I am now 50 years old and have been watching the Olympics since 1964. I didn't really get it until the '68 Games in Mexico City. Since, I rarely miss any that I can watch on TV. I went to the '84 Games in LA to watch my cousin run the first Womens Marathon (DNF-Isphording). I still get a high, even with the new X-Game events. So to heck with the ratings and the critics. I like what I watch. Bon apetit!

Let's see - leaving my office now - these are my choices for tonight:

1. Do laundry

2. Clip my toenails

3. Call whining relatives

4. Fix my leaky toilet (well, assuming for purposes of this post that I have a clue how to do that :confused: )

5. Run the vacuum; or

6. Watch the boring, insufferable NBC coverage of the games/events.

It won't be No. 6.

These "Olympics" and the NBC coverage SUCK!

YAWWWWNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN... frown

I hope NBC is reading these pages.

Earlier in this thread I posted that I wished NBC would open its coverage with a schedule ("8:00-8:40: speed skating; 8:40-9:10, moguls...." as an example) which would allow viewers to plan for their favorite sports. The current way of airing--snippets of sports jumbles together throughout the broadcast--makes it too difficult to get into the flow of any particular competition. With sports I've long enjoyed (think speedskating) it becomes difficult to follow the competition; with sports I'm mostly unfamiliar with (think skeleton) it doesn't allow the time to build interest.

From last night, I was greatly bothered by Bob Costas' comment following the US speedskaters failed to qualify for the team pursuit. Shani Davis chose not to participate and Costas offered: "If Davis had skated, the US would have defeated the Italian team." Costas can't know that for a fact. With Davis, the US team may have defeated the Italian team but it wasn't assured.

~Adam

Kind of tangential, but has anyone run across diagrams of the bobsled track, ski and snowboardcross courses etc? I've checked the NBC and official Olympics site, to no avail. Such diagrams couldn't be considered classified, could they???

[ February 22, 2006, 05:20 PM: Message edited by: fenwayguy ]

If they're classified, the LA Times is is violation of some law. The paper featured diagrams of the skating oval & ski runs as part of their description of those events.

~Adam

Who is this obvious gay guy reporting nightly from Torino on the Tonight Show w/Jay Leno? He sounds like a woman. He sounds more like a woman than a real woman. Who is he?

Is Jay Leno guilty of stereotyping gay men by putting this dude on the air?

It's Ross the Intern. He has been a Leno regular for a while (I seldom watch but friends always tell me about him and say he's pretty funny).

Yet another "safe" "harmless" "non-threatening" gay guy that can be on TV like Steven Cojocaru, Carson Kressely, Jack from Will & Grace, Richard Simmons, etc.

Once again I find the NBC coverage very frustrating. Fortunately, I had dvr'd the coverage last night, so I could skip through the bad parts.

They committed to showing the women's free skate through its ending about 2 hours into the coverage last night. They then proceeded back to their "show a skate, show several commercials, show a skate, show several commercials" approach. I mean, the skaters are on ice all of 4 minutes. Add a minute at the most to show their scores, and we are getting commercial-fests every five minutes. If you consider that most commercial breaks are 2 minutes long, then we got a whole lot of commercials.

This, of course, after they pushed the coverage to the very end of the program -- meaning the final skaters were not on until after 11pm. Fortunately, I am seldom an early to bed kind of guy.

I will offer this one line of argument in support of NBC's focus on American athletes: other than figure skating and hockey, the sports played in the Winter Games get absolutely no TV coverage in the US except once every four years. For 95% of the American athletes, this is the one time in their lives where the people in their hometowns actually get to see them on TV.

That said, I wish NBC would spend just a little more time showing great athletic accomplishments, regardless of the athlete's home country.

I just read this entire thread, and hadn't been following the board until now.

I expected to find the totally predictable complaints about network coverage of the Olympics... too much focus on Americans, not enough coverage of an event, etc. These have been the same things people have complained about my entire adult life. Unless you want some kind of splintered multi-channel approach covering entire events more completely (which hasn't really worked), it's always going to be a MAGAZINE format by necessity and design. And honestly, how many of us are going to actively chose to watch some of these sports in long coverage, but are interested enough to watch brief bits of them?

However, I have to say, I was glad to see some reasonable comments that went beyond the all too easy and obvious complaining. I think the networks covering the Olympics are in an impossible position, actually, balancing so many factors and demands. Impossible to please everyone.

For me, I watch TV more during any Olympics, winter or summer, than at any other time of the year (OK, except during the Tour de France, but I admit I'm a weirdo on that topic). I think the lack of ratings is not so much the coverage, but the lack of attention spans out there in the audience.

[ February 25, 2006, 05:31 PM: Message edited by: Rickpw ]

Avril Lavigne is part of the closing ceremonies tonight. I'll be sure not to watch.

Meanwhile, it occurred to me today that after two weeks of watching hockey coverage that included "the hockey intermission report, sponsored by Lenovo" that I still haven't the slightest idea who or what Lenovo is.

I think it's a Chinese company. They bought IBM's PC business and are starting to sell computers with their name in the US now from what I've read.

Lenovo is a Chinese company. They purchases IBM's PC business about a year or so ago. The agreement gave them perpetual rights to the "Think Pad" name and a limited time license to continue selling under the IBM name. The grace period will be ending soon so they are embarking upon a huge marketing campaign to sell those wonderful Think Pad PC's under the Lenovo name.

Ricky Martin is my idea of an Olympic entertainer-

No matter how the games themselves are presented, I'm a sucker for the Opening and Closing ceremonies. The masks worn by the crowd--angels & devils--were fun and the paraplegic mayor of Vancover doing 360s in his wheelchair (mimicking the Ferrari from the Opening ceremonies) to make the flag wave was an additional highlight. Avril and Ricky.....snooze

~Adam

Ilike the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, too, but this closing just put me to sleep. Italy has given the world some of the most beautiful music ever created - Verdi, Puccini, etc. - but they used the Village People, Ricky Martin (live, no less), Louis Prima, etc. last night!! What's up with that??? It almost made me miss Pavarotti's lip synch performance of "Nessun Dorma' in the Opening Ceremonies.

I watched the closing ceremonies twice yesterday, once live with CBC and later in the evening on NBC, to compare. I was curious to see the different perspectives.

NBC's coverage was what I expected, not as good as CBC's and heavily focusing on American stars and such. It was annoying how they kept cutting away to show American accomplishments at the Games (the athlete profiles/accomplishments should have been done before or after the cermonies, NOT during) and how they kept cutting out bits from the Closing Ceremonies ... a lot was edited out.

However, the interviews from the athletes in the stadium were good (especially Apolo Anton Ohno, who I LOVE ... or lust ... or both?). wink

One thing that really surpised me was NBC's coverage of Vancouver's 8 minute segment for 2010. Whereas I really enjoyed the Closing Ceremonies (perhaps not Italian enough but spectacular none the less), I was very disappointed (almost embarassed ) at Vancouver's presentation. I liked the handover of the flag to Mayor Sam Sullivan but the rest was downhill.

When I saw it again on NBC, I almost enjoyed it. Different camera angles and obviously edited but in this case for the better. I was amazed at how much better it seemed on NBC. eek!

Rex

It's official. No one should be surprised to learn that NBC's coverage drew the worst ratings ever for the Winter Olympics. The last time ratings for a Winter Olympics were anywhere near as low was 1968.

~Adam

In Canada CBC's prime time ratings were way down compared to previous Olympics - particularly compared to Salt Lake City when so much of what was in prime time was live. Prime time ratings were down 47%.

However during the day when CBC was showing live events - their ratings were actually up 40% compared to Salt Lake City. In fact on most days CBC's daytime ratings were higher than their prime time show. And the two ratings peaks occurred during the Curling Gold medal game that started at 11:30AM Eastern time Friday and a Tuesday morning Czech-Canada hockey game.

So NBC's decision to show almost nothing live, likely hurt their ratings in this era of easily being able to get results live off the internet. Also I read somewhere that unlike in 2002 the other American networks programmed strong shows against the Olympics whereas in 2002 they often just ran reruns which obviously had to impact NBC's ratings negatively.

Of couse the CBC was really hurt by the failure of the men's hockey team, who attracted the highest ratings ever for any TV show for their Gold medal game in 2002.

I assume in 2010 they will likely schedule a lot of events to be in the 6-9 time frame Vancouver time which would put those events live in prime time between 9-Midnight on the east coast.

Pat

Vancouver's not 6 hours ahead, though.