The day has arrived! It’s officially 8.8.08, which means the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing have started! (Yes, I know soccer technically started earlier this week. Cut me some slack.) In fact, Day 1 is already over…and herein lies the problem.
Instead of broadcasting LIVE from the opening ceremony, NBC showed The Today Show, choosing to “save” the ceremony for primetime. In fact, the cast of Today show spoke about the ceremony as if wouldn't be happening for another 12 hours, despite the dark sky in the background. Because Americans are too stupid to notice that and don’t understand time zones, anyway, right?
Really? NBC couldn’t preempt Today for live Olympic coverage? I mean, it’s once every two years. Or maybe show the ceremony on one of the other (many) NBC channels? CNBC, maybe? OK, the stock market’s open today, so that’s out. What about MSNBC? All that's being shown there is news, anyway. Or USA? Reruns of Monk, for Christ’s sake. Or that weird Universal channel? I didn’t catch what was running this morning (NOT the Olympics), but I’ll bet it was some B-movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme.
But, fine. NBC wants to keep the ceremony in primetime, attempting to boost ad revenue and gaining a larger audience. I get it (sort of). Personally, I don’t think showing the live ceremony would cut into the primetime audience that much. Lots of people are at work right now and will wait until primetime, anyway. Plus, in the age of DVR, who watches commercials?
Instead of broadcasting LIVE from the opening ceremony, NBC showed The Today Show, choosing to “save” the ceremony for primetime. In fact, the cast of Today show spoke about the ceremony as if wouldn't be happening for another 12 hours, despite the dark sky in the background. Because Americans are too stupid to notice that and don’t understand time zones, anyway, right?
Really? NBC couldn’t preempt Today for live Olympic coverage? I mean, it’s once every two years. Or maybe show the ceremony on one of the other (many) NBC channels? CNBC, maybe? OK, the stock market’s open today, so that’s out. What about MSNBC? All that's being shown there is news, anyway. Or USA? Reruns of Monk, for Christ’s sake. Or that weird Universal channel? I didn’t catch what was running this morning (NOT the Olympics), but I’ll bet it was some B-movie with Jean-Claude Van Damme.
But, fine. NBC wants to keep the ceremony in primetime, attempting to boost ad revenue and gaining a larger audience. I get it (sort of). Personally, I don’t think showing the live ceremony would cut into the primetime audience that much. Lots of people are at work right now and will wait until primetime, anyway. Plus, in the age of DVR, who watches commercials?
Honestly, I didn’t really expect this year to be an exception for NBC. This is typical of American programming, but it still makes me angry. All I can hope is that most of the events are shown live. Given NBC's track record, I know I'm delusional. But at the very least, NBC, tell us the truth about when things are happening in Beijing. Some of us aren’t as dumb as you think.
[This post has been brought to you by my Olympic boyfriend, Andreas Thorkildsen.]
[This post has been brought to you by my Olympic boyfriend, Andreas Thorkildsen.]
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