NBC Olympics Coverage, Making Sports Fans Hate The Network More Than Ever

So let me get this straight, 4 years ago when Bode was fully plugged into the NBC hype machine he could’ve cared less. Nevertheless NBC felt the need to broadcast every event and rip him at every turn. Now that he is flying below the radar, yet fully bought in to the Olympics, they don’t seem to care because there hasn’t been ample hype.

Think we’ll see this same type of coverage with Vonn? No way. She is their chosen star, therefore they will do all they can to center coverage around her.

I want to watch curling. NBC wants to give me curling during the day and craptastic figure skating spliced together with a bit of stuff I do care about in prime time. Instead of watching primetime, I will watch my DVRed curling. I might even let the commercials run if I"m doing other things. The human interest stories and idiotic jumping from sport to sport is miserable. The new figure skating judging scheme takes so much time that they can now cram in a commercial between the end of a performance and when the scores are announced. Why not tape delay some of that?

Oh, yeah, and what’s with not using all their available networks during primetime?

nbcolympicsfeedback@nbcuni.com

It’s incredible that they have something this good and they’re screwing it up anyway. This is a level of epic failure that is familiar only to hard-core devotees of the Democratic Party.

I don’t mind human-interest stories— really, I don’t— but for God’s sake, slot them in when there is less going on (like, say, the last 15 minutes of a cross-country race, which is effectively over by then anyway). Last night featured the marquee events of both Alpine skiing and men’s speed skating, in addition to the highly entertaining snowboard cross. By my count we watched 6 of 15 SBX races, 6 of 25-odd downhill medal contenders, and ZERO speed skating. Instead we were treated to, in addition to the endless commercials, promos and puff pieces, a parade of pairs skating the quality of which can only be fairly described as complete garbage. This was truly a new low in broadcasting.

Put figure skating on its own damn channel. The people who want to watch it for the most part don’t give a shit about the real Olympics anyway. Leave the rest of us in peace to enjoy real sports that don’t involve clown costumes and major screwups every 2.5 minutes.

I wish someone could explain to me how having tape delayed events and showing it until MIDNIGHT EST is helping people enjoy the Olympics – some of us have to get up at 5am. You couldn’t end the Olympics at 11 so you can see the news and call it a night? Most of the medal ceremonies are on during the “late night” hour. The Men’s short figure skating program doesn’t say “Live” so you know that this is on a tape delay.

NBC is killing us with all the “personal interest” stories — and you’ll see Short track in :17 minutes, downhill in :22, etc. With all the media outlets available, as well as all the channels at their disposal, there should be no reason for the events to be going on until Midnight and later.

We were subjected to 20 minutes of “Polar Bear plunge” yesterday as well (Thanks, Mary) and watching Jenna Bush Hager try to snowboard, and Meredith, Natalie and Kristi out barhopping in Vancouver. Yep, that’s all very important. And, if and when Lindsay Vonn should ski, I will turn the games OFF (if they aren’t off already). Enough of “America’s Sweetheart” and her issues with an injury that she kept hidden until she got to the games. Oh the DRAMA .,.. (please!). One more day she can rest – one more .. OH and another day.

Dick Button needs to GO …, and now. He’s 100 years old (at least!) and he was an Olympic Gold Medalist 50 years ago. There are plenty of other gold medalists who could do “color commentary”.

Very disappointed in NBC. Here’s hoping they NEVER do another Olympics.

There are ways to watch the Olympics other than suffering through NBC’s usual amateurish approach.

One way is by signing up at NBCOlympics.com. You can get to see at least some of the events in their entirety. (Your cable operator/satellite provider has to have signed up an agreement with NBCOlympics.com for you to be able to do that.) It’s free. The drawback-or maybe not-is that you see the Olympic feed, sans announcers and analysts. That may not be a problem for everyone.

Another way. Your cable or satellite provider may have some of the events available via On Demand. My cable company-Cablevision of New York-has the entire Pairs Short Program in Figure Skating available On Demand, without commercials.

You can also check online to see how. CTV may and there may be others.

I was typing quickly that last paragraph.

You can check online. I know that Yahoo! does provide live Olympic coverage with EuroSport, and CTV might have some coverage available online and their may be others., Please do a search if you’re interested.in that.

I think (but am not positive) that NBC has to split the sports because they are technically being broadcast live (in EST at least). So unless they stagger the events so none coincide, they have to switch back and forth.

Of course, that’s no excuse for those of us in the Pacific timezone – given that the coverage is already tape-delayed, they really should make it more convenient for us and group the coverage by sports. I don’t want to have to keep flipping back to NBC in hopes of catching Snowboard Cross – I ended up missing the semifinals because I thought they would stick with figure skating.

I think NBC has been doing this piecemeal broadcasting for as long as I can remember – but they need to realize that things are different now – we have social networking sites where we can get results in real-time. We are used to viewing tv episodes on demand (with Hulu and the like). We do not want to sit through 4 hours of coverage just to see 5 minutes of Snowboard Cross. And I did not want to stay up until midnight (possibly) to see the finals of SBX – luckily they showed the final right at 11pm.

At the very least, they should post what time the events are coming up – I watched the ladies’ short program on Universal Sports (NBC’s affiliate?) and they had specific times on when certain skaters would be skating. Like Sasha Cohen was skating at 9:59pm, so you could flip to another channel and come back later to see Sasha skate. These events at the Olympics all have specific start times (though sometimes they might be delayed for various reasons) – but NBC wants to force us to sit there and watch every minute of their coverage.

I tried watching the finals of the short track speed skating event (that Apolo Ohno won the silver) and unfortunately, it’s “premium content” over at NBC Olympics. I don’t have cable/satellite so I was out of luck. And no luck at CTV – their site is geo-blocked for Canada only.

I hope another network takes over broadcasting the Olympics. I can’t remember how CBS or ABC did it – it’s been so long.

I was in Canada over the long weekend. The Olympic coverage was incredible! They have CTV basically providing all day coverage of events from 9am until the last event. Other stations like TSN and CBC, continually provide updates throughout the day and highlights of major events. What’s even better is on the CTV website you can stream all events live, no restrictions!

I am sad to come back to the U.S. only to find the scant coverage that NBC is providing. Its a huge dissapointment and infuriates me to no end! What’s worse is if you try to go to NBC online, you can’t watch live events streamed if you aren’t already a subscriber to a cable provider that has negotiated with them! What’s the point in that!

NBC is crap!

We are talking about the most prestigious of sports events in the WORLD. I understand that there is A LOT to cover but AT LEAST have live coverage of the BIG events suchs as Lindsey Vonn skiing for gold today on the alpine downhill skiing. I mean, they hype her up all week long and then don’t even give us live coverage of it. It was ruined for me because I found out the results on ESPN before NBC even showed it…bastards. I am still waiting to see Shani Davis win the gold medal. I just hate how we already know the results before we can even watch it. We wait four years for the winter olympics and it gets all screwed up because of crappy coverage. Give us a channel that can have olympics on ALL day. How long do they have coverage for anyways. I heard NBC paid over 1 billion dollars for the 2012 olympics UGH

I’m back for more complaining only to know that RIGHT NOW Mens Super G Alpine Skiing is happening but NBC is showing all these bullshit interviews. I loathe NBC, Costas, Sanders and all the other wrinkly men covering the Olympics on NBC.

2010 Winter Olympics

How stupid can NBC be to tape delay the winter Olympics for us in the Pacific Time Zone? And, to see it start at 8:00PM and save the best for 11:30PM when everyone gave up and went to bed. They paid to the time so their milking and milking the time until the end!!!!!!! Good thing this is their last Winter Olympics. And to add insult, Bob Costa should just shut up and let us view the Olympics. He just keeps talking and talking and talking to get some athlete to make an unwarranted comment. It’s like NBC wants something to gossip about? And other announcers, trained by Bob Costa, should watch more and then be heard?

Just an awful job! Cannot wait for the WINTER OLYMPIC’S to end so the same damn advertisement JUST STOP. NBC spoiled the whole Winter Olympics.

hockey and curling for hours and hours. is nbc joking? It is sunday afternoon and the only sport being shown for the past hour on two stations is hockey and curling. This is one of the worst olympic coverages in decades. i hope nbc looses more money then anticipated.

NBC screwed up not showing the USA – CANADA hockey game on NBC Sunday. Not everyone has access to MSNBC. It is one of the biggest events of these Olympic Games.

I’m not even THAT into winter olympics, but I didn’t think I’d be this frustrated. How is the west coast OK with this??? I feel like I’m being effed with