aynrandgirl

The last 2 nights NBC completely abandoned scheduled speed skating coverage in favor of more figure skating. Tonight they blew off skiing too and showed nothing but figure skating and a bit of snowboarding. Come on guys, if you're going to abandon anything it should be snowboarding.

Jimmy James

Didn't they cancel a lot of the skiing for today?

aynrandgirl

Maybe they did, I'm not paying much attention to Alpine events. Speed skating, however, is not subject to the vagaries of the weather. I know they had problems with the Zambonis yesterday, but Canada has so many hockey rinks that getting replacements for today should be trivial.

RoQuEr

why are you asking questions that you already answered?

spamurai

It's the same question every two years... NBC's coverage is just plain awful.

aynrandgirl

Zambonis explain Monday. They don't explain Tuesday, where the women's 500m gold medal final was relegated without warning from prime-time to midnight in favor of more figure skating.

Fist of Doom

Figure skating is the juggernaut when it comes to ratings. It will always get prime time when possible.

Luds

You lads should try the Canadian stations, there's tons of coverage. And online as well on ctv.ca but it looks like it may be blocked out to non Canadian IPs

superdeluxe

People apparently love figure skating? Who knows, I do know I turn it off when it comes to figure skating

rfduncan

Clearly, your perceptions of the availability of an entire country's access to Zambonis at any given moment are mistaken.

In the grand scheme of things, getting this worked up over something this trivial is mildly disturbing.

resinrats

I know my mom likes figure skating so I'd guess figure skating brings in higher ratings.

Snowboarding would probably bring in a younger audience more than skiing/speed skating.

Red Dog

Yesterday's skiing event was postponed. But their treatment of the Men's Downhill Tuesday was terrible: 6 runs, 3 interviews, and 4 commercial breaks shown over a 35-40 minute period.

There's figure skating and then there's too much figure skating. 3 hours is too much, particulary since 3/4 of the field aren't going to contend (and look awful). Now they're even pushing speed skating out of the way for it. There must not have been an American contender because they usually give speed skating better treatment.

We've all been bitching about the lame primetime coverage in the sports forum thread.

iNCREDiPiNOY

What's up with Johnny Weir Pinky costume?

Heat

The only Olympic coverage I've seen was of the guy on the luge crashing during a practice run, but then again I have a little trouble with my NBC station (I use an antenna).

roger_d

Come on, you know the answer, its ok you can say it.

Pointyskull

I guess I'm in the minority re: NBC's coverage. With the exception of the abundance of commercials, I don't have that big of an issue with their coverage. I imagine it is nearly impossible to devote 3 or 4 primetime hours and cover every event that would appeal to everyone in that block of time. There's just not enough time.

And running it live during the day (or overnight depending on location) is obviously the "right" way to do it, but I'm guessing the viewing audience for those times is much less than primetime.

The thing is even if every single final/heat of every event were to be televised live (on multiple channels) in the US there still wouldn't be enough hours in the day for most people to take it all in (live or otherwise). Didn't they try that back in the '80s? I think there were Gold, Silver and Bronze broadcast packages available.

Like it or not, figure skating is apparently popular for the mainstream masses. So it's on in primetime. That's not really anything new. Not so much love for curling - as much I'd love to see that get more coverage.

As it is, watching 3-4 hours per night of NBC's primetime coverage is a big time commitment, at least for me. I'd love to watch more, but I just don't have the time. At the end of 17 days I feel like I got a real flavor of the Games, saw some truly exciting competition and engaging athletes.

Red Dog

By taking out the 3 hours of figure skating/commentary, commercials, and fluff, and watching the rest off the DVR, it's like watching a half-hour sitcom for me.

And you're right - there obviously isn't enough time for everything but there is a balance that needs to be made. 85% of the coverage being figure skating is not it.

If anything the curling coverage is great compared to other events because they air it on the cablenets, live and longform. Plus every match is also available live online.

Pointyskull

And hey, I don't mind the fluff stuff, either. I'm a sucker for those background pieces on the athletes. I don't know who half of these folks are, and it's nice to see a peek behind the curtain on what drives them, where they come from, etc.

Me, I don't like hockey, but I certainly understand the sport's popularity and I fully expect it to get prime coverage on NBC. And that's fine with me. Gives me a breather.

And then there's the whole avoid-all-media-coverage so results aren't ruined before you watch a taped event in primetime. I'd love to watch snowboard cross live in the afternoon, but I'm at work.

Red Dog

I'm not asking for hockey to be on NBC and I'm a hockey fan. It's well covered on the cablenets and I just as soon see it remain there. Fortunately, except for the gold medal game on the final Sunday afternoon, there will be no hockey on NBC.

I'm asking for NBC to show more than 6 runs of an Alpine event in primetime. Show 15. It would mean showing 3-4 less figure skaters, which given that they show 20-25 of those, ain't asking much. Or last night, they could have aired an hour of speed skating and made figure skating 2 hours instead of 3. There's a way to balance and still have loads of figure skating.

As I said in the sports thread, even with the Lindsay Vonn hype, I'm willing to bet that NBC will only air 6 runs of the Women's Downhill tonight.

But really, by having such shabby treatment, it tells me that NBC doesn't think these former marquee events (alpine skiing, speed skating) effect the bottom line, so why not throw it on the cablenets during the day live. Then at least I can record it (or watch them live on the weekend) and watch it at my leisure. That's what I've been doing with the curling and hockey during the afternoon.

Nefarious

It will be interesting to see what they do tonight. With Vonn, S. White, and Shani Davis (whom I could do without) all competing. I'm worried we'll get too much Shani Davis the "rebel".

Duh Vuh Duh

Came here to say this, the coveted 18-35 (or whatever it is) women demographic loves figure skating and makes their hubbys/SOs suffer through.

RoyalTea

Hockey will not get prime coverage on NBC.

Pointyskull

Well, so much for my breather.

RoyalTea

I just don't understand why they can't show stuff live on cable, then package it for primetime, too.

NBC didn't show any of the men's downhill live. Then they showed six runs in primetime, when pretty much everybody in the world already knew the results. How many people wouldn't have watched any NBC primetime that night if the downhill was shown live on CNBC, MSNBC, USA, Bravo, Oxygen, etc. earlier on?

Bill Needle

Haha...too true. When I finally get a chance to sit down and watch some Olympics before bed, I check the DVR and there's like 8 hours of coverage recorded and I think "How will I ever get caught up with this?" Then figure skating or fluff pieces come on, and things just work themselves out from there.