The Olympics: Championship coverage
Posted on August 11th, 2008 – 1:58 PMBy Neal Justin
It’s only been four days, but let’s give NBC’s early coverage a silver medal. Friday’s opening ceremonies was a bit much on spectacle (one guy running on walls was enough for me, thanks), but it lived up to the hype and Bob Costas and Matt Lauer proved why they’re two of the best in the business.
The fact that China is holding some of their major events at 10 a.m. their time (around 9 p.m. our time) is paying off splendidly, especially with the heart-stopping swimming relay Sunday night in which even the announcers couldn’t believe the USA’s comeback.
So why not the gold? A few quibbles:
Did daytime host Jim Lampley have some bad chow mein? The man, while being nothing short of professional, looks bored, wan and completely disengaged. Lampley is better than this. Something’s amiss here…
When I see more of Christian Slater than Michael Phelps, then something is very, very wrong. I understand that part of the reason NBC snagged the Games is so they could promote their upcoming fall sked, but enough is enough. I’m now well aware that Jack Nicholson Jr. is starring in some suspect new drama, “My Own Worst Enemy,” thank you very much. Now stop stuffing it down my throat!! The number of ads during prime-time is nauseating.
8 Responses to "The Olympics: Championship coverage"
For the first time in recent memory, I’m seeing more of one event at a time instead of so many chopped-up kibbles of coverage. Much better. And the limited commercial breaks during the men’s basketball game Sunday was very nice - and Coke’s ads were different from one another - not like those Slater promos. But I agree with your comments on Lampley - I’ve seen him before, and he looks and sounds jet-lagged. Maybe he’s worried about censorship by the Chinese government.
Neal
I think you are barking up the wrong tree when complaining about the opening ceremonies. NBC just broadcasts what is there. The Chinese were completely responsible for the opening ceremonies and I thought it was very good. Probably the best I have ever seen. (And it should be for the reported cost of $100 million)
I think NBC and all it’s cable channels are doing a great job of showing as much of the competitions as possible. Let’s just hope it continues.
No complaining needed. What if the games were on FOX or ESPN?
I would agree with you, but then I saw Kiki Barber today….
Could Jim Lampley’s lack of enthusiasm this weekend have anything to do with the fact that when he was on, the rest of Beijing was sound asleep? We were watching the graveyard shift at work.
I would say Silver as well, but every time Andrea Cramer fumbles through her akward post-swimming interviews I lean towards handing out the bronze. And the Fall Season show-previews…enough already. At this point they’re probably reaching 5 or 10 “incremental/unaware-of-the-show” viewers. The rest of us are just tempted to change the channel.
The worst coverage of all time was of the Winter Olympics at Nagano in 1998.
They’d do ten minutes of action, then ten minutes of cheesy athlete profiles or gee-whiz travelogs of Japan, followed by five minutes of commercials (the same ones over and over). The signal to noise ratio was disgusting.
I was very happy last night when NBC showed the final rotations of the men’s gymnastics team competition uninterrupted. Let’s hope they do more of that type of thing.
I’m glad NBC has limited the amount of feelgood athlete profiles where we learn that the person had polio and rickets and an extra arm, but overcame the odds to be able to run 200 meters today. I’m actually enjoying the cable coverage better. It is fun seeing other teams excel in the more obscure sports versus being forced to watch swimming and gymnastics because this is what NBC presumes we all want to watch.
