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)

Follow Henry Blodget on Twitter: www.twitter.com/hblodget

Comments

[AZBunny]

HUMMM some of us could care less about the Olympics so it doesn't matter WHAT they show. I won't be watching any of it.

[kappa08]

umm ok..

[Pupadup4oBama]

ha ha...seriously - what was the point of that comment?
We could care less about what AZ watches.....right Kappa?? :)

[tersan]

All good points. I guess you don't understand the brilliant strategy of making the Olympics a masturbatory festival of nationalism, where we eschew sports for watching endless heats of events in which Americans might win gold medals. If you can, get Canadian coverage - it's actually in the spirit of global sportsmanship!

[Crowhaul]

I think NBC is off to a terrible start. I watched all of this summer's Euro 2008 games live, so I expected that something bigger, umm like the Olympics, would have even more live coverage. I was wrong. Knowing that China is basically 12 hours ahead of us, I got up at 4:00 AM ready to watch! What a waste of a big pot of coffee....

Thanks NBC, for putting your advertisers ahead of your viewing public.

[Easties]

The Olympic coverage is a joke and has been for at least the past three games. NBC couldn't broadcast itself out of a wet paper bag. I remember when you stayed up at night to watch live events.
Now you have to sit through background stories on all the atheletes before you can watch an event. I stopped watching the Olympics years ago. What I'm saying is I love the sport, the spectacle etc...
I hate NBC's coverage so much I purchased chinese language stations for my satelite. When I got up at 5:00 this morning there was no coverage of the opening ceremonies, not on NBC or any of the stations I purchased.
My wife (who is Chinese) was very disapointed and was looking forward to watching everything live in her native language. As it turned out the Chinese commentators apologed for not being able to broadcast live because that was the agreement with NBC.
Way to go NBC!!!
I went on line, and despite all of the hype, there was no video. Websites touted untold millions of people watching live around the world - except for the U.S.!
Even the Chinese internet services weren't posting live video. Did NBC have anything to do with that?
NBC's coverage is reprehensible.

[chacounne]

Can you get cbc online ? We have live coverage. Of course there's less coverage of American athletes and more coverage of Canadian athletes, but it is something. Sorry.

[Melissa]

NBC always does a great job. One thing I will be miss this year is Katie Couric. She always did a great job and was fun to watch. It will be great to have a break from all the election garbage.

[Synoia]

Well said.

I never liked the excessive coverage of the "Talking Heads" and no coverage of events. If you can get a setillite feed of the BBC coverage, you wold see much more sports, and much less talking heads.