NBC Olympic Coverage: Could Have Been Worse, Let's Hope It Gets Better

NBC did a great job handling the broadcast duties. Although most of the people making commentary on the games were actually doing so from studios in New York, they were always up front about where they were broadcasting from. This is something that ESPN failed at miserably for the World Cup in 2006 and Euro 2008. While it is nice to have the broadcast live from the venues, logistics means that a higher quality broadcast can be had from a central studio, especially when it comes to some of the lesser games.

The biggest problem with Olympics is always the time delay, and NBC did move mountains to get the swimming finals to happen in the mornings instead of the evenings, putting the finals in primetime on the East Coast. However, that was mostly to get Michael Phelps, the marketing golden boy in front of as many eyes as possible, allowing NBC to rake in the advertising dollars. They couldn't do it for the track and field finals, which meant we never got to see Usain Bolt break records live. Even worse, if you were on the West Coast, the tape delay meant you didn't even get the swimming events live.

While most of the big sports did get decent coverage, I thought there were too many interruptions in a lot of others. Even though I didn't watch much gymnastics or diving, I noticed that the coverage on those events was Americans, Chinese, plus one or two other medal contenders. Even worse, we would often get to these competitions halfway through. I would think it would be better to utilize one of their channels to show these events live in their entirety. I am sure Oxygen could use some additional programming. I know it's not their fault with some of scheduling, but towards the end the programming was getting a little thin. the 50K racewalk at least provided some laughs.

A lot of people complained about the commentators, and how they only talked about Americans, but I think most people in the states want to see our athletes, especially if they are in contention. The Olympics are about the hard work of the athletes. Imagine, you are the number one American in the trampoline. Your best hope is to finish in the top 10. I bet you are happy with the jingoistic producers at NBC deciding your routine is the most important one of the day.

My biggest problem with Olympics is usually the human interest stories. I think Mary Carillo is a talented commentator, but NBC had her doing the worst Dick Enberg-style puff pieces. Sure these portions are supposed to be light-hearted, but I think they could have done more with her than sending her off to the international kite festival. The other problem with the human-interest portions was that sometimes the commentators were ill-prepared if the favorite in the event did not medal in an event. Part of the beauty of having the studio in NY is that it should be easier to put together lots of stuff on the run, and I think NBC should dig up a couple hundred more interns to do research next time.

If you have DirecTV, the Olympic experience was better. They placed the Olympic channels at 750-756, so you wouldn't have to hunt around, and if you have DirecTV OnDemand, you were able to download many popular events if you missed them, and yes, much of the content was in HD. There was a dedicated HD Soccer channel, and other than the awful Marcello Balboa, it was nice to see many of those matches in their entirety. A dedicated HD basketball channel would be awesome.

So, NBC has some work to do, but I do think they are getting better. The worst news to come out of the Olympics was that ESPN would be bidding to broadcast the games. ESPN is painful to watch, is an even bigger shill for parent company Disney than NBC is with GE, and are even worse when it comes to trying to create stories out of nothing. I think we need more Olympics in primetime, but if I have to suffer through 4 hour episodes of Sportscenter, no thanks.