I Bet I Could Medal In Jaywalking
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. (more…)
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