I have a question regarding last nights telecast of the Opening Cerimonies on NBC.

WERE THE COMMERCIALS LOUD ENOUGH FOR YOU?!!!

I was watching them from Central Florida. During the Cerimonies you could BARELY hear the Sportscaster's Narration, however, when the Commercials came on, you were BLASTED OUT OF YOUR SEAT!!!

Okay.

NBC in general has been the loudest broadcast network through my Comcast cable HDTV feed. It's very annoying to have to lower the volume solely when I watch NBC shows.

This happens when I watch Mad Men on AMC.

As for the Olympics... blech.

There is a thread in the sports forum talking about the Winter Olympics. You could have vented there.

Well since we have a thread in TV Talk, let's discuss NBC's coverage of the Olympics and let the Sports thread discuss the sports aspect.

It's been said, before, that NBC does a piss-poor job with the Olympics but I think this year is worse than ever. I watched the prime-time coverage and they would go 30 minutes at a time without showing a single damn sportin event. Between commercials, banter, weather forecasts, and the endless human interest pieces, they managed to waste a good HOUR (at least it seemed that way) that could have been spent on various sporting events.

And once they are actually on an event, the coverage doesn't get any better. They were showing short-track speed skating and you'd think the only thing that mattered was Apollo Ono. Yes, he's good, but come on. During one race, the Korean winner set a new record and yet they went on for several MINUTES about the fucking American who'd come in SECOND. And at the end of that bit, 'oh, and the Korean set a new record. BUT HOW 'BOUT THAT 'MERICAN WHO CAME IN SECOND?!?!?!!???'

The luge was front-and-center, seems to be their new bloodsport. The Americans don't stand a chance, they never do, but of course they focus on the damn Americans and not the Germans and Austrians who will probably win the thing.

And Bob Costas. How does he sleep at night? Probably crying himself to sleep on his mattress made of $100 bills.

And that's just NBC proper. How about their other stations, like Bravo and Universal Sports? Oh, right, Bravo was showing some shitty drama and Universal Sports was showing a slalom event in EUROPE, that took place who knows how many weeks ago. UGH!!!!

[/rant]

NBC has been putting up the appearance this year of just giving up on the Olympics. The coverage is horrible.

If they are planning on loosing $200 million on the Olympics selling so fucking many commercials, I wonder what they would have lost if they hadn't sold 10 minutes of commercials for every 15 minutes of coverage (what it seems like, I have no idea about actual numbers).

OK, NBC is covering the games for AMERICA. Most American viewers don't care about athletes from other countries, they care about the Americans in in every sport, whether they're the best or not. I really don't care about the other countries and their athletes. I want to see how the Americans do.

Now granted, I have zero interest in watching the human interest crap and would much rather see the action. But if NBC is going to do fluff, do American fluff.

And I think you are in the minority on that. The international aspect of these games, like the world cup, are a big part of the draw. I want to see the athletes of the other countries. And for the USA I would think this would be self evident as we are made up of many different cultures. But NBC is just showing how bereft of any sense of professionalism they are. I hope this is their last olympics.

I'm sorry, but I don't agree with this at all. MOST Americans that watch the Olympics cheer for the American athletes and are interested in how they finish. It's been said before, but NBC is covering the Olympics for the American audience, so obviously they're going to showcase the American athletes because that's what the vast majority of the audience wants to see. Sure we want to see athletes from other countries, but for the most part, for each event, American audiences want to know who finished 1st, 2nd, 3rd and how the Americans finished.

It's like when people complain that golf telecasts focus too much time on Tiger Woods even when he's not leading. The golf telecasts are trying to get as much interest as possible and Tiger Woods drives the interest. The true golf fans probably don't care about Tiger if he's 10 shots back and only care about who's leading, but the true golf fan isn't the majority of the audience. Most people that watch golf want to know where Tiger is at no matter what. And yeah...there are a bunch of Tiger jokes that could be said, but come on...

Save some time for yourself, just watch the highlights on ESPN.

ESPN or any other network can't show video highlights from the Olympics due to major video/copyright restrictions by the IOC/NBC. They can show them 24 hours after the event airs, but by the time it's already dated.

Well my opinion is skewed by the people that I know who watch this. I admit I could be completely off but that's what I see.

NBC is being taken to task for the unwanted product placement crap during the Winter Olympics.

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/van...urn=oly,219842

As for the comments above, I always thought that the interesting part of the Olympics was to see the International competition at it's fullest. Yes, NBC is catering to the American audience, but they aren't doing themselves any favor when the broadcast has been more about the fluff instead of the actual sporting events. I would prefer to watch people compete instead of the crappy storylines they are trying to shove down the viewers throat. I may not be alone in this, since it seems the ratings for the Olympics are in the toilet and NBC is losing a ton of money in this event.

The "too much fluff" complaint has been going on for many, many Olympics now. The prime time broadcasts are notoriously bad for it. There were years that they seemed to show minutes of competition for hours of backstory. I used to think it was mostly because the Olympics were held in different time zones, so there wasn't much to show live, but evidently not. The other problem is that about the only events held in the evenings are figure skating -- the winter games version of gymnastics.

I think they need the fluffly human interest pieces for the majority of the sports, because really, how many people are going to get into luge or curling or whatever without the backstory? Now I could do without the polar bears and those fluff pieces that have no bearing on sports or athletes.

The plus side is that I can just fast forward through most of the broadcast (and the commercials)... no way am I spending four hours of primetime on the Olympics.

Yeah, that Dreamworks thing really pisses me off. It's blatant, and it's stupid.

And it's made me not want to see the movie, or ever buy the DVD (I would have, otherwise).