Judging by what I have seen everywhere and the posts by Mistermix here, I am clearly in the minority about the NBC coverage. Obviously, I detest Bob Costas with the fire of a million suns, and if I could arrange a 4 way fatal car crash between Costas, Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, and Paris Hilton, I would do so and not ever feel like I had done anything morally or ethically wrong and would sleep soundly knowing I had done a great service for America. But other than that, I guess I just have no problem with them tape delaying stuff that happened hours earlier (especially because I have shit to do during the day). WTF are they supposed to do- they’ve probably spent hundreds of millions on the coverage, and the only way to make that money back is primetime advertising dollars. And here’s the other thing- all the people advertising are “Proud Olympic Sponsors,” meaning if they were not able to blast that out in commercials during primetime coverage, what incentive is there for Proctor and Gamble and Coca Cola and all the others to help fund the training for all the athletes? Would it be great if we funded our athletes another way, and would it be great if NBC had 100 channels and could show every event live and still manage to make a profit- sure. But that isn’t the current reality.
All the people whining about the coverage remind me of the freeloaders who use Warez or limewire or Napster who stole billions of dollars of shit and then wondered why their favorite artist or video game didn’t have a sequel. You want live coverage of events- put your money where your mouth is and find a way to not only fund it, staff it, and get the required credentials and access, but to make it profitable.
Otherwise stfu.
Xecky Gilchrist
Tell ’em.
Mnemosyne
Dude.
Ryan. fucking. Seacrest.
You cannot defend that.
Corner Stone
You’re kind of an idiot Cole.
karen
Why the Bob Costas hate? I’m curious, maybe because the only sport I like is baseball and Mets games for the DC area are a rare occurrence but I don’t know Costas all that well.
mai naem
We had a thread about this. Somebody said NBC doesn’t give you an option to pay online, only if you get cable or satellite. That’s BS. And BTW, NBC does have a shitload of channels. Why do they not use Bravo, the NBC shopping channel and CNBC to their maximum benefit for the Olympics. I absolutely hate the way NBC coverage is so Americancentric. There was virtually no coverage of the Romanians yesterday in the women’s gymnastics and yet they came in third. Also too, why does the IOC not give it to ABC which I am pretty sure has more channels. They could go on CNN, CNNHLN, TLC, Discovery, Nick, CC and god knows what other channels they have.
clayton
@Mnemosyne: He’s gonna take over for Costas — just you wait.
Though Ono would be way more fun.
MikeJ
Paris Hilton is still relatively young. I wouldn’t have behaved any better had I had lots of money. Based on what little I know about her, I willing to cut her a break.
clayton
@karen:
Explains everything.
John Cole
@Mnemosyne: I see you Ryan Seacrest and raise you Pat O’Brien. Although, in fairness, a cocaine off between Pat O’Brien and Larry Kudlow could be an Olympic event.
MikeJ
@mai naem:
They have an entire sports channel on cable. NBC Sports. Know what’s on it right now in primetime? Poker. Poker will be followed by darts.
MB
You’re tilting at windmills, dude.
Comrade Luke
I don’t like it, but I understand why they do it.
What drives me nuts is that they run until midnight, which is way too fucking late, and they could easily bring it in by an hour if they removed the fucking pre-taped fluff pieces and Ryan Seacrest interviews.
Citizen Alan
Can anyone name a single demonstrable example of a sequel that didn’t get made as a result of lost profits attributable to illegal downloads? Even one?
clayton
@mai naem: I was surprised that they don’t have full time on there 2.2 or 2.3 HD channels. that way even people without cable or whatever could still watch — with commercials!!! — in real time if they were home — or record it.
MattR
Because of the internet and 24 hour news, there is virtually no way to avoid hearing the results of Michael Phelps’s race that occurred at 2 pm eastern before the prime time show begins at 8. Given that is the case, why not broadcast it live at 2 and then again during primetime. It seems like any drop in primetime ratings would be minimal and any loss in advertising would be offset by the increase in day time viewers. But I understand that this will never happen because it entails taking a chance and the executives are too risk averse given the amount of money they have invested in the project.
Comrade Luke
I think The Oatmeal does a good job of summarizing the state of music industry.
Mnemosyne
@John Cole:
At least O’Brien spent 16 years as a sports broadcaster. Seacrest’s qualifications for the Olympics are … he’s pretty. And they pay him a huge salary and want to get their money’s worth. And he’s pretty.
Comrade Luke
@MattR:
Nailed it, perfectly. There’s no reason they can’t do it live, other than lack of testicular fortitude.
MattR
@MikeJ: That really is unforgivable. At the least they should have an hour long Sportscenter type highlight show that they replay over and over.
Allen
John, I agree with you in general. But I have no problem with the people who complained that NBC cut the disastrous performance of one of the female Russian gymnasts during the team event, just so there could be more “drama” during the later presentation of the American team’s performance.
Hill Dweller
@John Cole:
O’Brien is hosting the tennis stuff. His attempts to ad-lib or even set up a video piece are f’n gold. The slurring and nonsensical ramblings make for a daily train wreck of a broadcast. Thankfully, he seems to be getting less airtime as the tournament progresses.
O’Brien is too toxic for the gossip shows like Extra, E!, etc, but NBC hires him to do tennis. Hilarious.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@mai naem: Not to defend them too much, as I also think their coverage has blown, but they have been using MSNBC and CNBC, and the former Versus channel.
Jibeaux
FYI if you are a cord cutter trying to watch streaming — it may not limit use of logins and passwords. I haven’t coordinated times and we have three families using the same login. Ask a friend w cable/ satellite.
Btw the reception on my mohu leaf is flawless.
Walker
@Citizen Alan:
The collapse of the Hong Kong movie industry in the 90s is blamed on rampant piracy in Asia. This is heavily contested though, as a lot of things were going on with Hong Kong in the 90s.
BGinCHI
Someone please come on and defend synchronized diving.
Jesus.
Not. A. Sport.
It’s like taking a kind of sport and then adding a trick that has nothing to do with the actual sport.
Please get it the fuck out of competition.
Oh, and can we have saber without the padding? Can’t anyone bleed anymore except poor people and revolutionaries?
Martin
$1.2B just for the rights. Then the costs of sets, reporters, crew, and the production of a million hours of infuriating background stories and retrospectives of what happened yesterday.
The problem is that the bid is chosen by who will be able to extract the most advertising dollars – not who will provide the most entertaining coverage.
All of the boxing is on CNBC, so they use that. They used to use Bravo and MSNBC and their other properties (USA?), but not this year for some reason. Maybe Top Chef Masters brings in more ad revenue than synchronized swimming.
ALurkerHere
My problem with them is not so much delayed coverage as it is acting as though there are only american athletes participating and selecting which sports they deem us worthy of watching. I am not yet an american so I am in the unfortunate position of having to compare the service NBC provides with what I am used to in other countries (multiple channels showing all the different sports irrespective of the participants) I detest NBC coverage. After missing the last two Olympics, I plan to make sure I am out of the country during the next one.
rageahol
so with the caveat that i personally don’t give a shit about the olympics, in any way, shape or form, i wanted to just follow up slightly on this:
and not really follow up, so much as say “fuck you, cole.”
because i really just dont care enough to go look up the studies that show that file-sharers actually spent more money on music, games, etc, than people who don’t. they’re there, if you gave a rat’s ass and bothered to look.
i’m just going to leave it at “fuck you, cole”
are there options in the rss feed where i don’t have to look at this asshole’s drunken ramblings all the goddamn time? because FUCK, what an ignorant jackass you are sometimes.
RoonieRoo
I agree with Cornerstone. You are an idiot Cole. My issue isn’t the time delay. I can understand that. But it is the painful jingoism.
Unless an American medals, we won’t see it! Even if it is real coverage of gymnastics or other pretty popular events. And even then, you barely get to see the event. You might get lucky to see the American perform but you sure as shit won’t get to really see the performances of the others. Because, after all, why on earth would an American want to see another country perform?
And you definitely won’t know WHY the Americans medaled. I mean, why tell the story of what happened to the Russian women’s team in gymnastics that paints a complete picture of the USA win.
They are much more interested in showing prelim and qualifiers with Michael Phelps than any rings apparatus of the men’s gymnastics.
If NBC decides it doesn’t fit their jingoistic, American only, rest of the world just sucks meme they cut it and show some interview with RYAN FUCKING SEACREST after they spend the rest of time blathering on about TWITTER!
FSM knows I would so much rather see some crap about morons on twitter than actual competition that might actually show an accomplished Olympian doing something amazing that might not be an American.
John Cole
@BGinCHI:
I’ll defend it. First, I agree it is not a sport. A sport, as far as I am concerned, is something that requires offense and defense. Sports are the application of an athletic event or feat in a competitive environment.
Soccer- sport
Football- sport
baseball- sport
lacrosse- sport
hockey- sport
gymnastics- athletic event
cross-country skiing- athletic event
swimming- athletic event
track and field- athletic event
synchronized diving- athletic event
decathlon- athletic event
There are lots of things in the Olympics which are not sports, in fact, it is dominated by athletic events. So just because you do not value a particular athletic event does not mean it deserves no place in the Olympics.
Martin
@BGinCHI: Yeah, I think with synchronized diving, they should eliminate just regular diving. Seems redundant. That said, I suggested some improvements to sync diving:
1) You get 5 minutes to make as many dives as you can. Go for quantity and risk precision or fewer dives with higher scores?
2) D-I-V-E: The first team picks a dive and the other teams need to repeat it. Lowest score takes a letter and picks the next dive.
3) Mount a paintball gun on the other side of the diving pool. Once the previous divers hit the water they can race over and shoot at the next team diving. You won’t want to take too long to set up your dive with these rules. Could finish the whole event in about half an hour, and no more suffering through more shots of the jacuzzi than the diving.
4) Differential synchro diving. One diver at the 10m platform, one on the springboard. They do complementary dives, each scored individually, with an additional score based on the time differential between when they each hit the water.
tgp
My complaint isnt the tape delayed as much as the propaganda editing. I want to watch the Olympics but what NBC puts on TV isnt it. I want to watch all the countries performing. I want to see more sports. There are hours and hours with no olympics on. They should be filling some of their channels with Olympics almost 24 7.
John Cole
@rageahol: There is a real option for you to never deal with my “drunken ramblings” (tonight I am apparently high on crystal lite). Stop entering the following url in your browser:
https://balloon-juice.com
I know of no web browser, be it firefox, chrome, opera, or IE 9 that automatically defaults to this website.
Also, just because you like to steal shit doesn’t make me an asshole. Because when you download music or games or software or movies for free, against the express desires of the artist and publisher, you are stealing. And it doesn’t matter if you buy more stuff later on or there are studies to prove it. Go into a 7-11, steal a candy bar, get caught, and then tell them “Hey, man- I was gonna buy more in the future if I liked it!” Fucking idiot. And I’m not in favor of the draconian copyright laws the RIAA and others want to implement. I just think that if you want to use someone’s creative efforts, and it is not covered by fair use, you should pay them. I fail to see how that makes me a jerk.
One last thing- go fuck yourself.
Comrade Luke
If you’re on twitter, NBC Delayed is a pretty funny account to follow.
Bobby Thomson
@RoonieRoo: This. It ain’t the tape delay. During Mitt Romney’s Olympics, which you may recall was in
the middle of nowherethe United States, the coverage on Canadian TV outclassed NBC in every way imaginable. And Canadians are no slouches in the winter sports, so they could have been all Canada, all the time if they wanted to be.BillinGlendaleCA
@Mnemosyne: Pretty is an apt description. Well done.
Warren Terra
Serious question: where does the massive amount of money NBC paid for the US broadcast rights go? Do they buy the rights from the London organizing committee, or from the IOC?
I ask in part because it isn’t clear what the IOC does that costs any real money. It’s a few overpaid executives and a small army of bureaucrats, probably with high travel expenses and lavish per diems. But the real expenses are in organizing the games themselves (and how) and training the teams; the former is born by the host country and the latter by the participating countries according to their style of economy (centrally planned athlete farms or rich folks and hobbyists with some corporate funding). When NB pays hundreds of millions, is it going to Jacque Rogge and cronies’ lavish lifestyle, or is it becoming bricks and mortar in London?
BGinCHI
@John Cole: Well…that’s not really a defense, John.
How about biggest splash? You can maybe do it.
Or how far you can jump?
It just seems made up to have more diving, or a combination of diving and gymnastics.
I get diving. I just don’t see the synchro part. If you add that to all the other sports you have whacky comedy.
Bobby Thomson
@tgp: This, too. I’m sorry, but I don’t see the argument for NBC failing to cover events live that they don’t plan to cover in tape delay in prime time. Unless it’s that they don’t want the embarrassment of day time TV getting better ratings.
Comrade Luke
@Allen:
That really happened? What did they cut out? I had no idea.
MattR
@tgp: NBC makes available every Olympic event online (with restrictions on who can access it). I am kinda surpirsed they did not also make everything available On-Demand (at least via Comcast cable). I think we have the technology for that by now.
FlyingToaster
I’ve been watching the streamed prelims (4-year-old Warrior Girl likes Beach Volleyball and Gymanstics Floor Exercises, and NOTHING ELSE) and not seeing the cuts. I like Badminton (suck it, chiclet*, go jump on your trampoline), and I caught men’s fencing when the Hungarian guy beat the Russian guy like a tin drum.
Our cable company –not Comcast — has Olympics on : NBC broadcast (SD & HD), CNBC (SD & HD), MSNBC (SD & HD), NBCSports [formerly Versus] (SD & HD), Olympics Soccer (HD), Olympics Basketball (HD), Olympics 3D (HD) and Olympics On Demand (SD & HD). The stuff that’s on these channels has American announcers; the stuff on streaming seems to have the BBC feed, interruped by American commercials.
** said chiclet is actually sound asleep now. Thank goodness.
BGinCHI
@Martin: How about the divers have to be physically attached. Tape or guy on other guy’s shoulders. Or in a human circle.
This also implies injury, which means we might have a sport on our hands.
I also would not rule out a slap fight high on the platform.
TheMightyTrowel
@RoonieRoo: All of that is true over here in Oz as well but even worse because not only will you never see an entire event (except swimming) you will never see any of the prelims (even if an Aussie is competing) (except in swimming) and when they say they’ll be showing highlights of certain events during the big evening programme they don’t (they just show swimming). Also, almost none of it is available online after the fact – just minimal clips of specific parts of specific australians’ performances.
Wankers.
And their beers are bland too.
Tractarian
You want live coverage of events- put your money where your mouth is and find a way to not only fund it, staff it, and get the required credentials and access, but to make it profitable.
Funding, staffing, and access are not the problem. The IOC provides a live international feed for each event (which is what is available online for most sports) and for the primetime events, NBC usually goes “live-to-tape”, meaning they produce it live.
The only problem is the last one you mention – profit. NBC believes that airing events live during the day, only to repeat them in primetime, would cannibalize the primetime ratings. (I can’t say I’m convinced, but they’ve been doing it this way since time immemorial.) And they need to squeeze every last dollar out of advertisers because of the aforesaid $1.2 billion rights fee.
Basically, NBC is bankrolling the entire Olympics and we’re paying for it by having to watch Ryan Seacrest.
rageahol
@John Cole:
yeah, see, i don’t normally bother with the browser at all except for the rare “fuck you, cole” comment. you’ve got some writers whose product i read through this thing called an RSS feed. is that stealing too, you miserable fuckbucket?
Comrade Luke
And to add to my complaint about, about it taking 4hrs for no reason: the first 30-45 minutes of the prime time coverage is like the last half hour of SNL every week. It’s completely filler, and crap. Of everything going on, and regardless of whether it’s a sport, why are we being subjected to so much synchronized diving every night?
CW in LA
@mai naem: On top of which, their online option that’s supposedly available with your overpriced cable package doesn’t freaking work, at least for me: I jumped through their various hoops to try and register, only to be told I couldn’t get their online service because my cable doesn’t carry MSNBC and CNBC even though IT FUCKING DOES SO carry those shitty networks.
Plus, my big thing is women’s soccer. There’d be no way to watch the video after the games without seeing the score of said games.
In sum, NBC fucking sucks and I fucking hate it. The end.
Hill Dweller
@Martin: They’re using Bravo solely for tennis coverage from 7am to approximately 3 pm.
MSNBC also airs various events during the day.
The difference this year is the addition of NBC’s new sports network. That takes up quite a bit of coverage that used to be on their other cable channels.
Narcissus
I don’t think anyone would bitch if, via the internet, and our vastly more connected world, we didn’t realize what a garbage product we’re getting compared to alternatives like the BBC which do things NBC apparently can’t, like:
a. Air entire sporting events without disruption or switching to something else in the middle.
b. Provide informative commentary and not Meredith “Moneyshot” Viera crooning offkey and not knowing what the hell she’s talking about.
c. Not filling a full-third of broadcasts with advertisement.
d. Not restricting digital distribution and event accessibility like it’s 1999.
MattR
@Warren Terra:
Pretty sure the IOC makes the decision regarding broadcast rights in each country, but can’t say for sure if all the money goes to them.
RoonieRoo
@MattR: Because only people that can afford to have a large cable bill deserve real Olympics coverage.
In our case, it was our choice to cancel the cable bill when our income was cut in half. I’m not bitching about that for us, as it was our choice.
But the regular NBC coverage is so unremittingly awful that it pisses me off when someone says it’s people’s fault for not being a cable customer paying to get their channels.
Tractarian
@Warren Terra:
Both. The money goes to the IOC, which in turn supports the local organizing committees.
RoonieRoo
@TheMightyTrowel: Wow. You do have it worse. Eeek. My sympathies.
Martin
@BGinCHI: I thought something like a baton exchange in the differential dive. The guy off the 10m platform has to hand something to the guy off the springboard.
I also considered mounting targets around the pool and giving the divers paintball guns. Bonus points for hitting targets while they spin and twist. Sort of a biathlon in midair.
I couldn’t think of any way to integrate sharks without being cruel, as that would be the most obvious way to spice the event up.
Narcissus
Also just about every American commentator went to the Mitt Romney school of international awareness and sensitivity.
John Cole
@rageahol:
Since everything on this website is offered free, nothing is copyrighted, to include your asinine sputum laced comments, no, it is not stealing.
You’re as fucking dumb as you are angry, aren’t you?
MattR
@RoonieRoo:
Sorry, I did not mean to give that impression. I brought up the On Demand thing as one more way that NBC is not meeting their potential.
@Martin: I vote for head to head competition between teams. That way we have offense and defense so John will consider it a sport.
Lit3Bolt
@rageahol:
You sound like you’re too young to remember paying for content.
Plus your trolling needs some work.
Btw, can rogues use bows?
RoonieRoo
@Narcissus: That is awesome. I have to tell my husband that one in the morning. It’s good to have a solid laugh in the morning.
NonyNony
Excellent start to your “You Kids Get Offa My Lawn” rant, Cole.
But you flubbed the dismount with the whole “warez” digression. The Russian judge gives it an 8, and even the American judge can’t give it more than a 9.5. I don’t think you’re going to get the gold this year old man.
Stick an onion in your belt, hike up those pants, and move onto the next one. The “Windmill Joust” is up next, and Sancho Panza has your steed and lance ready to go.
Mnemosyne
@Bobby Thomson:
Agreed. Since they’ve paid a ridiculous amount for the rights to televise the Olympics, why not put stuff like archery and badminton on broadcast TV during the day instead of making people seek it out on obscure digital channels (assuming people even have those digital channels)?
I can see why they want to tape-delay the popular stuff and save it for primetime, but at least put fencing on at a time that I can watch it during my lunch break.
(Confession: I haven’t actually watched a single minute of the Olympics yet.)
RoonieRoo
@MattR: :) Sorry for being grumpy. Cole just really hammered a big red button for me with his post which made me actually put down my kindle, get out of bed and come into the office to get on the computer so I could tell him he’s an idiot and why. You just got caught in my grumpy crossfire.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@John Cole: He’s hooked on “rageahol”. I think I have found a video of him in action, here.
Lit3Bolt
@Narcissus:
This. People are having trouble comprehending NBC’s strategy of simultaneously acknowledging and denying the existence of the Internet.
Plus, watching the Olympics in prime time has only forced me to count the number of NBC dramas that will be canceled after the pilot this season.
rageahol
@John Cole:
wait, nothing here is copyrighted? really?
what’s that little “© Balloon Juice ” at the bottom then?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@rageahol: Run along, little troll, your bed under the bridge is calling you.
Comrade Luke
@rageahol:
Isn’t there someone on geocities you can go bother?
Tractarian
@Mnemosyne:
And it shows!
NBC and its various cable nets have actually been pretty good this year with live coverage of minor sports. They’ve been covering the fencing finals live, and most days there is live badminton as well. Got to see the skeet shooting finals live on MSNBC (or was it NBCSN?) a couple of mornings ago.
Narcissus
@RoonieRoo: It’s true though. I watched Bob Costas introduce a puff piece on the Tower of London and he was like, “I wouldn’t want to go there! A guillotine might fall on me.”
And I’m yelling at my TV “Wrong damn country Costas you twit!”
Basically the NBC coverage of the Olympics is like David Gregory interviewing the Queen and spending the entire time talking about Mel Gibson’s The Patriot.
Corner Stone
Grampa Cole, can you please tell us the story about how you lost your job in the buggy whip factory?
runt
Can’t they do both live and recorded? That’s what primitive, barbaric Yuropean networks do.
John Cole
@rageahol: Actually, I had no idea that was even there. I’ll have it removed.
The official stance of this website is that it is open source. Take whatever you want. A link back would be nice, but if not, whatever.
Martin
@Hill Dweller: Ah, missed the Bravo and MSNBC coverage. I just remembered that they used to put soccer on Univision and it’s on NBC Soccer now. I think basketball has their own channel too?
Corner Stone
As with most things in life you don’t understand Cole, this isn’t difficult either.
You’ll bluster about in typical Cole fashion and get smacked sideways by commenters here. Then, eventually, you’ll see that the idiotic position you stupidly took initially does not comport with reality in any way, shape or form. And you’ll be all like, “Huh.” and commenters will be all like, “Yeah huh.” and then you’ll be like, “My bad.” And then we’ll be like, “No shit.”
FlipYrWhig
While we’re on the subject, what is the point of all the swimming strokes besides freestyle? Why create events where you force competitors to deliberately go slower than they could? The objective is simple: swim a distance as fast as possible. If you choose to try it via backstroke, oh well, you lost, immediately, to everyone. It’d be like having dozens of running events where you have to step twice with one foot before moving the other foot. Who cares? Just go fast.
MattR
@Martin:
Yes
@FlipYrWhig: Personally, I want to see the 400m skip. Maybe add three legged races (if they have synchronized diving, why not?)
delosgatos
@TheMightyTrowel:
Probably due to all that swimming…
sneezy
Wow! For the record, I don’t mind paying for software at all (though I use a lot of free software), I have never downloaded a single audio track from napster, limewire, or anywhere else that I didn’t pay for the privilege, and I don’t give a shit about video games, so that part doesn’t apply to me. I also understand perfectly well that NBC needs to cover their costs and I don’t have a problem with that.
That said, I still think their coverage sucks. I like to watch sports that they just don’t cover well, e.g., team handball, badminton and table tennis, canoeing and kayaking. Seriously, I love that stuff.
Also, their top-tier commentators are smarmy and pathetic. Most of the Olympics I’ve watched this year, I’ve watched with the sound off.
Now, I also understand that the PRC had goals for the Beijing Games that meant they didn’t care if they made money or not; that wasn’t the point. But wow, what a joy they were! Nearly everything was streamed online for free with no goddamned announcers, so I could just watch, and I did watch for many hours. It was awesome, probably the best sports-watching experience I’ve ever had.
I cannot stream anything for these Games, because I live in a weird place where I do get cable, but it’s provided by the organization I work for. I am not personally a subscriber and therefore don’t have the credentials they want to allow streaming anything (as far as I can tell, anyway).
Now, if NBC had offered me a package that allowed me to somehow stream whatever I wanted, I would have paid $100 for that without even blinking and I might have paid them as much as $200. But they don’t offer me anything like that.
So I’m plenty unhappy with what I get to watch, but as far as I can tell, you’ve got no beef with me and no reason to be yelling at me to get off your freakin lawn.
Just wanted to give you a slightly different, even if somewhat out of the mainstream, perspective on things.
eric
my issue is that i cant watch events easily ONLINE after they have happened..I should be able to go to NBC and select the sport or the athletic event and get a menu of every single game played….the way espn does with espn3. That is the real crime against humanity. i dont want “highlights” i want the damn event…..argh
Martin
@MattR: How about two teams diving at opposite sides of the pool, each armed with paintball guns. Whistle lets both teams approach the diving board, with the difficulty score adjusted by the time differential between when they hit a buzzer at the side of the pool after their dive. Bonus points for each hit on an opposing diver – can start shooting as soon as the whistle goes – so you can charge down the diving board shooting and shoot while diving. No shots after the buzzer is hit – but you can keep shooting while you swim over to it.
pseudonymous in nc
Live coverage is being filmed by OBS, not NBC. Still, NBC has sent 2500 staff to London — more than the BBC is using for the Olympics. Most of them are there to get exclusive footage of things like “gymnasts’ parents in the stands” or “Misty May-Treanor’s rear end” and do the editing for those tape-delayed primetime packages.
Is there really more profit in tape-delaying the big events to show later, compared to showing them live and repeating them, edited into a smoother package, in primetime? That’s what every other fucking country does. Seriously, spend one day with the BBC’s coverage, and it’ll open your eyes to the shitshow that NBC serves up to Americans.
Keith
Another positive message from the feel-good channel of Balloon Juice.
HEY YOU
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish (Olympic & game) things.”
Yutsano
@FlipYrWhig: Think of it more as a skill set showing. Backstroke and butterfly use a different set of muscles and swimming techniques. So sprinting well doesn’t translate into an excellent broadstroke by default. Just like hurdlers aren’t necessarily the best sprinters.
Old Dan and Little Ann
I fucking hate just about every announcer alive but I like Bob Costas.
rageahol
@John Cole:
you might want to check out:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
or select a license from:
http://creativecommons.org/choose/
since, as i’m sure you already know, all creative works produced after 1978 are copyrighted by default, whether copyright is asserted or not; this carries a term of death plus 70 years, again, as i’m sure you know.
http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Cultivating_the_Public_Domain
for this reason, if this is the position of your website, it is quite important that you make that clear somewhere, through the selection of an alternative license. public domain is fine too, and creativecommons has a selector for that as well.
FlyingToaster
@RoonieRoo:
Nope. We were all prepped to plunk down cash for a paid proxy for July and August, to watch it all on laptops from BBC and EuroSport. Since HerrDoktor and I were in Geneva for the 2004 Athens games, we watched that Olympics on EuroSport English and became big fans.
We could also vpn to my BIL’s. He lives in the other Cambridge, it’d work fine.
Unlike our esteemed host, I don’t have a problem with most downloading; I often torrent stuff that the BBC won’t effing sell in the US — or the CBC can’t find a market here. As soon as they put it into a format I can use — Region 2 DVD from Amazon UK is fine, if you’ll just put it ON a DVD — I buy the damn thing.
I don’t like it when people torrent stuff that is available for purchase; but that’s my line in the sand. Your mileage will almost certainly vary.
FT +1
eric
what makes the tape delay suck is not just the delay, but the product itself sucks with forced drama and toooooooooooooo many commercials and broken up segments. it is all done poorly to MINIMIZE what they put in prime time so they can MAXIMIZE the ad revenue. it is anethma to sports fans in the same way too many time outs ruin pro sports at times.
Martin
@eric: You can do that with their iOS/Android app. Pick your sports – set preferences – and it’ll stream the whole event. Every event as far as I can tell. The archery events are 3-4 hours long each, and there’s 10 of them there. The mens road race is there – all 6 hours. Quality is decent. And I can shove the videos over to my TV and watch them there. It’s pretty damn nice.
The app is free, but only works if you have a cable sub.
But it streams live events (field hockey, beach volleyball, basketball and fencing coming up in 3 hours) and gives you the schedule of future events. You can pick ones you want to watch and add them to your favorites to make it easier to find.
It’s really very cool if you have one of those devices. Some banner ads around, but none in the video itself.
GG
The second sentence here is easily the most correct thing ever posted on Balloon Juice. John Cole, you win.
MattR
@Martin: It looks like you can replay events online as well. (EDIT: If you have the correct cable subscription)
FlipYrWhig
@Yutsano: I get that, but I don’t know why the sport is defined by it. I would think it’d be like the high jump and Fosbury. The objective is to jump over the bar. Invent a new way to get over the bar, and maybe you win, and maybe then other people imitate you. But don’t keep all these different versions where you award different medals for jumping over the bar forwards and jumping over the bar sideways.
Also, I’m looking forward to the day when women in every sport can compete without having to smile. In gymnastics, half the time of each routine on the beam and floor is random strutting around. Ice skating has the same problem. Enough. No glamor, no prancing. They’re athletes. I think it’s terribly retrograde.
pseudonymous in nc
@TheMightyTrowel:
Australia’s the one big developed country that’s as fucked as the US: that’s because of a stupid law that limits Olympic broadcasts to one free terrestrial channel, so Seven can’t show anything on its other digital channels. The rights to most live stuff are with fucking Foxtel.
By contrast, British law requires that the Olympics be shown on free-to-air television, so Murdoch can’t raid the treasury to buy it up for Sky, and the BBC can draw upon all of its digital channel allocation.
@Lit3Bolt:
Exactly. It’s as if NBC Sports takes a pill every two years to forget that they’ve been doing multi-platform live coverage for things like Sunday Night Football ever since they got the rights.
Hill Dweller
Has NBC talked(on-air) about the doping allegations surrounding the Chinese swimmers?
cmorenc
@Mnemosyne:
Hill Dweller
As I type this, NBC’s nightly Olympic wrap up show is breaking down the number of Facebook friends for each member of the women’s gymnastic team.
Martin
@Hill Dweller: Yes, last night. It was reasonably balanced, IMO.
Montana
Been a while since I visited the comments. Interesting group you attract.
I do have to agree with the Seacrest comments. The new mini Dick Clark…and just as irritating.
Bit, I agree with your point.
dead existentialist
@John Cole: Ha ha!
Waynski
Jesus. Go to bed. All of you.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Waynski: Why? It’s only 10:45.
slightly_peeved
@TheMightyTrowel:
What are you drinking? If you’re drinking Tooheys or CUB, expect the same as Bud or Miller in the US.
pseudonymous in nc
@Hill Dweller: Well, they have to keep their staff busy on important stuff.
I was wrong about NBC’s presence in London: they sent out 2700 people. (The BBC is using 765.) The on-screen “talent” is in the Park Lane Hilton; the techs have taken over an entire hotel near Tower Bridge.
Yutsano
@The prophet Nostradumbass: That was my question. Jeez. I’m barely tired.
RadioOne
I disagree, Bob Costas shouldn’t die in a car crash with Paris Hilton, because I think he’s easily one of the best sports journalists alive in the United States.
chuck butcher
Since I’m not watching the Olympics I’ll just blogwhore wife’s clothing
TheMightyTrowel
@slightly_peeved: I’ll fess up… mostly what I’m drinking is beautiful porter and the seasonal ale (a smoked brown ale in a southern German style) from Australia’s best microbrewery. But when i go to the shop there are maybe two bottles of Aussie beer for sale that don’t taste just like Bud/Miller. Having just moved here from the UK that drives me nuts.
Ripley
Napster. Yeeaaah, Napster. Thanks for the lecture, dad.
Randy P
I’m guessing you’re not going to be sympathetic to me. Also probably this thread is dead.
I watch only what I can see on the online streams. I don’t have a TV. I’ve been enjoying the online coverage immensely. I get to choose an event, and I get the entire drama from beginning to end. I never got into C-SPAN gavel-to-gavel coverage but it’s the same idea.
Because of my schedule what I’ve mostly been watching is streams of events that already ended. I don’t mind delays, and I don’t mind the fact that the results are already available, though I try not to know the result before I watch. In fact in some cases I’ll go ahead and skip to the Olympics official page after watching a lot of the prelims, to see the “end of the story”.
But NBC has made a decision not to offer those streams in replay for certain events. Not even days after the event. It means I will never see a moment of gymnastics for this olympics, and that bothers me a lot. I paid a shitload of money to subscribe to a cable service I’m not using, just to qualify for the streams. (Well, also to get high-speed internet back in my home). I would have happily just paid a subscription fee to NBC to get the streams, ALL of them, but that’s not an option.
Waynski
@The prophet Nostradumbass: How about now?
As if we had a coherent topic. OT Here’s the early morning headline from NBC News, besides wanking the Olympics:
Randy P
@FlipYrWhig: It’d be like having dozens of running events where you have to step twice with one foot before moving the other foot.
You haven’t heard of speed walking? How about hurdles or steeplechase where they put obstacles in the way?
Raven
@Ripley: Fuckin right, 99% of what I got from Napster I had already bought on vinyl.
slightly_peeved
@TheMightyTrowel:
Well yeah, compared to Wig & Pen, or to the British Real Ale movement, whatever’s at the bottle-o is probably going to be pretty bland. Moo Brew, the Brew Boys and Mountain Goat aren’t bad. The only one of the old family breweries that didn’t get bought out by a multinational back in the day was Cooper’s- their Vintage is pretty decent.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Narcissus:
I’m gonna have to quote that.
Personally, I’ve been streaming the BBC feed. Someone in an earlier thread mentioned a proxy for expats, and it’s working beautifully.
R-Jud
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: I love having the option to turn off commentary on some of the BBC feeds. I really don’t need the commentator to inform me that the dude from Cuba “almost had” the clean and jerk he clearly missed.
But the gymnastics commentators are good; they genuinely appreciate an excellent performance from anyone, regardless of country, and can explain simply why a routine was scored a certain way. Also, their excitement over that shock bronze for the Brits in the men’s team event was really touching.
TheMightyTrowel
@slightly_peeved: I’ve had the cooper stout which is not bad, I’ll try the others. thanks!
Jamey
@Citizen Alan:
I’ll name several:
“Another Schindler’s List.”
“Leaving Las Vegas…Again.”
“Truer Grit.”
“Ei8ht.”
MattMinus
When did the MPAA and RIAA become proud sponsors of Balloon Juice?
Jamey
@MattR: @MattR: Archery and riflery would be shit-tons more fun if the competition were head-to-head.
Brian
John: I think you’re misunderstanding copyright. Just because something is free to be quoted/copied/whatever doesn’t mean it can’t be copyrighted; the copy right is the literally the right someone has to copy things, or say who can copy things. So the copyright holder can just give everybody permission to copy, or can only give out a paid license, or whatever. It sounds like you just want people to be able to quote you without fear, and link back (consider something like what wikipedia uses, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Text_of_Creative_Commons_Attribution-ShareAlike_3.0_Unported_License , linked to at the bottom of every wikipedia page).
All that aside. I have no beef about the Olympics coverage — I watched a few minutes and may watch some more over the weekend. But the reason NBC paid 1.2 billion isn’t because that’s intrinsically how much it should cost; they paid that because they were bidding against the other US networks to obtain the license. Other countries’ networks don’t pay as much, so don’t have to claw as desperately for primetime advertising rates. The CBC is reported to have paid about 75 to 80 million for rights for 2014 and 2016 Olympics.
http://thestar.blogs.com/london2012/2012/08/treading-water.html reports that “NBC, the perennial U.S. broadcaster of the Olympics, is thrilled to announce it just might break even for the London 2012 Games.”
JGabriel
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John Cole:
That would be public domain, not open source. Since some of the front page posters may not want to public domain their work, you might want to look into some of the Creative Commons licenses instead.
.
Maxwel
Comcast/Atlanta has 6 HD channels doing the Olympics this morn, including MSNBC and NBC Sports. Outside of the incessant human interest stories, I think they’re doing a great job.
leinie (iPad)
Jeebus, 123 comments and no mention that Al fucking Michaels should be in the car with Joe Buck?otherwise, that sentence was spot on.
Hazel Stone
I’m a little puzzled about how “left leaning men” can repeatedly wish a gruesome death on Paris Hilton and think that’s OK.
Is it unacceptable to be a prominent rich woman with a sex life? So unacceptable we wish death on them? Is that a funny joke?
Wishing women dead for having sex is misogyny. Stop it, please.
FlipYrWhig
@Randy P: I’d take swimming with obstacles. That would be an improvement over “butterfly.”
Another Halocene Human
What is this–hooray for monopolies day?
NBC paid up for exclusive coverage, and does a shitty job? The cable cronies screw internet users again? We’re supposed to be defending co’s that made all their money due to taxpayers and of whom so little has been demanded in return (but they can’t manage even that)?
Here, let me cut an onion so I can sympathize properly.
Another Halocene Human
@Hazel Stone: Just confirms to me that being “left-leaning” or “liberal” for some in certain geographic areas has nothing to do with conviction or even a dram of thought–it’s just tribalism, and just as dumb as the “country-music lovin’ redneck hicks” they love to hate.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Hazel Stone: Sex? Nah. Entitled, annoying girl famous for being rich and annoying, the prototype Kardashian? That’s why I have no use for her.
The same impulse is why I enjoyed a scene in a Men’s Action Adventure book years ago where the protagonist stumbled into a convention of annoying commercial actors and used his Amazing Skillz to break every one’s noses before moving on to his real purpose. One was the woman who thought she should whack roaches with a broom, to give you a sense of just how long ago that was.
cgp
Totally with you here John.
Cluttered Mind
Joe Buck and Tim McCarver are Fox’s way of making sure that nobody can actually enjoy watching the baseball postseason on TV without having it on mute.
Val
pimpin