NBC, u suxx0r!

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Give me an NBC executive **NOW** so I may inflict pain upon them!

 

Let me count the ways I hate Hate HATE NBC this morning:

 

* The same reason I usually hate the US coverage: Delayed to all hell. Newspapers, Internet, and radio are covering results that I won't even see for hours.

 

* What's playing on the HD channel isn't what's playing on the "regular" channel. Different announcers AND camerawork, since NBC is appearantly apeing off NHK Japan for the HD feed. This means a different set of announcers than Bob Costas and the others on the main NBC, because viewers on the HD channel are seeing different shots and camerawork than the NBC people are.

 

...But I expected that. Here's the reasons I didn't count on:

 

* High-Definition feed of Opening Ceremonies begin an hour after the "regular" NBC channel begins.

 

* High-Definition feed of Opening Ceremonies glitches up. Saudi Arabia enters the stadium twice as the tape men rewind to cover an announcer screwup. That's the kind of thing someone would get fired for if NBC didn't treat HD as a joke.

 

* No HD coverage today. Just 24 hours of Opening Ceremony replays.

 

* Some of today's (Saturday) events will finally air tomorrow (Sunday.) They will be repeated 24 hours on end.

 

* They've cut the commercials out, which isn't a BAD idea, but every commercial break is the SAME COMMERCIAL for the Sony Wega HD Theater where a guy in an apartment is confronted by a mob of people in the streets below shouting at his window in unison:

 

"HEY BOB!"

Yeah?

WHATCHA DOIN?

Watching the game.

IN HIGH DEF?

Yeah.

CAN WE WATCH WITH YOU?

I... i dunno.

WE BROUGHT CHIPS! (one guy) And Salsa!

Uh.... Okay.

 

After you've seen this commercial for the 20th time, it's no longer cute.

 

 

 

 

So, by now you're saying "Gee, I wonder why NBC fucked it up so hard?" Appearantly, Neilsen doesn't rate HD channels, and if you're watching the HD broadcast of a show, whether it's CSI or a movie on ABC or even the Olympics, Neilsen doesn't count your viewership in their ad revenue numbers, even when you're seeing ads (which you usually are during regular schedule.) NBC is intentionally gimping their HD Olympics coverage so you'll go watch the standard channel and help them pay their bills.

 

So, as a result, I have a fuzzy analog cable channel blown up and stretched out on my widescreen set. Boy this is really how I was planning to watch the Olympics after all those ads touting HD this year.

 

 

NBC can fuck off.

[Guest Vitamin X]

Not to mention the coverage (I didn't know that was Bob Costas announcing) has been absolutely dreadful. He must have insulted or said something completely idiotic about enough countries to have gotten fired, were he any other person than Bob Costas. I fucking hated how he just HAD to keep blabbing on about nothing as well, making retarded jokes (when some country came out wearing a lavish ceremonial garb - "Gee, I wonder who's going to pick up the laundry bill?!" HAHAHA. Fucking stupid antiquated American.) and just talking when they shouldn't have been at all.

 

I also found they took FAR too many commercial breaks during the parade of nations. The opening ceremonies is definitely something that should be broadcast commercial-free.

[razazteca 0]

What is the deal with MSNBC? What is the schedule for them? Why can't they show the olympics all day nonstop? WTF Bravo has coveraga also?

 

Why isnt Boxing on the main channel........its better than men's gymnastics.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

He must have insulted or said something completely idiotic about enough countries to have gotten fired, were he any other person than Bob Costas.

Again, I didn't hear this because the HD feed had other announcers. They were pretty dull and going way overboard about the symbolism of everything, but some people who saw both feeds said they were infinitely better than Costas. Having been annoyed with Costas after SLC, I can figure where they're coming from.

 

I also found they took FAR too many commercial breaks during the parade of nations. The opening ceremonies is definitely something that should be broadcast commercial-free.

Here they kept running either the same Sony ad I mentioned or 3 minute flyovers of Athens. You know, those giant helicopter shots of waterfalls and crap that says "Oooh, High-Definition wildlife... Puuurrrdy...." Except they only recorded 3 minutes of it and played it on repeat for 5 minutes.

 

They actually went off to one of these stupid breaks while somebody was speaking, although I don't know if that was NBC's fault or just something NHK did.

 

 

http://www.nbcolympics.com/tvlistings/index.html for coverage and listings. Check out how laughable the HD channel is compared to the others. But hey, Bravo is airing table tennis!

[razazteca 0]

Out of all of the networks that are showing the olympics which do you watch the most? One thing that I noticed is that the MSNBC soccer games are sometimes replayed on Telemundo. While Bravo is given the fridge sports like Badmitten and Rowing.

[Guest El Satanico]

Why isnt Boxing on the main channel........its better than men's gymnastics.

gymnastics is where the ratings are. I believe it's the most watched Summer event.

[razazteca 0]

Why isnt Boxing on the main channel........its better than men's gymnastics.

gymnastics is where the ratings are. I believe it's the most watched Summer event.

The girls gymnastics is the big attraction. I think the men's gymnastics is lower on the scale behind girls rhymthic gymnastics. Come on, boxing in my opinion is one of the better sports to watch. It has Teddy Atlas as the announcer!

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Out of all of the networks that are showing the olympics which do you watch the most?

I don't know because the whole schedule is rather overwhelming. I plan to watch some NBC and some Bravo today. I would LIKE to watch HD, but I already detailed that.

 

Last time I watched quite a bit of MSNBC. I tuned into Curling since everyone in their Brother makes fun of it and calls it boring, and I got hooked.

[Vyce 0]

People still watch the Olympics?

 

......guess those people don't have cable or satellite.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

I tuned into Curling since everyone in their Brother makes fun of it and calls it boring, and I got hooked. 

Those people are philistines.

 

Curling is strangely compelling.

[razazteca 0]

People still watch the Olympics?

 

......guess those people don't have cable or satellite.

Watching obscure sports once every 4 years has a certain appeal.

 

Badmiten

Table Tennis

Field Hockey

Rowing

 

I tuned into Curling since everyone in their Brother makes fun of it and calls it boring, and I got hooked. 

Those people are Canadians.

[Mole 0]

Bravo has the best sports to watch, other than gymnastics.

 

Badminton and Table Tennis.

[Exslade ZX 0]

As least you're getting to see it, I actually wanted to watch it....but nooo on like all the channels here with the olympics and stuff on is stupid ass hurricane coverage. And they're saying nothing at all really.

[Mole 0]

As least you're getting to see it, I actually wanted to watch it....but nooo on like all the channels here with the olympics and stuff on is stupid ass hurricane coverage. And they're saying nothing at all really.

It's a tropical storm now, so you'll get your two weeks of Olympics soon enough.

[starvenger 0]

My fiancee (who's in Toronto) was torturing me by telling me about the LIVE coverage she was getting from the CBC. When NBC was showing the Thorpedo's 400m heat, she got to see the finals.

 

Stupid NBC.

[Jobber of the Week 0]

The weird thing is I hear so many Canadians complain about CBC and how they're completely focused on the Canadian athletes.

 

BBC has live streaming of everything, but non-UK addresses are blocked out. Damnit.

[Hogan Made Wrestling 0]

The weird thing is I hear so many Canadians complain about CBC and how they're completely focused on the Canadian athletes.

CBC's coverage is good for any event in which there are either no Canadians or they are not considered possibles to medal at all. Otherwise, the coverage is horribly biased.

[Mole 0]

Bah, NBC has cycling on tonight. I really don't want to watch that.

[Guest El Satanico]

y'all wouldn't be having these problems if you were watching the laff-a-lympics

 

Currently the Really Rottens are leading the score.

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

I tuned into Curling since everyone in their Brother makes fun of it and calls it boring, and I got hooked. 

Those people are philistines.

 

Curling is strangely compelling.

Oh, and it's "everyone AND their brother," not "IN their brother." That makes for an ... interesting mental picture.

 

And curling owns. Still.

[The Czech Republic 0]

Oh, and it's "everyone AND their brother," not "IN their brother." That makes for an ... interesting mental picture.

Well we are kinda talkin about the Greeks in a roundabout way

[Spaceman Spiff 0]

And it was JOTW, so maybe it was a Freudian slip

[Guest Smark-Raving Mad]

Couldn't NBC put a little more effort into the Parade of Nations? I swear the only thing Costas and Couric said about Bolivia was that it was a landlocked country in South America.

 

I've seen maps. I know this. And it was like that for just about every country. That's lazy reporting.

 

Never is Costas more of a douchebag than during the Parade of Nations.

[Guest El Satanico]

Maybe NBc told them not to go on and on about "countries that support terror"...aka the countries that don't agree with everything America does.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I swear the only thing Costas and Couric said about Bolivia was that it was a landlocked country in South America. I've seen maps. I know this. And it was like that for just about every country.

I got especially concerned when he said it about Denmark, myself.

[razazteca 0]

Why is NBC the only network that gets to show olympics in the primetime spot? Is road cycling, mens gymnastics, swimming, diving that important? I can understand the swimming but why the others and why can't the cable networks show some obscure sports in primetime?

[Highland 0]

Because GE can afford to shell out the money to show shitty Olympic coverage on NBC. And you guys are right about CBC's biased coverage when there's a Canadian in the event, but they're still miles ahead of NBC and they spend less money getting the rights to sponsor the games.

[The Czech Republic 0]

I don't care if the coverage is biased in the home country, because come on, I'm sure it's fine for each nation to support their own over the rest. Whatever

[Jobber of the Week 0]

Couldn't NBC put a little more effort into the Parade of Nations? I swear the only thing Costas and Couric said about Bolivia was that it was a landlocked country in South America.

To their credit, the announcers on the HD channel gave more information about the history of most the nations ("Madagascar is the fifth largest island in the world" "Hey, here comes one of the world's last Communist nations" "Here's Vietnam, we were at war with them for a long time"), although very little information about where each country was located, which would be helpful for a 3D globe or something to appear for these "WTF? I've never heard of them" nations.

 

The only problem is the woman they have with him sounds like Rocky the Flying Squirrel.

[The Tino Standard 0]

People still watch the Olympics?

 

......guess those people don't have cable or satellite.

Watching obscure sports once every 4 years has a certain appeal.

 

Badmiten

Table Tennis

Field Hockey

Rowing

Absolutely.

 

And the way they were talking during the opening ceremonies, it seems like they're trying to push badminton as the cult favorite that curling became during the last Winter Games.

 

A lot of these sports are things that I'd never watch on a regular basis, but they're good as a novelty act every four years. I think that's a big reason why the Olympics are still the juggernaut event that they are.