Olympics: Is It Live or Is It NBC

Memorex (is the brand even around any more?) once ran a series of commercials on the theme:  "Is it live or is it Memorex?"

 

In NBC's coverage of the Olympics, you can always tell whether the event is live, or whether it is NBC "on tape" (or digital or whatever you call it these days).

 

You can tell because if if the event is not live, NBC is going to manipulate the coverage to the point of terminal frustration in any viewer wanting to see athletes perform.

 

Yes, you would think that NBC could show events "on tape" in such a way as to ENHANCE the experience, by deleting scoring delays, and other distractions.  NOT SO (even though that is what NBC claimed in a previous Olympics was the advantage of being able to craft a TV SHOW around non-live events, while no creativity can do much with a live envent--the exact problem that makes live coverage necessary to a good viewing experience of ANY sports event). 

 

In a non-live event, it is all about the TV people trying to MANIPULATE the audience.  There are few more frustrating things in this world than watching NBC "craft" the coverage of an event not being covered live.  It is bad enough to watch ESP{N do a LIVE baseball game, and ignore the actual baseball game while the people in the booth, and on the sidelines, are pushed forward (the old Monday Night Football--entertaining as it was--has a lot to answer for, including this idea of "sports journalist" as CELEBRITY). It is ten times worse when the event is not live.  You are lucky if you ever actually see the sports event itself, as NBC covers everything else surrounding the event, and pretty much relegates the sports competition itself to a sideshow.

 

For the first two hours of coverage in prime time in this Olympics, there have often been few live events that NBC has thought worth covering live.  That has made those two hours often EXCRUCIATINGLY DULL. and frustrating.  In contrast, the next 2 to 3 hours of coverage has generally been exciting.  Yes, this is partially because the big events have been scheduled for that time.  However, it is also because NBC has no opporuity to RUIN the experience.  They are too busy shuttling back and forth between actual sports events (which sports "journalists", like "news journalists", now consider to be mainly about THEM).  As  In those previous Olympics, where big events were not in prime time and had to be presented "on tape", the coverage has been the same type of excruciating.  NBC then has a chance to produce a TV SHOW, and that is DISASTER (as it has often been for the first two hours of prime time coverage in this Olympics).

 

It would be nice if somehow we went back to the idea of the sports event itself being worth covering.  The way non-live events are covered now, and some live events, it is like an announcer breaking into a movie as it is taking place to talk about the GOSSIP involivng the actors and actresses, or "setting up" the movie with an hour of pre-movie watching commentary.  It is already bad enough that we now have movie COMMERCIALS.  But if movies were treated the same as sports are now being covered, the enjoyment would be totally removed from the experience.

 

Is it live or is it an NBC production?  Unfortunately, you will have no doubt.