Every one-and-a half to two-and-a-half years, the world pauses to celebrate the pageantry and the pomp that is the Olympics.
And every one-and-a half to two-and-a-half years, Americans bitch about NBC's coverage of them, while those who are lucky enough to get CBC's coverage from Canada (in Detroit, Buffalo, Seattle, Burlington, Vt., or anywhere near the Canadian border.
And judging by the comments in this story from TV Barn, it's clearly CBC by a landslide.
According to some, Canada's public broadcaster covers the Olympics with more depth, better analysis, and less hokeyness (i.e. those stupid athlete profiles), while NBC doesn't even know how to remove a "live" tag for Pacific and Mountain time zones.
Despite the complaints, Americans are watching NBC's coverage, with the peacock network now averaging more than 196 million viewers throughout the Olympics.
Meanwhile, CBC is losing the Olympic rights to private broadcaster CTV and cable sports channel TSN. Both are owned by CTVglobemedia.
So now it's a tradition to bash NBC's Olympic coverage. What else you'd expect from the past and future home of Knight Rider?
2 comments:
The CBC can cover it differently than NBC because Canada has far fewer medal contenders than we do. Most Americans are only interested in Team USA. Also, NBC is tailoring it's coverage to those that may not be regular viewers of sports, that is why they have the personality profiles. People want a reason to root for somebody beyond the nationalistic angle. It's all about the rating$$$ and the $$$$. They show the sports that will draw the casual viewers in. In order to really get a feel for what is going on, you need to watch the cable channels and NBC is putting them to good use with live events. There is nothing like watching the Redeem Team lay the smackdown live while eating breakfast.
Good explanation! I have watched the Olympics on the cable channels more because they cover the more obscure sports NBC usually doesn't cover (boxing, equestrian, softball, badminton, etc.)
Liked the fact they brought back the old "NBA on NBC" tune for the basketball.
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