Olympics Finally Here! And Of Course NBC Blows Coverage...

NBC is trying, I'll give them that much. They've covering 2,200 hours of Olympic events live online (albeit not the stuff you want to watch). They're also covering 3,600 hours of Olympic events on TV (albeit mostly taped). In other words, they're producing more Olympics coverage than has ever been produced before. But they're still producing it for themselves and their legacy TV business, not you.

How would NBC cover the Olympics if they put you first and didn't have a legacy business to protect? They would:

* Make NBCOlympics.com a comprehensive schedule of each day's events, with a link to a live video feed of each. All events. 100% coverage. Searchable by day or by event with a simple toggle. For events that NBC itself is not covering, the link could go to a partner company's video. In exchange, NBC could give partners access to its own video. Note that NBC currently comes at its Olympics schedule from exactly the opposite direction--by starting with the NBC networks and then describing what each will show on any given day and time. Hate to break it to NBC, but viewers couldn't care less which network they watch on. They just want to know how/where to watch the events they want to watch. So this thinking should be inverted. (Full schedule of coverage here)

* Note when the live feed is/was also available on TV and where/when. If it's on TV, most folks would prefer to watch it there, as long as it's not cluttered with ads and crappy commentary. If TV is still more profitable than online (it is), NBC should encourage web viewers to turn on their TVs. Or, better yet, watch both simultaneously.

* Make NBCOlympics a wikipedia-style start-page for games, athletes, news, blogs, stats, betting, etc. This instead of the me-too "Olympics" destination it is now.

As it is, I and others will be spending most of the Olympics cursing NBC for forcing us to watch the Olympics according to their schedule and style, not ours.

In response, I'll also happily try to take advantage of the first truly global medium to find other sources for the video feeds (this worked marvelously for the opening ceremonies). Four years from now, I hope NBC finally figures that out.

Read more HuffPost coverage of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

See Also:
How To Watch The Olympics LIVE ONLINE
How To Watch The PGA Championship LIVE ONLINE (Pro Golf Shows Olympics How It's Done)

Comments

[BatedBreath]

I stopped watching the olympics years ago *because* of the way NBC covers it. I'm sorry more people haven't done the same. The corporate owners might pay attention if they lost money on the deal.

[Mustang Sally]

You could have just left the word "coverage" off...

[brizzle]

I agree that NBC is doing a shoddy job of displaying schedules and programming for this event. But really, who cares? China is a sham host who faked the fireworks, then the music...then they jail dissidents and don't let others into the country. All this on top of the Nationalism bullsh*t they shove down our throats...both Chinese and American. Really, who cares?

Did you really expect NBC to do a good job with this?? Yeah, me neither...

[ReelBusy]

Or since they have disrupted their normal programming on 4 of their networks, maybe they could actually show a variety of Olympics programming on a near 24/7 basis instead iof the repititious event coverage on multiple nets.
Get your head in the game Zucker!.

[Nofoolhere]

The absence of media attention to the overwhelmingly spectacular success of the beautiful and enormously complex Olympic opening ceremonies has not surprised me. The representation of Chinese culture that the opening presentation shows reveals a stark difference between capitalist and socialist cultures.

The opening extravaganza demonstrated the perfect coordination of thousands of participants and the meticulous and stunning precision of the complex activities seen throughout the hour long presentation. This kind of challenge, and the unqualified success that the Chinese demonstrated, can only be accomplished in a culture that celebrates that the foundation lifestyle for the individual reflects a COLLABORATE TO ENSURE SUCCESS value system, i.e. a socialist culture.

Compare that with the foundation cultural value in America which holds that the role of the individual is to COMPETE TO WIN as its highest value, i.e., a capitalist culture. Therefore it is not surprising that the corporate power structure does not want Americans to be able to review that presentation multiple times and to contemplate deeply the reasons behind its brilliant success.

Of course there is a down side for the costs to individual freedoms for living is such as culture. But in spite of that, and the abhorrent absence of any Spiritual overlay on the decision making standards of China"s leadership, when they are ready, China will crush us. That is a message that corporate America must keep from us. Too bad. To be forewarned is to be forearmed.

[TourDirector]

I watched the opening ceremonies and throught they were great, except for the commercial interuptions every seven minutes. NBC has not respect for their viewer - as evidenced by the constant babble of Bob Costas.

Are there any other means or channels in which to watch the Olympics without all of the commericials and/or Bob Costas?

[PaulinaSmedes]

Hooray for our good old non commercial national broadcasting service. There's nothing but Olympics on tv in The Netherlands. Live all through the night, highlights during the day, and of course there are the 12 channels on the NOS website: http://os2008.nos.nl/live/index/kanaal/0 providing live coverage(how's your Dutch?). Watch it on your mobile phone, put the (Vista)widget on your Hyves, Facebook, iGoogle, Netvibes, etc. The Netherlands is in Olympic overdrive.
Maybe it helps that our crown prince is a member of the IOC :-)

And if Dutch tv is not enough, we can also watch it on BBC, or German, French and Belgian tv, not to mention the Eurosport channel. Not that I am watching any of it. Not a huge sports fan myself, but some people seem to like it.

[ShawnMichel]

Watching the Genocide Olympics? Then you're complicit in that genocide.

[FlyTheBlueSky]

NBC is clueless.

First off, they are replaying recorded events and started off morning coverage on TV with news about a murder - why not put the news on news, and sports on sports? Then they completely ignored the sports news which is that Michael Phelps broke an Olympic record. And then skipped straight to volleyball with absolutely no mention of what else happened on the first day of competition. Yawn.

As a naturalized citizen I used to wonder why so many Americans are indifferent about the Olympics, and now I know why: compared to coverage I have seen elsewhere, NBC does a poor job of producing this event. The commentary is one sided - American dominated events are heavily favored to the extent that other stories are ignored, and we (unlike everyone else on the planet) don't get LIVE action.

[apexfork]

Your headline is exactly one word too long.

[ReelBusy]

lmao

[Mustang Sally]

YUP!!!

[InofTouch]

Talk about your spoiler alert

[Northreader]

I get both NBC and CBC on cable and CBC seems to be running everything live that will be canned and edited down for later showing on NBC.Not that I plan to watch much on either network. But I must plead guilty to watching all of the Larry King show's discussion of John Edwards' troubles tonight on CNN. Always great to see A.H. on television.

[SilviaMaria]

NBC coverage of the Olympics has been a disaster. I used to love watching the games on TV (at least in Spain they show almost everything no matter the time difference - they offer live when it happens and then show it again in the afternoon in case you did not want to get up early), but since I have lived in this country I stopped watching it. I remember Atlanta in 1996, I could not stand the "Profiles" anymore; then everything was taped at night and NBC showed it as it was happening. It is a shame because it is only every 4 years you get the change to watch different sports and it is a way for people to learn more about them.

[lordcopper]

Who cares, it's boring. If I watch 30 minutes of the Olympic Games it will be too much.

[laserbob]

You can try the CBC from up here in Beautiful B.C.
try this:
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/livevideo/

I gotta run out so I can't vouch for it, but it looks promising.

d.