The 2012 London XXX Olympic Games have ended with a flurry of pomp and circumstance and a party to end all parties. The Spice Girls reunited, George Michael stepped out of jail to make us swoon, and The Who serenaded the world. (Really – The Who was at the Closing Ceremonies, though you probably didn’t stay up late enough to see it if you live on the U.S. East Coast. More on that later.)
Every 2 years (or 2-1/2 and 1-1/2 if you want to get technical), we are treated with 16 days of serious-but-friendly sports competition that leaves us prouder of our nations and our athletes. Of course, the Olympics have been going on for centuries, but in the last few Games, social media has made watching them a much different experience. Back in the olden days of the 70s, 80s, and 90s when we were at the whim of the TV broadcasters to hand-feed us what they wanted us to see, we didn’t know what we were missing. There was no such thing as a “spoiler” unless you happened to have access to someone actually AT the Games or were directly in contact with the newswires.
But things have changed. The zeitgeist demands immediate information, and in return, provides immediate reactions. Twitter, the leader of the constant, immediate flow of information, is how most of us who are online receive our Breaking News. Even if you don’t have a Twitter account or have no idea what it is, people in your life are connected and have the information they’re telling you about.
NBC has the exclusive rights to show anything and everything related to the Olympic Games for the millions Americans watching, for which they paid and will earn billions of dollars. If you want to see any video about anything related to the Olympics in America, you’re forced to get it from NBC. We know that the ratings for the primetime airings of the sports were good, we can’t help but wonder if part of the reason people were watching was to see just how badly NBC failed at their coverage.
This year, I’m sure NBC felt they were doing us all a favor by airing competitions live-streaming on their website that they weren’t showing live on their (approximately) 137 channels of coverage. Unfortunately, NBC either didn’t count on or didn’t care that millions of us Americans would be looking to the actual television for their Smörgåsbord of coverage rather than be relegated to using our bandwidth to see live sporting events. Not only is forcing us to take to the live-streaming website cumbersome for the great majority of Olympics-watchers, but there are millions who don’t have the cable TV subscriptions necessary to watch the NBC live-streaming videos.
Even when you did go to the NBCOlympics.com website to see Michael Phelps win his eleveteen-hundredth gold medal like I did, we were treated with 24-point font headlines that gave away the winners to other events we were waiting to watch during the primetime tape-delay package on NBC.
We had to have known that the 16-day NBC coverage would have started out as a massive FAIL when they were live-tweeting the actual live Open Ceremonies from their @NBCOlympics account while all of America was left waiting 6 hours to watch what they were talking about.
Once they started airing the tape-delay Opening Ceremonies, Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, and Bob Costas talked over nearly everything happening on screen.
The day after the Opening Ceremonies aired, we found out that NBC aired a taped interview of Michael Phelps by Bob Costas instead of showing the a poignant tribute to terrorism victims.
In the tape-delayed primetime coverage of Missy Franklin’s historic swim, they “mistakenly” ran a commercial for the next day’s Today Show interview of Missy Franklin, letting viewers know that she had won the gold medal in the race they were going to air. (NBC later apologized for the error.)
NBC Gymnastics commentators referred to Jordyn Wieber as a “diva” when she showed emotion upon learning her scores did not qualify her for the all-around competition.
Commentators spent the broadcast as though we were watching in real time (which OK, fine, that is how you decided to do things) and then right before a routine started (gymnastics specifically) the commentator would tell us how the person did. -Daisy
The primetime broadcasts were overly shortened, so you only got to see the “star” or only the U.S. athletes. -Daisy
I personally missed the coverage of other countries. It’s like they only showed USA, with minimal international coverage. -Brittany
And it was so disconnected in the primetime. They skipped around before finishing an event, and showed interviews that didn’t relate to the sport they were showing. It just made no sense. -Brittany
NBC created a package video called Bodies in Motion of women athletes, focusing mainly on traditionally attractive participants with a large portion of the video focused on their backsides. The video was made “creepy” and “porny” with the choice of music sounding much like those used in porno movies. See the video on Jezebel.com.
The completely random history lessons in the middle of sporting events. We’re here to watch sports not the History Channel. -Katie
What’s the deal
#NBC???It’s 8:47 and no Olympic coverage yet? We’re getting a 45 minute lecture on WW2#nbcfail— mia farrow (@MiaFarrow) August 12, 2012
The first hour of Saturday night’s broadcast was a documentary-style package by Tom Brokaw, highlighting Britain’s role in WWII. While very educational and good to watch at some point in life, airing it during the primetime coverage of the Olympics had Twitter bashing NBC.
Why is it that every single time I turned on the Olympics, it was volleyball? Like, literally hours of volleyball. Volleyball heats. Indoor volleyball, beach volleyball, men’s, women’s. There are OTHER olympic sports, yes? -JennyGrace
Doing a special segment on the person who wins the gold of each event, BEFORE showing the even. So it’s like, okay, the guy they did the life story on, he WINS. -JennyGrace
The Today Show coverage was a joke, and the way they mocked the Olympic speed walkers with a segment was embarrassing. -Brittany
We could find dozens of other NBCFail examples, but the one freshest in everyone’s mind took place last night during the Closing Ceremonies. After waiting the ubiquitous 5 hours to watch the Closing Ceremonies, we were shown a chopped up version of the event, voiced-over by Ryan Seacrest.
And stayed tuned for
#TheWho after@animalpractice
— NBCOlympics (@NBCOlympics) August 13, 2012
At what we thought was the end of the broadcast, he announced that NBC was cutting away from the ceremonies to show a preview of a new show, Animal Practice. So at 11:00pm EST, instead of showing two of the greatest rock bands to ever come out of England, The Who and Muse (who, by the way, were completely cut out of the broadcast), Americans were “invited” to stay up and watch a preview of the new show.
“Animal Practice”: One episode in, this smug sitcom is already the most hated show on TV salon.com/2012/08/13/ani…
#NBCfail— Salon.com (@Salon) August 13, 2012
What did NBC get out of this final nail in the #NBCFail coffin? Animal Practice is already the most hated show on TV.
Angie Lynch is the founder and managing editor of the powerhouse women’s literary community, Smut Book Club. She is a Native Floridian without a tan, probably because she spends her days hard at work on the magical internet. For the past several years, Angie has worked way too hard at building clout as an influencer in food and margaritas as well as being a source for laughable pop culture commentary. You can read more from Angie on her blog, A Whole Lot of Nothing.
original image credit NBC
I have two words for you:
CANADA WINS
I was just gonna say that….LOL. We had pretty awesome coverage and no spoilers of who won what before we watched it.
Wow. I didn’t have too much of a problem with the fact that the evening broadcast was edited – it’s good for folks who don’t have the time to watch live all day long (and I really don’t think watching on a computer vs a TV is a big deal). I also truly enjoyed the opening and closing ceremonies, as well as all of the GB history “lessons” throughout…
BUT to cut the END of the closing ceremonies to show that craptacular show instead of The Who and Muse (and to not show Muse at all, whose song was the official one of the Olympics???) was downright stupid. And their commentators need a complete refresh. Their attitudes and comments toward a lot of the competition and competitors was completely inappropriate, overblown, or ridiculous.
NBC was clearly NOT prepared for airing the Olympics in today’s social media atmosphere. They better get it in gear for Sochi 2014.
I would have been overjoyed to have been able to watch the coverage on my computer, but no cable equaled no coverage for me.
Heck, I was googling all over the place to try to find a way around the no cable, no computer coverage thing. Nothing, unless I wanted to basically pay to steal another countries coverage.
I am with you, NBC coverage was not excellent. And its the Olympics, you have so much material that to be anything shy of excellent is a fail.
However this point is not an NBC Fail. “The primetime broadcasts were overly shortened, so you only got to see the “star” or only the U.S. athletes. -Daisy”
I was fortunate enough to be able to go to the olympics this time, so I watched a lot of BBC coverage. (it was amazing, I met Michael Phelps) And I can tell you that this is not an NBC thing. I watched a lot of track cycling, dressage and field hockey because that’s what the British are good at. They did show the Americans perform, but barely showed the Russian gymnasts in the individual all around (ya know, 2nd and 3rd place). And my grandparents went to the ’76 games in Montreal where they said the same thing was true in Canada, you followed the Canadian athletes and the stars.
Again, I though the NBC coverage was terrible. They need to bring back more Mary Carrillo!, Get rid of Ryan Seacrest, he was awful, and there is nothing worse than having a moment spoiled, so SUPER fail on that.
Interesting comments. Here in the UK two of the main BBC channels showed live Olympics coverage and highlights all day. Also, the terrestrial service had an additional channel showing a mixture of live events. The BBC also showed an additional 24 SD and 24 HD channels of every event uninterrupted and live across the whole period of the games. These were available free-to-air on satellite and cable. These channels showed the original Olympic Broadcasting Services feeds with added commentary. These channels never cut away from the action so that everything that occured could be seen. We also had a separate feed of the opening and closing ceremonies available without the BBC commentary, although the BBC commentators wisely kept their comments to a minimum during these events.
I found out that I wouldn’t be able to watch Michael Phelps live just seconds before the race happened, so I frantically went to the internet. Ended up missing a good portion of the race because I had to watch numerous advertisements just to get to the actual coverage. By that time, the race was half over.
Further, I have a LOT of soccer fans in my family, and the US women’s team game was historic and a rematch of a tragic loss in the most recent World Cup. My parents didn’t get to see the match because they don’t happen to subscribe to NBC Sports.
I could go on and on with examples, but suffice tit to say, I agree with your assessment. Abysmal.
Haha! I said “tit”. Freudian slip?
The broadcast schedule might have well been compiled by small children. The way they covered the Opening Ceremony was disrespectful in MANY ways. Even my children were saying the people on the tv (commentators) should shut up. The final slap in the face was the way they chopped up the Closing Ceremony. They cut the marathon winners, Ray Davies, Kate Bush, MUSE, and The Who. TOTALLY disrespectful. I feel bad for that actor in that new show (that I won’t even name), ya know the one from Weeds… SO sorry for him.
Between various news shows (NBC, ABC, CNN) and Facebook SO MANY events were spoiled for me. I don’t remember any from Vancouver (maybe because I’m in the same time zone?) and only one from Beijing due to an absent minded Google search while I was watching gymnastics. Definitely frustrating coverage.
I can’t believe NBC, supposedly staffed by experienced professionals, made so many poor decisions on how to cover the Olympics.
Considering the time difference and this being the era of instant social media, keeping results — especially those events where Americans had keen interest — secret until the prime time hours in the U.S. was impossible. I get that and understand the need for an edited nightly recap. But NBC couldn’t even do that in a coherent way.
Cutting away key parts of the opening and closing ceremonies was inexcusable. Ryan Seacrest and a bad new sitcom? Really?
I have mixed feelings on this. I really enjoyed the Olympics this year. But calling Jordyn Wieber a diva was inexcusable.
However, on Sunday morning, they were talking about how the Olympics are like covering (I think they said) 32 world championships in 16 days. It’s A LOT of work. Needless to say, nothing is perfect, and this would not be either.
On the other hand, they employ a bajillionty people, and you’d think the money they make and put out for the Olympics would ensure things would have been a little smoother.
As for non-USA coverage, I saw plenty of it. The main NBC channel covered mostly USA events, but NBC Sports, msNBC, even Bravo had lots of non-USA events.
As for leaks…..the internet is too huge, even for NBC to stop. I think their choice to tweet real life updates was understandable. The atheletes were tweeting their updates, so NBC had to keep up with them.
But, calling Jordyn a diva bothered me. She’s an athelete who worked very hard for her goal. She didn’t make it. There’s nothing at all wrong with being upset. In fact, being upset showed how much it meant to her, and that impressed me more than if she hadn’t cried!
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