by Jason Darensburg
Daily Lobo columnist
The verdict is in: this year’s Olympics coverage by NBC sucked. The extinguishing of the Olympic flame at the closing ceremonies in London did not put an end to the chorus of global condemnation of NBC’s television coverage. Three days into the network’s Olympics broadcast, disgruntled viewers had already created the hashtag #NBCfail on Twitter. It quickly became a global sensation.
NBC Universal, which holds exclusive broadcast rights in the United States, has endured a relentless stream of criticism about its coverage since the closing ceremonies ended on August 13.
Among the many complaints:
1. NBC spoiled the outcome of events that the network insisted on tape-delaying in order to be shown during prime time.
2. The curious editing choices of the opening and closing ceremonies.
3. The timing and number of commercial breaks.
4. NBC aired a promo for “Animal Practice” showing a monkey doing gymnastics right after Gabby Douglas won her gold medal, prompting accusations of racism.
5. The NBC Olympics Live Extra feed frequently failed. It buffered endlessly due to various in-app errors. The advertisements worked fine, though.
6. The network later had to apologize for giving away the result of Missy Franklin’s gold medal victory in the 100-meter backstroke right before airing the actual event.
7. Viewers had to be cable subscribers to see any of the live streams (when they worked).
8. Ryan Seacrest.
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I’d like to know what brilliant NBC programmer decided that viewers want to see manufactured drama in place of actual competition. The need to “dumb down” and repackage the day’s events, complete with many heartwarming, slickly produced videos, is annoying to people with a genuine interest in sports. Why do they need to present it as entertainment? Aren’t the games entertaining enough? NBC’s target audience is apparently more into reality television than the human drama of athletic competition.
Many of us also demanded to know why NBC chose to pre-empt the over-the-top closing ceremonies from London to cram one of their crappy new fall programs down our throats. After an hour of commercial-free mediocrity, the network apparently returned to Olympic Stadium in time for the final moments of The Who’s performance, but by then I was sound asleep.
I still can’t comprehend why it was necessary to present Tom Brokaw’s patronizing hourlong documentary on World War II instead of the usual edited highlights of the day’s competition. I realize that a lot of Americans probably have no clue as to who even won the second World War at this point, but the Olympics should absolutely not be used as a forum for glorifying human conflict.
It’s about bringing the world together for peaceful competition.
In recent years, it has become the norm for U.S. commentators to focus on American athletes at the Olympics, but watching many of the events, viewers wouldn’t even know there were other competitors present. Our American exceptionalism even extends to Olympics coverage. Often, the TV cameras concentrated exclusively on the American athletes. In some events, like swimming and track and field, it appeared that the Americans were competing against themselves. We had no idea who the other athletes were!
Our national obsession with winning gold medals above all was still evident, even among some of the athletes. United States gymnast McKayla Maroney won the silver medal after being heavily favored for gold in the vault competition. Her disappointed smirk from the podium became an Internet meme. Speaking of which: do we really need to see the entire medal ceremony? That smacked of propaganda to me, especially since we rarely got to see anyone but Americans receiving their awards. And if there’s no American featured in an event, it goes without saying we won’t get to see it in prime time.
I always root for the U.S. athletes and I’m proud when they win, but it would be nice to see what the other competitors look like once in a while. To me, that’s what the Olympics are all about: international competition and cooperation; not simply “America against the world.”
By far the most annoying aspect of NBC’s coverage was the sheer volume of commercials viewers had to sit through. NBC had no qualms about interrupting events for a commercial break, either — another reason for the tape delay. And that’s not even counting the endless promos for NBC television’s fall drivel. If I ever have to watch another promo for Matthew Perry’s craptastic new show, I’m going to poke my eyes out.
Let’s be realistic. NBC Universal paid a lot of money ($1.18 billion) for exclusive rights to the Olympics, and they needed to make a profit. The strategy required big-time advertisers, and that meant the main events had to be shown in prime time. The downside of a billion dollars in ad revenues is that Americans were forced to watch a billion dollars’ worth of commercials.
NBC couldn’t recoup that loss by giving away big-draw events for free over the Internet. They had to pander to the prime-time audience, most of whom aren’t following events on Twitter, or online from their desks or mobile devices.
Somehow, NBC made it work. According to Nielsen, the London Olympics boasted an incredible 5,535 hours of coverage across NBC and its affiliates (including MSNBC, NBC Sports Network and BRAVO), surpassing the 2008 Beijing Olympics coverage by 2,000 hours. The average cost of a 30-second U.S. commercial spot during the Olympics opening ceremony has steadily increased over the years, from $155,000 back in 1988 to $320,000 in 2008. In 2012, it was probably closer to half a million bucks.
So it wasn’t a complete disaster for NBC. Even if the coverage was awful, the ratings were astounding. Nearly 220 million Americans tuned in to the broadcast, making the London Olympics the most-watched event in the history of U.S. television. The 2012 games beat out the 2008 Beijing Olympics, which brought in “only” 215 million viewers.
Still, the 2012 Olympics will be remembered as a breakthrough in multiplatform broadcasting and merchandising. The prime-time broadcast averaged 31.1 million viewers, making it the most-watched non-U.S. Summer Olympics since Montreal in 1976.
Despite the controversy, the closing ceremony still brought in 31 million viewers, another record for non-U.S. games. Predictably, Americans are much more likely to tune in when the games happen on home turf. In 1996, the Summer Olympics were held in Atlanta, and the Los Angeles Olympics took place in 1984. Chicago failed in its recent bid for 2016.
As long as there have been Olympics broadcasts, there have been people bitching about Olympics broadcasts. Be prepared for more of the same, though: NBC owns the rights to broadcast the Olympic Games until 2020.
