the internet to discuss their displeasure. Hashtags such as #shutupmattlauer and #nbcfail have become popular in the last few days. Unfortunately, however, the suits at the Peacock network don’t take the upset seriously and misinterpret it as “passion” mostly because the ratings numbers remain high. However, they don’t seem to be acknowledging that people are watching because they want to see the games and they are forced to watch it on NBC because that’s the only way to view it. Producer Jim Bell (who is also the executive producer of The Today Show) bragged to The Hollywood Reporter that despite people’s complaints about the quality of coverage they are happy with the results and that “the numbers speak for themselves."  That’s actually a little dishonest to say that despite their editorial decisions people are enjoying it – in fact fans of the Olympics have no other choice.

Last but not least: the spoilers. And this isn’t even exclusively NBC’s fault. There’s CNN which insists on sending out breaking news updates telling us how the Americans are doing. For the record, because of this, they have officially lost me as a subscriber. Didn’t they realize that rushing to be first isn’t always the best way to go when they bombed on the Supreme Court health care announcement. Information is everywhere, I don’t think “first” carries the same weight as it once did. No one actually cares except the network that’s bragging about it. NBC also did a super awesome job of spoiling their own coverage when they ran a promo for Today that featured Missy Franklin holding her gold medal. Problem? Those of us in the U.S. didn’t know that yet because we hadn’t hit prime time yet across the pond. Then there’s Facebook and Twitter. Oh yes, our love of oversharing personal information also extends to non-personal information. So here’s my plea to you, my friends and acquaintances on Facebook: Great that you don’t care about waiting to watch the games on TV. But please, consider other people’s interest of being surprised and experiencing some of the action “live,” or however NBC dictates “live” to be.