Pros
• NBC's sports coverage is better. Sunday Night Football is the best sports broadcast on television. The network's broadcasts of Wimbledon and golf's U.S. Open are the highlights of those sports' respective seasons. In terms of production, NBC is top-notch. There are plenty of legitimate complaints about the network's coverage (and we'll get to them) but how it looks and sounds isn't one of them.
Fox dumbs down sports for the viewer and thinks cluttering the screen with graphics and adding whooshing sound effects enhance the broadcast. ESPN is all about promoting ESPN. Though the network's coverage of the 2010 World Cup proved it could be restrained, there's a difference between showing three, uninterrupted soccer games every day and coordinating between dozens of live events.
• Hosts/announcers. This plays into the last one. Bob Costas gets a lot of flak from snarky types who don't like the sweaters and fireside chats and how he and NBC turn the Olympics into a schmaltz-fest. Ask yourself though, were the alternatives any better? ESPN hosts are either professional and slightly boring (Bob Ley, John Saunders) or they're Chris Berman and Stuart Scott. Fox's best one, James Brown, left for CBS years ago. Try to name the guy who's the studio host for the network's NFL coverage. Even if you know it's Curt Menefee, I bet you had to think about it for a second.
Had another network won Olympic rights, there would have been plenty of defections of talent. The big names like Costas may not have been going anywhere. Analysts who specialize in a single sport (think Rowdy Gaines for swimming and Dick Button for figure skating) would have had nothing to do at NBC without an Olympics to call and would likely have jumped at an offer from Fox or ESPN had one been made. Still, having them there is comforting. They're good at what they do. And the thought of Gus Johnson yelling over speed skating races in 2014 would have given me nightmares until then.
• NBC is changing. The network said Tuesday that every event from each of those four Olympics will be available live on some platform. (Streaming Internet video seems the most likely.) With that announcement, the biggest complaint about NBC's coverage is wiped away.
Cons
• Tape delay, tape delay, tape delay. Streaming or not, it still sounds like NBC plans to tape delay television broadcasts. ESPN said in its bid that it would show all events live and compile a primetime compilation for the evening. If I'm reading between the lines of NBC's statement correctly, the network plans to stream some events live on the Internet and then hold their television broadcast until primetime. An improvement, but not the ideal.
Under Ebersol, NBC was notorious for tape delaying Olympic coverage until primetime, seeing it as the best way to attract viewers in the most profitable advertising time of the day. When Usain Bolt broke the world record in the 100 in Beijing, viewers here had to wait nearly 10 hours to watch it on TV. In the digital age of the Internet and Twitter and Facebook, that wasn't going to fly for too much longer.
The problem is that for all the carping, the tactic worked. NBC's ratings on the west coast (where all events on the main network are tape delayed) outpaced those on the east coast. People still watched the second week of Beijing coverage even though it was mostly pre-recorded. This won't be as big a problem in Rio for 2016 because the city's time zone (one hour ahead of New York) will allow most primetime coverage to appear live. In Sochi, it will be.
Maybe by 2016 the viewing experience on our computers will be equal to watching on TV. For now, streaming is an acceptable, if lesser, option.
• Lack of Disney involvement. In a statement released after the bidding, ESPN expressed regret that it didn't place the winning bid and gave a hint at what, beyond billions, that it would have done for the Games. "We put our best foot forward with a compelling offer that included the enthusiastic participation of all of The Walt Disney Company's considerable assets," the statement said. Participation of all Disney assets? Does that mean some of the creative minds at the company could have been tasked to come up with better Olympic mascots than these creepy things?
Any attempt by the U.S. Olympic Committee to launch a cable network would be in the distant future and would only come with approval from the International Olympic Committee and cooperation with its American broadcasting partner.via
USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun told The Associated Press on Wednesday there are no immediate plans to revive the idea of the network, which was widely criticized and eventually quashed last year because of political pressure.
“We are not having any discussions internally or externally about the network,” Blackmun said. “It's not on the back burner. It's not on the radar screen today.”
Blackmun was responding to reports that the USOC was eyeing a revival of the idea and planned to bring it up in negotiations with the IOC next year.
An episode from the American television series “Law and Order: Criminal Intent” has triggered outrage from the Rio de Janeiro 2016 Olympic bid.
The show depicts an attempt by a firm with financial interests in Rio's bid to buy a vote from a member of the Olympic Committee of Belgium. When the member agrees, she ends up murdered in New York.
Globoesporte.com in Brazil says a Rio 2016 statement condemned the “irresponsible and reckless use of the image of the Brazilian candidate, who is on the campaign to host the games."
The episode entitled “The Glory that Was” originally aired on the USA Network and NBC in the United States on June 14 without much criticism. However, when it aired in Brazil on Thursday on AXN Network, many took notice. NBC owns the rights to broadcast the Olympic Games in United States.
Rio’s Mayor Eduardo Paes called the show “ridiculous and pathetic” when he spoke to O Globo. He told the newspaper that it could even damage IOC members whose work is completely transparent in relation to the election – and he said it may hinder the U.S. application (for the 2016 Olympics) and strengthen Rio’s campaign. Chicago is also bidding for the 2016 Games.
Law and Order – CI is in its eighth season after becoming a spin-off of the popular Law and Order franchise. The show stars renowned actor Jeff Goldblum and Julianne Nicholson whose characters team up to solve the crime.
The USA Network Website synopsis of the episode describes “the dark politics behind the Olympic Site Selection Committee” and how the show’s murder victim “was the vote he needed on the Olympic Site Selection Committee that would throw the Olympics to Rio.”
The IOC has worked hard over the past decade to clean up its image after the highly publicized vote buying scandal in 1998. The site selection process has been re-engineered and the IOC assures that bribery is a thing of the past. Although the Law and Order show is fictional, it could awaken bitter memories at a crucial and sensitive time of the 2016 Olympic bid.
The depiction of the corrupt IOC member as a member of the Belgian Olympic Committee could add to the sensitivity of the issue; the current President of the International Olympic Committee, Jacques Rogge, was also the President of the Belgian Olympic Committee.
Rio and Chicago are also competing with Tokyo and Madrid to win the right to host the 2016 Olympics. The race is considered one of the closest in history and a single vote could be the difference between success and failure.
The winner will be determined by a vote of International Olympic Committee members on October 2 in Copenhagen. The high profile event will be attended by national leaders and royalty and perhaps even United States President Barack Obama. Via.
*Previously: Rio 2016 Desktop Wallpapers
The Hollywood Reporter ran a story recently with the title Olympic Network to debut in 2010 and subtitle, "Will air live events, archival footage and lifestyle shows."
Posts
All Comments
