NBC’s Olympic coverage has come under fire for just about everything. Tape delays, terrible coverage of the sports themselves, and causing Emperor Penguins to change their migration patterns; they’re all valid. Deadspin devoted most of a day to it, and this post highlighted a large problem. That is, the games are marketed as a two-week long reality show.
News Flash: They already were.
The issue with NBC isn’t that how they package the Olympics as much as their refusal to change how they do so. Ratings have been pouring in, and they actually beat American Idol the other night. The comparison around the internets to the Tonight Show debacle has been well documented. That does not, however, make it any less relevant. NBC wants Jay Leno in that chair because he will give them a consistent ratings win (for the time being) and a rather predictable amount of viewers (if I recall correctly, about 5 million). He may not take any chances, or even be funny, but for that network that’s exactly what they want. It’s also exactly what they’re looking for with the Olympics. Tape delay events to broadcast them when you damn well please. Make any sort of statistics about the events as they happen more difficult to find than the events themselves. They’re getting viewers, and if it worked in 1993, it’ll work now, right?
The flaw in their logic is the same as it is with the Tonight Show. Leno’s most well-known running gags are Jaywalking and Headlines. Thanks to YouTube, I can watch people be idiots without Jay prompting them with a question about US history. And Google makes it pretty easy to find “funny headlines”. Jay will get a consistent audience in the short term, but the day will come that he can’t get by on that shtick anymore. The same way with the Olympics- someday, the illegal feeds will get too numerous to keep whack-a-moling. Someday, people will watch the events live whether NBC wants them to or not. It’s not a question of if, it’s a question of when.
This isn’t to say that the reality aspect of the Olympics is a flaw. Far from it; the human interest stories are undeniably one of the great things about the Olympics and mainstream sports overall. But how it’s portrayed is crucial. Personally, I believe the gold (ha! Because it’s the Olympics!) standard for sports coverage is ESPN’s job on college football. Granted, it’s not perfect, Mark May continues to live and Pam Ward continues to be her little Pam self. It does do a great job of balancing the human interest with actual sports though, and the shining example of this is College Gameday. You get a few stories of the various games around the country….and then this happens.
[Chris Fowler]: And welcome back. You know, all too often we forget about the healing power of football. For one boy out of a small town in Alabama, it turned his life around. Tom Rinaldi has more.
[shot of an empty football field, piano music]
[Rinaldi voiceover] Football. The new American pastime. Enjoyed by many as a game, but for one family…it’s so much more.
[Mother]: I…I don’t know where we’d be right now if it weren’t for that. I really don’t know.
[Rinaldi] Her son was like any other boy in the neighborhood. Full of promise…but hanging around with the wrong crowd.
[Football player] Man, I was in with a bad crowd. Lookin’ back, it’s like…man, what was I doin’ there?
[Rinaldi] What he was doing there was hanging around a bad crowd. Skipping school. Selling drugs. And never coming home to his mother.
[Mother] He’d just stay out later and later…and then he just didn’t come home. I didn’t know what to do. What would you do? If that was your son? It’s just (dabs tear) so hard…(voice trails)
[Rinaldi]: Then one day brought change, though it wasn’t obvious at first.
[Football Player]: Coach came into lunch and saw me and told me I should try out for the team. I hadn’t even thought about it before. I didn’t think it’d be for me, you know, but I showed up anyway.
[Rinaldi]: And that’s when things started…..to turn around.
[Football Player]: Man, once I was on a team, you know, those guys depended on me. I had to go to class. I had to get out of that group. Straight and narrow, man. (smiles)
[Rinaldi]: With the help of his coach, mother and teammates, he was removed from his neighborhood and put in a better situation. The wins came on the football field…but that’s not what meant the most…back home.
[Mother]: When they said his name to walk across that stage…with a 3.2 GPA…I. I just. You don’t know how much that meant. Football saved his life. I know it.
[Rinaldi]: And now…so do we. More than a game….but also…a savior. (final notes on piano) FIN
Here’s the key, after the noon hour hits, ESPN gives you 8 hours of college football. And if you really don’t like the human interest stuff, you just wake up at 11:45 for the picks. The personal stories are covered, but not in a way that detracts from the games. NBC has no idea how to cover a sport on the merits of being a sport, case in point, their “coverage” of the NHL. Therefore they feel that the constant “look, this person is competing in skiing despite losing her teddy bear in the fourth grade” stories are necessary, because the sport is not enough to keep viewers. The point is this, NBC will never realize what it’s doing wrong until it’s too late. The execs can’t tell that the ratings are not from how they cover the Olympics, but in spite of it. And they never will. They’ll continue to do the bare minimum (check out their pathetic iPhone app for proof) to cover the games until they can do so no more. At least they’ve still got that Notre Dame football, right?
Popularity: 1% [?]
No related posts.
