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Question about OLYMPICS TV Coverage in YOUR Country

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Question about OLYMPICS TV Coverage in YOUR Country

Old 08-15-04, 02:46 AM
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Question about OLYMPICS TV Coverage in YOUR Country

Here in Australia, the Olympics are shown mainly on one free to air tv channel and a tiny bit on another free to air tv channel.

The government has this policy where certain sporting events are 'protected' and that means free to air tv stations get first bid for the rights and pay tv doesn't get a sniff unless free to air tv doesn't pick up the rights but for something like the Olympics of course that aint gonna happen

So we are still in the situation where we are watching what the tv station wants us to watch which sucks.

I dream of the day where the olympics is available on digital tv, pay or not and that it is available on some 20 plus channels and you the viewer can choose exactly what you want to watch. If you want to watch every minute of the Judo, you can watch every minute of the Judo!

so my question is

How many channels cover the olympics in your country ?

and how close to my vision is your country ?

what is preventing it ? politics or technology ?
Old 08-15-04, 03:46 AM
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How many channels cover the olympics in your country ? About 6

and how close to my vision is your country ? Not too close.

what is preventing it ? politics or technology ? Money mostly, it cost a lot to broadcast shit and people here don't seem to care about the Olympics unless it's taking place in the States. Even with few channels, the ratings tend to be low therefore adding more events and channels is not financially sound for the networks.
Old 08-15-04, 03:51 AM
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I'm in the state of Florida (USA)

the Olympics is being shown on 2 channels, as far as I know, local channel 2, which is the NBC network (NBC is airing the Olympics) and a cable channel called Bravo, which usually airs artsy movies. It might be on some other channels too, but I don't know

The two show different events at the same time, so that's good. NBC usually shows the events the USA are in, so if you want to see the people from other countries, you are out of luck. They also tape the events and air them at a better time of day, so they aren't always live. Bravo airs more of a raw feed which is good.

the opening ceremony of the Olympics wasn't shown where I am because we had a catagory 4 hurricane blast through here and the local channel cut from NBC's Olympics feed to air local news about peoples trailer homes getting blown away in 140mph winds.
Old 08-15-04, 07:35 AM
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NBC is broadcasting them on six or so channels here (NBC, Bravo, USA, MSNBC, CNBC, Telemundo (which is Spanish language I think). The live broadcasts are pretty good, but they don't show the major events until primetime, which means they show pretty much only things Americans are involved in, and everyone pretty much knows the results already anyway.
They do a poor job introducing people unfamiliar to the sports to the rules, which probably does not help capture people's attention.

The US has become increasingly self-centered over the last few years, and most people here tend to not care about non-American sports with non-American athletes. I am surprised we get to see things like table tennis, rowing and field hockey at all here.

Here the opening ceremonies also were not shown because we don't have a local NBC station. The one we get was covering the hurricane, and while they did make arrangements for another channel to show the ceremonies, that particular one was not available in our cable lineup. Thankfully they had a rerun in the middle of the night.
Old 08-15-04, 10:36 AM
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I was in Toronto during the 96 Games and I recall that CBC had excellent coverage.
Old 08-15-04, 11:14 AM
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Originally posted by Cartload
I was in Toronto during the 96 Games and I recall that CBC had excellent coverage.

It still does.

Here in Vermont, I have all the NBC channels except for Telemundo, and 1 English and 1 French CBC channel.
Old 08-15-04, 11:56 AM
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I'm actually pleasantly surprised at how NBC has handled things so far. Of course, you have to take into account to what the US normally gets when the games are many time zones away. By saturating coverage over many outlets, there is more live coverage than I am used to seeing (particularly given the location), and they are devoting far more time to obscure sports, which are the ones I tend to follow.

That being said, I didn't watch much primetime coverage last night. I noticed one lengthy up-close-personal story so I can only assume that they are still wasting a lot of time with this nonsense. I will stay away from the primetime coverage for most part because of this and because I generally don't care for most of the 'popular' sports.
Old 08-15-04, 02:02 PM
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CBC
TSN
NBC
CNBC has been switched over to CNBC World... so we get no coverage...

But basically we get a ton of Olympic coverage...
Old 08-15-04, 02:14 PM
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Originally posted by Corleone
CBC
TSN
NBC
CNBC has been switched over to CNBC World... so we get no coverage...

But basically we get a ton of Olympic coverage...
Forgot the CBC French affiliate which includes Olympic coverage.
Old 08-15-04, 04:31 PM
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Originally posted by Corleone
CBC
TSN
NBC
CNBC has been switched over to CNBC World... so we get no coverage...

But basically we get a ton of Olympic coverage...
RDS also has some coverage
Old 08-15-04, 04:41 PM
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We have 6 channels (on DirecTV) covering the games... and not just the US stuff.

We recently got our TiVo too and we've been recording everything and skipping through it. We've watched a few soccer games and volleyball (court and beach) games.

We're quite pleased with what we get. We're just sad that most of it is time delayed, rather than live.
Old 08-15-04, 10:32 PM
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I guess there's plenty of coverage here, and while most of them center on the US competitor sports, there's still a bit with non-US sports on the NBC-affiliate channels (such as Badminton, Table Tennis, Soccer, Boxing etc).

One complaint though, NBColympics.com needs to have a better TV listing that lists when events will be PT/ET or whatever because the times have not been consistent. But that's a minor gripe.

Overall, I'm mildly satisfied.
Old 08-15-04, 10:55 PM
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This HD feed is pretty damn good too.

I agree about NBCOlympics.com's TV listing. I should be able to easily get a schedule of when all the soccer games will be televised.

das
Old 08-16-04, 12:31 AM
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I've been pleasantly surprised by the NBC coverage this year as well. In Sydney it was horrible, if the US wasn't a major contender, it didn't exist. I don't think they ever showed a single medal ceremony that didn't have the American national anthem playing. Of course I'm more interested in events with my country involved, but that year it just got silly.

This year I've already seen a few events that had no Americans involved (syncronized diving, one of the swimming finals), and some sports that usually don't get any coverage at all on NBC (water polo, rowing). Admittedly, I've watched a lot more during the day and late at night this time, but the primetime coverage is a little better now too. At least they're showing the entire finals events now, and the human interest stories have been toned down.
Old 08-16-04, 06:07 AM
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In the current issue of TV Guide, they state that NBC is showing about 70 hours of coverage per day (between all the networks they have). Back in '76, the total amount of coverage for the entire two weeks was just over 75. I think we're getting minute by minute coverage of everything.

And once I got the HD loop thingy figured out, it was smooth sailing.
Old 08-16-04, 07:06 PM
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I don't have cable or satellite, just OTA tv, so I have a choice between NBC and CBC (Windsor, Canada is just across the river).
Old 08-16-04, 11:02 PM
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I'm in the U.S., so much of what I get has already been covered, but I'll add in my two cents. Currently one can get coverage on NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Bravo, USA, and Telemundo (as mentioned in Spanish). There's also a HD NBC channel, but I'll get to that later.

The good is that the coverage this year is amazing. Luckily I'm off until next week when I go back to school, so I can watch whatever I want, whenever I want. Back in '96 I just graduated high school and watched basically every minute of coverage. Despite that, they show only a small fraction of events, even in the early mornings and late nights. Already this year I've seen badminton, handball, field hockey, table tennis, weightlifting, and even a little fencing -- events they never ever showed before. One can also see sports not involving the U.S. for once.

Now the bad. Given the time difference, they save all the real good stuff for prime time, which they fill with a bunch of fluff in between the good stuff. But one has to cater to the masses I suppose. What I also find annoying is that the HD channel is basically worthless. It shows stuff a day late, stuff that is already tape delayed. For example, the men's 200 freestyle swim took place earlier today. It was tape delayed to tonight's primetime coverage. It won't show on HD until tomorrow. I'm not gonna wait that long to watch it.

Overall the coverage is great though. I don't pay anything more than my normal cable bill and get 6 channels full of virtually every sport. I see everything in at least bits, and can even catch some stuff live. It's not to the point of choose what one watches, but at least I can see a field hockey game or a handball game (which is pretty cool if you ask me), something I never came close to seeing before.
Old 08-16-04, 11:05 PM
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Originally posted by BabiG
[Band some sports that usually don't get any coverage at all on NBC (water polo, rowing). [/B]
Actually, NBC does usually show rowing and water polo. I know in '96 they showed all the water polo games on the "late night" version and pretty much all the rowing (even just the preliminary rounds) in the morning/weekends.

My big complaint in the past is that of the 30 or so sports, you only really see about 10 of them on NBC, despite around 10-12 hours a day. Thank god for cable channels.
Old 08-17-04, 09:38 AM
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I wanted to reply to the thread in the other forum, but I'll just reply here - here's my thoughts on the coverage so far.

I've had a great time watching them - especially sports that aren't usually televised like water polo, softball, etc. The swimming gets a little old after awhile, but I'd rather they *over* cover than *under* cover like they did in Australia. I'm very happy with the coverage so far, with the minor exception of coverage of the Russian gymnastics. They didn't cover them hardly at all (one event each), and they've got one of the best men and the best woman gymnast in the world argueably.
Old 08-17-04, 10:16 AM
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I think the coverage of the Olympics has been much better than it was in Sydney.

Our local NBC affiliate had one-third of the tv sets in the area tuned in to the Olympics last night. On top of that, just imagine how many are tuned into the coverage on the cable channels.
Old 08-17-04, 10:47 AM
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Originally posted by das Monkey
I agree about NBCOlympics.com's TV listing. I should be able to easily get a schedule of when all the soccer games will be televised.
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, I believe you should be able to do this from the NBCOlympics.com TV Listings search page. As it mentions on the page, just select your preferred sport from the dropdown menu and set the date range from the current day to August 30. Sadly, the search results page doesn't provide too much detail about each broadcast. However, if you click the "Athens Games" title of each broadcast, it should, at worst, confirm your preferred sport is part of the broadcast and, at best, display the teams competing and whether the event is live.
Old 08-18-04, 09:55 AM
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I think NBC has done a generally good job this year on its six networks, presenting good combination of major events (gymnastics, swimming, basketball, soccer) and events that are less known here (rowing, weightlifting, rifle shooting). The commentary is good, although they don't do the greatest job of explaining the rules. Still, most viewers can figure out the difference between a good performance and a poor performance in the replays.

My only real complaint is that NBC is not showing more of the major events live. Instead, they show them on tape delay in primetime, after anyone with any amount of internet savvy already knows the results. I just don't enjoy watching most sports on tape delay.
Old 08-18-04, 09:58 AM
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Originally posted by das Monkey
I agree about NBCOlympics.com's TV listing. I should be able to easily get a schedule of when all the soccer games will be televised.

das
Yeah, best you can do is go here: http://nbcolympics.zap2it.com/tv/search.jsp

Choose soccer, and the relevant dates. Only problem is that the listing that comes back doesn't tell you who is playing in most of the games. They should at least list that info for the group stage games.
Old 08-18-04, 10:38 AM
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Originally posted by Jericho


Now the bad. Given the time difference, they save all the real good stuff for prime time, which they fill with a bunch of fluff in between the good stuff. But one has to cater to the masses I suppose. What I also find annoying is that the HD channel is basically worthless. It shows stuff a day late, stuff that is already tape delayed. For example, the men's 200 freestyle swim took place earlier today. It was tape delayed to tonight's primetime coverage. It won't show on HD until tomorrow. I'm not gonna wait that long to watch it.

The HD is a little disappointing. i finally jumped on the local HD cable box just for the Olympics coverage. 2 day late coverage of only a couple events replayed every 8 hours isn't what i expected at all. Nice pic tho.
Old 08-18-04, 11:13 PM
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I miss having Eurosports 24 hour coverage...

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