The most popular event in the Winter Olympics must be the channel-changing marathon.
The cold-weather games always get lower ratings than their summer counterparts. And these are on track to be among the worst ever - ratings down 18% from Nagano in 1998, and 34% from Salt Lake City in 2002.
Sports analysts and broadcast execs may wring their hands and say, oh, it's Bode Miller's fault, it's Michelle Kwan's fault, but blow-ups and bail-outs happen in every Olympics.
The real reasons:
First, an excess of snow. When your own roads and sidewalks are piled high with it, and the unpaid heating bill is sitting on top of the TV, who wants to watch more snow, even if it's Italian snow?
Second, a shortage of skin, meaning a shortage of sex. Even the tightest ski gear can't compensate for all the bundled-up athletes. Summer Olympics show bare male chests glistening right out of the pool in the 4-by-100 medley relay, and lean female torsos unmistakable in clinging track-and-field spandex.
My sports-columnist friend suggested that figure skaters could pull up the ratings all by themselves, if the guys in the pairs events could twirl on their backs, while the girls figured out how to go into a spin atop him. But they couldn't air it in prime-time.
I have a better idea. Save the ratings, save NBC's investment in the games. Shuffle the American lineup, pronto, so that our next big Olympic gold medal contender in the biathlon - the cross-country skiing and shooting event - is none other than ``Deadeye'' Dick Cheney.
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