[TV orNotTV] Middle-Way Criticisms of NBC's Olympic Coverage

[PGage]

I have been trying to clarify my thinking about the timing criticisms of NBC’s Olympic coverage. Partly because I have found myself in the odd position of partially defending NBC, both on the “Olympic Blunder” thread here, and with some of my friends. What follows is a long, boring statement of my personal conclusions, which I am using in my argument with my friends. I include it here (3.5 single spaced pages on my word processor) for completion’s sake - read that at your own risk. But in the short paragraph that immediately follows this I give an abbreviated summary of my conclusion:

 

I think the proper criticism of NBC is that they do not provide live televised coverage of premium events during the day (which would be fairly disjoined and de-contextualized) out of unfounded fear that it would reduce their primetime audience. But this criticism must be moderated by the fact that they are providing live or almost live television coverage of lots of individual and team events, including some that are in high demand in the US, and live online coverage of all events.  A second, more limited criticism has to do with transparency, including the fact that is usually not clear whether the announcers are on-site, which can be relevant to the broadcast. It is not fair, or even coherent, to criticize NBC basically for not providing a version of their prime-time coverage live.

 

*******************

I think it helps to recognize several different types of coverage (I am using the term “broadcast” here to include coverage shown on cable, even though that might not be technically accurate).  I am making up this typology and terminology, but I think it is fairly accurate:

1.     Truly Live:  The event is broadcast somewhere in the US as it happens.

2.     Almost Live: The event is broadcast close to the time when it happened (within the time parameters of the telecast in which it is shown). Events are shown “almost live” when they conflict with other events that are to be shown during the telecast (e.g. a gymnastics final and a swimming final). Almost live events are shown basically in real time, as they unfolded (may cut out parts at beginning or end).

3.     Delayed Live-to-Tape: Event shown as in truly or almost live, but delayed more than 3 hours, or in order to fit into a specific US timeslot (usually primetime). In the case of the London Olympics, the delay can be more than 12 hours, as some events that occurred at 8:00 am ET are not shown until after 8:00 pm ET (and of course delays are even longer for those of us in the pacific time zone, but nobody on the east coast gives a damn about that).

4.     Edited Delayed Live-to-Tape: The event was recorded with simultaneous commentating, and has been significantly edited down either for time or drama or local interest.

5.     Dubbed Edited Live-to-Tape: Same as above, with commentating track added after the event.

 

A distinct but related issue is the location of the commentators, who may be on site with the competitors, in country but commentating on a feed shown in some off-site location, or back in the home country (presumably New York in the case of NBC). Any of these three commentator locations can be paired with most of the 5 types of coverage above.

 

In my view, Type #5 (Dubbed Edited Live-to-Tape) is odious, and always unacceptable. NBC did used to give us this kind of coverage in Olympics past, but I don’t think any of the London events have been done this way, and maybe none have for the last 2 or 3 Summer Olympic Games (I have the feeling it is a little more common in Winter Olympic coverage, but that is just a guess).

 

It is literally not possible for all Olympic coverage to be Type 1 (Truly Live), since many events occur at the same time. Further, since many events of high interest unfold over very long time frames, it often is not practical or even desirable to even broadcast them in Type 2 or even Type 3. All but the most fanatic sports purists in the US would likely appreciate being able to watch an event from beginning to end in a well defined period (2 hours or less) with most of the boring set-up and waiting parts edited out.

 

NBC is actually showing significant number of hours of Type 1, 2 and 3, though for the most part that is in the over night and day time hours in the US. I am pretty sure I watched basketball, volleyball, soccer and waterpolo in Type 1 or 2 coverage yesterday (recorded on my DVR from 2 or 3 different channels and personally time-shifted to suit my own schedule). I am not sure what the exact criticism is that NBC has been getting (because I have imposed a mostly successful substantial media blackout on myself to avoid spoliers; after the primetime show ends around midnight I find I can read newspapers and blogs for an hour or so without fear of spoliers – though around 1 or 2 in the morning I have to start being careful again, as events have already started in London). From what I gather though, it is mostly about the primetime telecast.

 

Obviously the criticism is not that NBC is showing taped coverage in primetime – because of the time difference that is the only kind of coverage that can be shown in primetime in the US. So the criticism is really that NBC is not showing Type 1 and 2 coverage of certain popular events throughout the day, and instead is embargoing them to (in NBC’s words) “drive viewers” to the primetime coverage, which is partly Type 3 and partly (mostly?) Type 4. I share this criticism, but only in a limited form.

 

I think NBC is wrong to embargo Type 1 and 2 coverage of popular events during non-primetime. Given the internet (and the existence of many other major news gathering and reporting organizations on broadcast and cable television), actual broadcast of the events is not the main way that the US public learns the results of these events anyway. Embargoing them does not result in more naïve viewers eager to enjoy unspoiled delayed coverage in primetime. It does mean that there is less word-of-mouth to encourage marginally interested viewers to tune into the primetime coverage. For example (24 hour spoiler here) in the “women’s” gymnastics shown in primetime last night (Tuesday night) a US girl had a truly spectacular performance on one of the rotations – spectacular enough that I, who only watch gymnastics once every 4 years, and even then somewhat grudgingly, sat up in my seat and emitted an involuntary “Wow!”, and rewound and watched it a couple of times before going on. I think that if I had seen that live earlier in the day, I would have told me wife, who only watches the Olympics occasionally, to make sure to tune in to watch, and I think that would have happened in hundreds of thousands of other homes, and NBC would have had more, not fewer viewers without the embargo.

 

On the other hand, I probably would still have watched most or all of the primetime coverage, even had I seen it live earlier in the day. The reason for this is also the reason why I think many of the more acerbic critics of NBC are off base. It simply is not practical for NBC to produce the kind of omnibus program, with analysis and context and overview, while the events are unfolding, and in many cases it is not even possible. If NBC lifted the embargo, what I imagine happening is that they would designate one channel (perhaps their sports channel) as the main hub for live events. This would exclude, as it does now, boxing, tennis and team sports, which are already shown live, and would still be available live on other channels. Michelle Beadle (or whoever) would sit in the anchor chair and whip viewers around to the pool, or the gym, or the diving or the beach volleyball, or the track, etc. On site commentators would give a few minutes of introduction, call the event, then pass it back to the anchor, who would either do some in-studio analysis or interviews, or whip it to the next event. But all of this would lack cohesion and drama for the viewer – kind of like if the Super Bowl and World Series and NBA Finals and Stanley Cup and Wimbledon and Indy 500 were all happening on the same day over an 8 hour period, and viewers were flipped from event to event to watch an inning, or a quarter, or a set. Except that in this case, for the most part if would not even be possible to allow viewers to elect to stay with just one event, since that event unfolds over such long periods of time. I guess if I had a friend or relative competing in one of these events I would want to watch it live, but in many cases I think I would prefer to wait for the prime-time show, or even if I watched it live, I would watch it again in primetime for more cohesion and context.

 

And of course, NBC is allowing every single event to be viewed live online. This is still a bit clunky, but it is available for anyone really interested. I have friends I have had to mute on the Facebook because they watch the online coverage of swimming and then feel the need to broadcast the results immediately on their feed.

 

It is not NBC’s fault that there is a 5-hour time difference between New York and Lond (8 hours between San Francisco and London, but again, we know nobody cares about that). Nor is it NBC’s fault that many events cannot unfold during the hours that correspond to primetime in New York. It is an illusion that somehow NBC is depriving us of the kind of coverage we have come to expect during their primetime show live – such coverage could never happen, under any circumstances governed by the known laws of physics.

 

So, I think the proper criticism of NBC is that do not provide live coverage of premium events during the day (which would be fairly disjoined and de-contextualized) out of unfounded fear that it would reduce their primetime audience. But this criticism must be moderated by the fact that they are providing live or almost live television coverage of lots of individual and team events, including some that are in high demand in the US, and live online coverage of all events. Also, they have eliminated (I believe) the most horrid practice of Type 5 (Dubbed Edited Live-to-Tape) coverage. Not to mention of course that NBC has paid millions of dollars for the Olympics, is going to probably lose money on them even as it is.

 

A second, even more limited criticism has to do with transparency. Costas did, at least the first day of coverage) explain that none of the events that he shows during primetime would be live, and he usually introduces events by saying something like “Phelps made his attempt at gold earlier today, and we will show you that after this commercial”. However in general NBC does not make it clear when they have edited tape for time or interest – sometimes they go from one heat or event to the next in the space of a few minutes or less, even though in real time they cut out 10 to 30 minutes, or more. This was relevant when the young US swimmer the other day had like 10 minutes between races, and it was important for the viewer to understand that we were watching things in real time, with no edits or time cuts. I find NBC also lacks transparency regarding the location of their announcers. I am pretty convinced that the announcers for events like shooting, archery and badminton are not onsite, and maybe not even in country. I suspect the same is true of events like water polo, field hockey and handball. There may be legitimate reasons for this, but I think the viewer has a right to know. Sometimes this becomes explicitly relevant – I was watching one badminton match when there was a discussion of how air conditioning currents can sometimes effect the shuttlecock in the air – but it was clear the announcers were not in a position to report what the conditions were actually like in the arena. I could cite several other examples like this.

 

 

 

 

 

[Kevin M.]

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 12:57 PM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:
> A second, even more limited criticism has to do with transparency. Costas
> did, at least the first day of coverage) explain that none of the events
> that he shows during primetime would be live, and he usually introduces
> events by saying something like “Phelps made his attempt at gold earlier
> today, and we will show you that after this commercial”. However in general
> NBC does not make it clear when they have edited tape for time or interest –
> sometimes they go from one heat or event to the next in the space of a few
> minutes or less, even though in real time they cut out 10 to 30 minutes, or
> more. This was relevant when the young US swimmer the other day had like 10
> minutes between races, and it was important for the viewer to understand
> that we were watching things in real time, with no edits or time cuts. I
> find NBC also lacks transparency regarding the location of their announcers.
> I am pretty convinced that the announcers for events like shooting, archery
> and badminton are not onsite, and maybe not even in country. I suspect the
> same is true of events like water polo, field hockey and handball. There may
> be legitimate reasons for this, but I think the viewer has a right to know.
> Sometimes this becomes explicitly relevant – I was watching one badminton
> match when there was a discussion of how air conditioning currents can
> sometimes effect the shuttlecock in the air – but it was clear the
> announcers were not in a position to report what the conditions were
> actually like in the arena. I could cite several other examples like this.

The late Tom Snyder used to say the minute you try to fool the viewer,
you cease to be a reporter. If we consider the Olympics to be
entertainment, they are free to say what they want wherever and
whenever they want. But if you feel otherwise, NBC is violating
several rules of journalism. Granted, this is just sports, but the
rules matter regardless of subject material.
--
Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Bob in Jersey]

Going back through that online media guide NBCO posted just prior to the Games, much of the basketball and soccer is being called from 30 Rock, and ostensibly most of Telemundo's staff are there as well.



--
BOB

[PGage]

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 1:15 PM, Bob in Jersey <bob.in...@juno.com> wrote:

Going back through that online media guide NBCO posted just prior to the Games, much of the basketball and soccer is being called from 30 Rock, and ostensibly most of Telemundo's staff are there as well.

Bob Fitzgerald, who is the play by play guy for the Golden State Warriors here in the Bay Area, is doing USA Olympic basketball. I am pretty sure he is actually in London (at least, the local stories about him have suggested he was going to England), and I would be shocked if his color analyst, Doug Collins (and professional USA Olympic Basketball whiner) was not in London too, if for no other reason so that he could give the team his quadrennial bitter tale of woe of how the commies stole the gold medal from him.  But there may be announcers doing some of the non-USA BB games who are calling them from New York.

Again, I would not mind the off-site stuff so much (though I don't like it) if they would just inform the viewer clearly in each case, for reasons Kevin explained so well.

I should also note that while I have seen some critics go after Bob Costas in particular, this seems especially misplaced. The time shifting seems to make his job much more boring (plus the show that begins at 8:00 pm ET is starting at what, 1:00 am London time? So he is up all night basically just reading a script). Meanwhile the anchors on the other shows are having fun actually whipping around to live events and giving some breaking news. That has got to be a lot more fun.

[Mark Jeffries]

Which brings me to another point--as some people pointed out, ABC did the same exact things when they made the Olympics the TV spectacle that it is.  There were complaints, but not to the extent that NBC receives.  Outside of the fact that at least in the 60s and 70s, the whole idea of the coverage was new to viewers, I am wondering if the greater criticism of NBC is because people don't like Costas the way they did Jim McKay.  Costas is one of the best broadcasters around, but he doesn't have the folksy manner or likability that McKay possessed--and I wonder if a lot of people just don't like him.

 

--
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[Adam Bowie]

I've kind of stayed out of these discussions since I get a rather good package of Olympic events from the BBC. But I must say that the way the BBC covers these and has covered other recent games in unhelpful timezones - like Beijing - seems to work well.

There's live coverage for those who want it at whatever time of day or night the proceedings occur. Then the big evening programme is 3 hours from 7pm to 10pm. That assumes you don't know the results from earlier in the day. But there's no messing around, and we get a nicely produced package of the key events Brits want to know about (i.e. the ones we've done well in, or failed to do as expected). 

Now obviously because these games take place in our own timezone, there's live coverage to drop in - of the swimming and so on. But it seems like a good compromise. 

The news programme that's gone before will have announced all the winners - indeed the Olympics has been the top headline every day so far. It's going to take something really bad happening elsewhere in the world for them to be dislodged. 

The reality is that most people aren't available to view outside of prime time anyway. So there's no real reason to hold back swimming from live coverage. You can still neatly package it up for prime time. Indeed as an aside, the swimming is so efficiently organised that there's barely any time to get post-race interviews in, and a bit of a set-up for the next race before its on again. I don't think there'd be physically time for NBC to squeeze commercials in without missing some action! And I'd argue that if you know that the Phelps v Lochte race is awesome, you'd be more likely to tune and see it.

Sadly, I suspect that nothing's going to change while NBC is getting record breaking ratings, and making more money than it expected. 

Adam

[Kevin M.]

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 4:20 PM, Adam Bowie <adam....@gmail.com> wrote:

> Sadly, I suspect that nothing's going to change while NBC is getting record
> breaking ratings, and making more money than it expected.

I think the media landscape four years from now will force dramatic
change, though it will seem less drastic in the US because the time
difference in Brazil isn't as severe. But on-demand and internet
viewing is on the rise, and any network that tries to retain the old
ways over the next few years will start to resemble a telegraph. The
Winter Olympics in Russia will be almost unbearable for true fans
looking to avoid spoilers and to watch live, real-time coverage --
that should serve as the breaking point if the London games don't.
--
Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Joe Hass]

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 2:57 PM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Obviously the criticism is not that NBC is showing taped coverage in
> primetime – because of the time difference that is the only kind of coverage
> that can be shown in primetime in the US. So the criticism is really that
> NBC is not showing Type 1 and 2 coverage of certain popular events
> throughout the day, and instead is embargoing them to (in NBC’s words)
> “drive viewers” to the primetime coverage, which is partly Type 3 and partly
> (mostly?) Type 4. I share this criticism, but only in a limited form.
>

An excellent example of Type 4 occurred last night during the Womens
Gymnastics finals. Russia went next to last, and the US went last. The
Russians laid a major egg, making the US performance almost
perfunctory to win the gold. However, NBC did two things: edited out
the Russians performance and neglected to integrate their performance
into their broadcast, including identifying their performance when it
came to the scores. If you went solely off the broadcast, you would
assume that the Americans were battling for a gold medal. In fact,
they were all but assured the medal when the Russians faltered. But
that would remove the drama, so NBC just decided to ignore the fact.

http://deadspin.com/5930817/the-us-already-had-gold-locked-up-after-this-floor-disaster-from-russias-world-champion-so-nbc-didnt-show-it-to-you

I'm unable to get the video to load off nbcolympics.com to see if that
broadcast is the full feed or the edited one.

[PGage]

On Wed, Aug 1, 2012 at 6:14 PM, Joe Hass <hassg...@gmail.com> wrote:

An excellent example of Type 4 occurred last night during the Womens
Gymnastics finals. Russia went next to last, and the US went last. The
Russians laid a major egg, making the US performance almost
perfunctory to win the gold. However, NBC did two things: edited out
the Russians performance and neglected to integrate their performance
into their broadcast, including identifying their performance when it
came to the scores. If you went solely off the broadcast, you would
assume that the Americans were battling for a gold medal. In fact,
they were all but assured the medal when the Russians faltered. But
that would remove the drama, so NBC just decided to ignore the fact.

http://deadspin.com/5930817/the-us-already-had-gold-locked-up-after-this-floor-disaster-from-russias-world-champion-so-nbc-didnt-show-it-to-you

The Deadspin piece is a little unclear, but basically correct. I was actually watching the Gymnastics coverage with my calculator, and figuring out what the Russians would need to average to pass the Americans. By the start of the last rotation (floor exercise) it was still possible for the US to lose, but the Russians would have had to do better than they had in the qualifications, and the US would have had to do much worse (and the US had already done worse than the Russians to begin with).

NBC did show the first 2 Russian girls on the floor (I happen to have my scratch paper right here by my keyboard still, they scored 14.8, which was already lower than what they needed, and then 12.466, which was so low that it was already almost a foregone conclusion that the US would win). I crunched some numbers and figured out what the third girl would have to do get to make it even possible the US could lose, and then suddenly, without any warning, NBC skipped the 3rd Russian performer, and started up with the US girls, pimping the drama for all it was worth, even though, since they did show the scoreboard briefly, I was able to do some basic math and realize that the US would win even if each girl fell twice during each routine.

This was the most flagrant example of NBC editing the actual competition to create a false sense of drama that I have seen this Olympics. It would be as if, when showing the Super Bowl, NBC decided not to show the team ahead had scored a field goal to go ahead by 10 points, just to create a false sense of drama that the team behind had a chance to win on a last second touchdown.

Furthermore, NBC has been using video of the US girls floor performance in the aftermath to show how the girls performed under intense pressure to win the Gold. The US Girls had a remarkable performance last night, and deserve their share of glory - but that should have been illustrated by their wonderful performance on the first rotation (vault) and their grittty performances on their two weaker events, where there was real drama, on the uneven bars and balance beam. My impression was that the real motivation for NBC for the misleading editing was to further the storyline that they were committed to, which was the redemption of Jordyn Wieber. Wieber did not perform on the beam. If NBC had told the story honestly, it would have been that the US beam performance had pretty much put them in position to get the Gold - all they had to do was not stink on the floor. But that would have meant that Wieber was not part of the crucial rotation that won them the Gold, so they re-packaged the story to make her seem like the hero that won the team the Gold, even though her own dreams for an individual medal had been stolen (stolen by whom? NBC never came out and said which of the other two US gymnasts they would rather have seen crying while Wieber moved on to the overalls, but I assume it was the other not-black girl, since I saw some promotional lead up piece from NBC a few weeks/months ago that was already setting up a story line of Wieber vs "Gabby" (the black girl) for the all around title. And even then I had the impression that the NBC graphics department had already put their finishing touches on an image of Wieber on a Wheaties box.

[Brad Beam]

----- Original Message -----
From: PGage

>I think the proper criticism of NBC is that they do not provide live
>televised coverage of premium events during the day (which would be fairly
>disjoined and de-contextualized) out of unfounded fear that it would reduce
>their primetime audience. But this criticism must be moderated by the fact
>that they are providing live or almost live television coverage of lots of
>individual and team events, including some that are in high demand in the
>US, and live online coverage of all events.

We always praise Canada for their Olympic coverage.

Indeed, glancing at the schedule on CTVOlympics.ca, it looks like the
fully-commercial CTV blows up the schedule to cover the Olympics -- save for
several newsbreaks -- while related cable nets (TSN, OLN, etc.) only pick up
certain time slots.

But I'm curious to know what CTV primetime looks like. Is it just highlights
of the day culled from across the Bell-Rogers family of networks, or does
BriWi.ca sprinkle in those tales of woe?


And while I'm thinking about it:
If ESPN ever picked up the Olympics, they could do something similar for a
time zone-distant site. Have 1, 2, U, Classic, News, and 3.com go all-in for
live (and delayed) coverage until about 5ET, and then have the folks in
Bristol edit together a 3-4 hour package for ABC primetime.

Perhaps to lessen the time gap for the western of the country in advance of
primetime, ESPN could re-run the early hours of the day's coverage.

Just a thought....

_ _
|_>|_> Brad Beam- Belle WV
|_>|_> http://www.facebook.com/74bmw

[Doug Eastick]

On 2012-08-01 9:56 PM, Brad Beam wrote:

> Indeed, glancing at the schedule on CTVOlympics.ca, it looks like the
> fully-commercial CTV blows up the schedule to cover the Olympics --
> save for several newsbreaks -- while related cable nets (TSN, OLN,
> etc.) only pick up certain time slots.

This has been typical for any Oly whether CTV or CBC gets rights. The
main OTA goes full-blown LIVE, with evening-Prime highlights show.
Other channels offer live of other sports.

> But I'm curious to know what CTV primetime looks like. Is it just
> highlights of the day culled from across the Bell-Rogers family of
> networks, or does BriWi.ca sprinkle in those tales of woe?

I am happy to report that I haven't watched any prime stuff this Oly.
My TiVo's record the live stuff, and we watch that at night, or I watch
recaps online (CTV or BBC).

>> If ESPN ever picked up the Olympics, they could do something similar
for a time zone-distant site. Have 1, 2, U, Classic, News, and 3.com go
all-in for live (and delayed) coverage until about 5ET, and then have
the folks in Bristol edit together a 3-4 hour package for ABC primetime.

That's what CBC or CTV usually do. In 2008 CBC re-purposed their
channel "Bold" (think mix of drama, comedy, arts and culture, and sports
programming), for an alternate channel of Oly sports live.

On a related note, CBC won the rights to 2014 (sochi) and 2016 (Rio)
today. This was after the joint CBC+CTV bid was rejected by the IOC,
and CTV then pulled out. No releases have said that CBC won by
acclamation.

[JW]

To expand on PGage's original point, there are a few uses for editing
Olympic events:

- Simple cutting for time. They'll go to commercials during a time out
at a volleyball match with the score 4-3, and come back with a score
of 8-6. If the missing points aren't especially important, that's
tolerable. If the commentators are going to keep referring back to
what happened then, it's a problem.

- Summarizing an event. In the Winter Olympics, for something like
luge, NBC will often show the runs of the American team(s) and the top
few medal contenders. I can imagine how that could frustrate serious
luge fans or fans of a particular Swiss sled, but in the context of
the whole Olympic show, it's understandable.

- In a sport where several performances go on simultaneously, like
gymnastics, cutting to make it more accessible is OK. (Lopping out
long breaks is all right, too, although it should be possible to show
other events during those breaks.)

- Accentuating the drama. This is apparently what happened in the
gymnastics, and that's way over the line. For me, the gymnastics are
usually unwatchable because so little of the coverage is actual
performances. To make that worse in the name of keeping the drama
alive is unacceptable.

As far as the Eastern vs. Pacific time zone carping, if they want
their program in prime time, it will either be three hours earlier or
21 hours later in the east. The former makes more sense.

[Bob in Jersey]

PGage, to moi:

Bob Fitzgerald, who is the play by play guy for the Golden State Warriors here in the Bay Area, is doing USA Olympic basketball. I am pretty sure he is actually in London (at least, the local stories about him have suggested he was going to England), and I would be shocked if his color analyst, Doug Collins (and professional USA Olympic Basketball whiner) was not in London too, if for no other reason so that he could give the team his quadrennial bitter tale of woe of how the commies stole the gold medal from him.  But there may be announcers doing some of the non-USA BB games who are calling them from New York.

The media guide lists Fitzgerald, Collins and women's analyst Ann Meyers as being in London. Rest are in NYC.



--
BOB

[do...@flids.net]

Doug Collins, at least, is definitely in London.  I've seen a couple of face-to-face panels with him and Bob Costas, who's handling the local studio hosting duties in London.  I can't speak for any of the others.

Doug Fields

Tampa, FL

--