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OK, I'll admit it. There are sports in the Olympics that I, as a generally non-sports person, really wanted to see. Downhill skiing, halfpipe, ice dancing, slalom, bobsled, and a few others. Not only was I gung-ho to watch the coverage, I set the DVR to record so I could get a chance to review and savor.
The first couple of days, it went pretty well. As the end approaches I am just AMAZED at how bad the breaking up of the events has been. Even one of the public radio shows commented today that if you watch the Olympics, it appears that there is only one event on NBC, where people race on skis down a hill, play some hockey, do some dance skating, and are shot at by people doing cross country skiing.
I just watched one segment where almost the entire event was run, right down to the showdown, and the announcer said "when we come right back..." and it NEVER came back to that event in the segment. That is totally unreal. When did Olympic coverage turn into a shaggy dog story???
Although the skaters this year don't have announcers yammering and drowning out the music during their programs, that style of coverage has just been moved en-masse to womens' downhill, where the female announcer all but relates how much play-doh the skiers ate in their childhood, along with whatever other canned "color" she found on the back of a cereal box, during the time that they are racing down the slopes.
In my personal opinion, I think NBC should be BANNED from bidding on covering the next Olympics. The network focus in Canada was more on whining about seaplane noise than covering the sports properly. To the few members of on-air talent that really attempted to do coverage, and the camerapeople that did their part with professionalism, I give kudos. To the network, I give a stinky rotten tomato aimed squarely at the peacock.
I didn't mind the coverage in general though I didn't see the items you mentioned. Those do sound annoying.
I like the technology used in the coverage. I liked the stories on the athletes and found them interesting and sometimes inspiring. I liked the announcers. The only thing that bugged me about the announcers was Keith Olbermann. As a sports announcer I think he does a very good job. But he is also a very polarizing figure due to his show on MSNBC. It would be like Fox broadcasting the Olympics and having Glenn Beck as part of the sportscasting crew.
Perhaps they should have had Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan together hosting and commentating on the ice skating. Do it with a split screen or a small screen to the side like they do for sign language. They could have thrown in Joan Rivers and Cojo to comment on the figure skater's outfits. Given enough time, Joan could have had Tonya and Nancy working together to try to shut her up.
Doggonit, sailordave. I have to spread some rep around before I can rep you again. You got me snorting my drink with that comment.
Niners, the first couple of days were fine. I agree with you in general. Some of the tech stuff was really good, and I think some of the camerawork - both mechanical and live - was great. It just seemed to all fall apart on continuity as the coverage continued. Maybe they all just got too tired and worn out and didn't have a second crew to give them breaks.
I've lost interest in the Olympics in general. I don't like all the backstories. I don't like the same athletes coming back year after year. I don't like all the country-shopping the athletes do to find a team to play on. It's like the Miss America pagent when the contestants go state to state to find one they can win in.
Aren't there 3 sibling ice dancers skating for 2 different countries? The live in New Jersey, but 2 siblings will skate for Japan and another sib will skate for Republic of Georgia. I don't know. It takes away the country vs. country thing.
All 3 Reed siblings go to Olympics in ice dancing - 2010 Olympics - Yahoo! Sports (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/vancouver/figure_skating/news?slug=ap-fig-multinationalfamily&prov=ap&type=lgns. - broken link)
I would prefer to see some sport and see every single contestant - good and bad, and not just the good ones.
I have watched alittle bit of coverage. The downhill "color" announcer - it was a female - talked way too much and often had to backtrack on some of the things she said.
The main thing I don't like is their seeming to desire to get athletes to hate each other or fight. That was worse last Olympics when they tried to get Shani Davis and Hendricks to fight, but even this Olympics many of the interviews were "do you know what X said about you?" It's an almost overt attempt to create another Harding/Kerrigan feud and it's sickening.
Also the tendency to list only the medal winners and then the remaining Americans is occasionally irritating. Maybe I'm interested in whose fifth even if they're not from the US? Or maybe I think it just looks junky to go from third to fifteenth.
I was very annoyed with how they pushed certain athletes on us to root for and others to villanize. The long puff pieces on certain athletes were nauseating and only made me want to root for the other athletes. The biggest example being the "Cold War" with men's figure skating. I really wish I had other options to watch the olympics and not just on NBC. It would be great if all the big 3 networks aired the olympics at the same time. I was so sick of lindsey Vonn by the time the games were over. You would think the entire games were about 5 athletes and that's it. No one else mattered to NBC.
It saddens me when kids give up USA citizenship to go compete for another country. It is like they have slapped all the surviving family members of soldiers that have given up their lives for our free country. Then on top of it they are letting kids decide this big life changing decision?
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It is like they have slapped all the surviving family members of soldiers that have given up their lives for our free country. Then on top of it they are letting kids decide this big life changing decision?
