Wednesday, August 1, 2012

The NBCFail of 2012 - How do we fix it?

Wow, I haven't posted in a long time.  Nice to be back.

As you've no doubt heard, a lot of people have been complaining about NBC's coverage of the 2012 London Olympic Games.  I won't go into the details - scour the interwebs if you want - but I've got a few ideas on what is good, and a lot more ideas on what could be improved.  Here we go...

Good Things About NBC's Coverage:
Generally, I've liked the play-by-play on the sports.  The announcers are fairly competent.  I especially like the use of Pat Foley for water polo; it emphasizes similarities between that sport and hockey, and as a Blackhawks and hockey fan, it's just generally nice to hear that voice again.  Color analysis leaves something to be desired, but doesn't it always in every sport?

The use of all five NBC channels is very good - if you decided to spend the money on cable.  If you did, you can probably find coverage of every sport at least twice during the Games.  The streaming web coverage is also good, but it has its own problems.  One of them is the need to have purchased cable beforehand, and the other is that there is so much "stuff" on the website like scrolling news and medal alerts that it makes video viewing difficult at best and punch-my-screen aggravating at worst.

Coverage of more sports has improved in the past few Games.  Remember curling in 2010?  When did you see that during Olympics coverage in past years?

Generally, if you have cable, live coverage has been pretty good, especially with basketball, soccer, water polo, volleyball, and even my personal favorite, fencing.

Bad Things About NBC's Coverage
Commercials:  I think they're rotating the same ten commercials throughout the entire Games.  It's the Olympics -- who wouldn't want to run ads during them?  Increase the diversity, perhaps by lowering the price and attracting more buyers.

Opening Ceremonies: Air the entire thing, unedited.  If you have limited commercial interruption during soccer and basketball, you can limit it during the Ceremonies - show more during the Parade of Nations, if you must.  During the actual artistic performances, keep the commentary to a minimum; if you have to explain something, either explain it in one or two sentences, or STFU (Tim Berners-Lee is perhaps the most important inventor of the past fifty years or more, don't just tell me to "Google him," Matt Lauer).  On that note, drop one or both of the Daytime TV talking heads in favor of one or two news journalists.  No offense, but Brian Williams and Richard Engle are less likely to mispronounce the names of countries or mis-locate them, make stupid comments relating those countries to meaningless pop culture, or generally blather on idiotically.  The Parade of Nations is a good opportunity to educate viewers about other countries, or major happenings (did you know that the 2012 Games is the first time every country sent women athletes).



Live Coverage: Generally, more of it.  I don't anticipate this to be as much of a problem in 2016, when the Games are in Rio, which is only one hour ahead of the U.S. East Coast).  If there is a final/medal round, show it live, regardless of the sport or U.S. participation.  There are between one and five finals every day of the Games, and NBC-Universal has five channels to choose from.  Surely MSNBC does not need to show another episode of Lockup instead of the Men's 58-68kg Taekwondo Final - instead of watching convicts kick the crap out of each other, let's watch the best athletes do that!  Just showing all of the finals live would solve a lot of problems.


Primetime: Have less coverage of heats and quarter/semifinals.  If something surprising happened, like a broken world record or someone important choked, show it.  Otherwise, stick to the finals.  This could easily shave half an hour off the primetime coverage (when your show goes until 12am, you aren't primetime anymore), and this would allow younger viewers to see some of the sports they love.  

Keeping in mind the live coverage recommendations, feel free to show recorded finals, as long as you showed the live versions before.  Also, front load. Gymnastics, basketball, and swimming in front. I know you're trying to maintain viewer numbers, but when the big event shows at 10:30 at night, you've probably lost viewer interest to Keeping Up With The Kardashians.  

Take part of the time to show a less popular sport, like kayaking, or fencing, or sailing, especially if something interesting/surprising happens.  Build some knowledge among viewers and do those members of Team USA a solid (we can't all be gymnasts or basketball players).

Editing: Generally, don't do it. In women's gymnastics, NBC edited out and made no mention of a Russian gymnast's error on floor routine (in spite of the fact that she was the world champion in that event) and didn't show scores in order to make it “more dramatic.” These are the best athletes in the world competing against each other for the highest stakes short of their lives – it's dramatic enough. Would you hide the score for Game 7 of the NBA Finals or the Super Bowl?

Interviews and Human Interest Stories: Keep human interest stories to a minimum. Agreed, some athletes' backgrounds are fascinating and inspiring (Lolo Jones, anyone?), but I don't need to know what they eat or what they do on a normal day. I just assume, as Olympic athletes, they're not scarfing down cheeseburgers and Coke (despite what advertisements tell me) and playing video games. That's me.

Let the athletes shower/change before you interview them in primetime. I was slightly amused with Bob Costas' interview of the women's gymnastics team after they won gold. It had to be at least two hours after the event took place, and they were all in their leotards and warm-ups. I just saw them compete, I'm pretty sure I know who they are and what sport they're in. They can wear civvies. Besides, you're probably recording the interview for later showing – what's your rush?

Drop the insipid questions before and after events. Are you really going to ask Michael Phelps if he thinks he'll either be a champ or a choker at the end of the upcoming race? First, do you really think he's going to say, “Oh, I think I'm going to choke on this one?” Second, is he psychic? And be less blunt. Swimmer Kathleen Hersey noted that it had been a rough year in an interview, and Andrea Kremer interjected, “You're talking about the death of your mother.” Way to be tactful.  Also...Ryan Seacrest...out.  Just get rid of him.

Spoilers: Obviously, you can avoid these if you show more live events.  In promos, don't ever show the athletes with medals – even ones they already won. Show them doing what they do (Missy Franklin swimming, Gabby Douglas on the bars). If you're going to mention results on the news before you show the event, give a clear verbal warning, and then just show the final results on the screen without talking (that way, viewers can close their eyes if they want, or quickly flip stations).


Is this a preachy post.  Hell yes!  But I love the Olympics and I want to see better coverage.  Sadly, I doubt NBC will make any changes like this for 2014 or 2016 - they're making too much money to give a damn.

Do you have any ideas to make coverage better?  Post 'em in the comments.