2.22.2010

TV Talk: After watching the Vancouver Olympics for over a week, I think I can safely say that NBC's coverage stinks.

It is fragmented at best, irrelevant at worst (ice dancing in prime time, really?), and in this day and age, with the Internet and DVR capabilities, there's really no excuse for the shambles they have made of televising this thing. NPR.org's Linda Holmes blogs about it, and what she says makes so much sense.

"At one time, you could broadcast events hours after they happened, and you'd have a reasonable chance that people could live in a bubble while they were waiting. That is not the world we live in anymore. The fantasy that is indulged when Bob Costas speaks breathlessly about an upcoming ski race where he already knows exactly what happened is no longer even a fragile fantasy; it's a blatant fiction that everyone knows about."


It's a great article.

One more thing regarding NBC's coverage: I know that they have to pay for it and the way they do that is through advertising, but come on. I had a hockey game on yesterday and after about 5 minutes of commercials, then 5 minutes of Costas talking about events, and then another 5-7 minutes of commercials, I gave up and turned the channel. Thank God for late-night curling. Yeah, it goes on forever, but at least you feel like you're watching something in its entirety.

1 comment:

Beth said...

My husband said the same thing about the ice-dancing. What a joke.