Many American television viewers are complaining -- as well they should -- about how NBC shows major events from the Winter Olympics on tape, hours after their conclusion.
It brings back cold memories of the cynical decision three decades ago which forever exposed how American networks serve themselves first, their advertisers second and their audience third.
It happened at the 1980 Winter Games in Lake Placid, when the young United States men's hockey team approached a possible upset of the Soviet Union, then the world's best national team.
The game was scheduled for 5 p.m. on a Friday afternoon. By then, even the hockey-challenged pundits of the U.S. news media realized this was an historic event that transcended sports.
The ABC network owned the rights to televise the game. But instead of showing it live, as much of the world saw it, ABC refused to actually report this news event as it took place.
Instead, ABC recorded the game on videotape and showed it beginning at 8 p.m., Eastern time. The Americans won and went on to take the gold medal two days later by beating Finland.
Along with Joe Louis defeating Max Schmeling in boxing in 1938, the Olympic "Miracle on Ice'' ranks as one of mythical moments in American history when sports and politics merged.
This was before widespread internet, cable TV and 24-hour sports-talk stations on radio. So some Americans avoided media and watched the prime-time telecast with suspense intact.
Others, who lived near the Canadian border, watched the live telecast on the Canadian television network, CTV. The pictures came over the air through antennas.
ABC justified its decision with doubletalk and circular logic that was as transparent as it was hollow. The local stations needed those hours for local news and syndicated programming, they said.
But the reality was obvious to any bean-counter. Prime time hours were already sold to advertisers. ABC had already booked its commercials.
So ABC was not about to jeopardize the size of that prime time audience by covering news as it took place. The audience was to be "served'' only when it was served up to advertisers.
Three decades later, despite cable, sports radio and the internet, NBC continues with this business model and this high-handed manipulation of viewers.
If a medal event cannot be scheduled live in prime time, well, sorry, you'll just have to wait until NBC is good and ready to spoon-feed it to you, between commercials, after 8 p.m.
Perhaps it will be in snow-boarding, one of those new sports that -- surprise! -- practically insures American gold and wet eyes in close-ups on the medal stand during "The Star-Spangled Banner.''
Of course, some of these sports seem to be made for TV, daredevil stunts from an entertainment culture that includes "extreme'' games and men brawling in cages on pay-per-view.
Even the traditional events like figure skating feel contrived with personalities and story lines. Why not merge ice dancing with "Dancing With The Stars'' or let Simon Cowell judge our newest American Olympic Idols?
Perhaps we should not complain about show-biz values. Now that purveyors and consumers have blurred the line between reality and reality shows, how dare we demand to see real events in real time?
Follow Joe Lapointe on Twitter: www.twitter.com/joelapointe
Vanessa Richmond: Olympian Sex? Athletes To Use 100,000 Condoms
That plays into the way "media uses sexuality, creating it as mysterious, taboo and exciting. Sexual imagery in the media is almost exclusively young, fit people," so "athletes are sexy by definition."
Henry Blodget: Questions For NBC, the Network That Prevents You From Watching the Olympics
Why is America the only country on earth forced to watch the Olympics on tape delay? NBC has wrecked the Olympics for millions of sports fans.
The real problem is the the way that the IOC runs the show, awarding an exclusive contract to the highest bidder (and perhaps our legal system for allowing such). Capitalism thrives on competition, but what we have here is an IOC granted monopoly* on Olympic coverage and that naturally is going to lead to poor Olympic coverage.
Fix the IOC and forget NBC.
* unless you're net-savvy enough to get another countries video stream online, and I suspect they'll be clamping down on that in years to come.
I get the whole "sports nut" thing and how they may need live visuals of everything, BUT, that does not encompass the needs of the majority. There are plenty of means online for one to watch more of the Olympics in real-time. NBC is not the only media company covering the event.
Lastly, I was just discussing with my wife how our next TV should be more intergrated for internet use. The availability and luxury of getting to watch things on my own schedule is very desirable.
But your main point is that it should be one size fits all. No one is saying that everyone should only see live coverage. What we are saying is that why not give people the OPTION to see it live and then show highlights for people like you. The olympics on CBS did this just fine. I would have no problem paying $10 to see the entire thing live from an internet stream as well. The problem is we don't have those options.
1. You didn't get my point at all - one size should never fit all.
2. If you haven't found a viewing alternative via internet -- look harder.
I refuse to watch anything that NBC stages.
Once they start showing it properly, giving equal weight TO ALL athletes, I'll go back to watching.
Thanks.
Check out Ctv.ca - free, live HD streaming from three CTV networks, the ability to rewind the live stream to catch something you missed and archived video for most events.
I finally went to bed around 10:30pm and it still wasn't on. I Tivo'd it. It was suppose to run until 12am, that's when my TIVO cut off.....the program still wasn't finished. What a joke. At least if they're going to show it tape delayed, get the times right. Awful coverage. I then went to the local affiliates website to email them, and of course, they have no tab to contact them. I don't know what these exectuves are thinking but they're wayyyyyyy out of touch with the viewers.
Can you Americans circumvent NBC via the internet, or is the US a dark zone like North Korea in this respect?” The US seems nothing more than a manipulated populace at the full mercy of its cartels and oligarchs who own the media, the politics and the entire country.
You can hack around it, but only a very few know how.
Instantaneous communication is wonderful, in many ways, but who wants to go to a show hall and have someone bragging about having just watched a new release and then loudly announce what will happen next?
This is the age of twitter-spoiler alert. At NBC the old guard is making the decisions. Give it to some 19 year old intern at NBC and they'd have it all live somewhere and in a cool way.