FABOO MAMAInside the mind of an opinionated mama…

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I wrote an entry about the suckitude of NBC covering the Olympics back in 2006.  NBCs coverage certainly fell off 10 years previous, but since Sydney, it’s increasingly painful to watch.  It’s not the just the fluff pieces on the athletes where a knee scrape at the age of 6 is told with overwrought music and fraught with drama.  It’s not just the insufferable focus on American athletes, many of whom don’t stand a chance to win a medal, let along a gold one.  It’s not even the fact that if you do not have cable, you’ll miss 95% of the coverage.  The worst part of NBCs coverage, at least for me here on the west coast is the utter lie that is that taunting “LIVE” icon in the top right corner of my screen.

Opening Ceremonies carried that “LIVE” tag, even though earlier in the day I heard about all the technological feats from European friends a good 9 hours before I even had a chance to watch it.  Yesterday, people were talking about swimmer Michael Phelps wondering if he’d win his gold medal.  3 hours before it was shown here on the west coast, I already knew that he did.

I had this rant ready to go, but I just reread what I wrote in ’06 and it still stands today.  The 2 points I made then, I wanted to make today:

Not to knock on my fellow countrymen, but the best part about the Olympics is the internationality of it all. I love seeing people excel in sports that they shouldn’t have or surpass all kinds of odds just to get to the Olympics, but I have a feeling that Americans don’t have a corner on hardship*

AND…

Now let’s get to programming. Remember the days when the Olympics were carried live? Remember when you had to set your VCR to tape figure skating at 2:45pm? Well now, we’re subjected to 3.5 hours of highlights. By the time the Olympics air here on the West Coast, I already know who won. Hell, Comcast On-Demand has the winners up before NBC plays their stinkin’ highlight reel. And that’s exactly what it is: a flippin’ highlight reel. I have no idea what’s edited out until I see who’s competed. On the computer. Where it’s already tomorrows in Torino. You’d think that there are really only 6 people competing in any given sport. Those other names? They’re just ghosts of Olympics past.

I think that if I want to watch soccer and avoid gymnastics, I shouldn’t have to use a chart to determine when it will actually run and on what channel.  I should be able to watch an entire competition all the way through.  Instead, last night we got a chunk of gymnastics (US, China and Japan only, even though 5 other countries also competed), some swim races, a volleyball game, interviews with the US Women’s fencing team and highlights of other sports that weren’t televised at all.

How do they think  that is watchable?  That was just on the Universal HD (where it is so not HD) channel.  I popped over to USA Spain vs. Greece basketball and the commentators were calling color from a studio in New York!  I haven’t caught anything on MSNBC, Oxygen, Telemundo or CNBC mostly because I find it ridiculous I have to flip that much to watch old news. But I wish I knew the reason why content couldn’t be aired live across all timezones at the same time.  NBA finals, Super Bowl, World Series, Wimbledon, US Open, etc. are all aired at the same time in the US.  Why not the Olympics?

I really, really, really detest NBCs coverage and you can let them know at [email protected]