God, Swimming Trash-Talk is Horrible

Do I have to talk about the Olympics? It’s a television blog, so I guess so, but I’m not sure I have much to add to the conversation that hasn’t already been driven home early and often.

Let’s not hedge the subject: NBC’s handling of the XXX Olympiad has been archaic. In the day of the DVR, advertisers buying time on television want live viewers—live viewers aren’t skipping the commercials they’re shelling out for, essentially negating their expensive efforts. Getting live viewers, in the wake of the popularization of the DVR, is not an easy task, but there is an important factor to success: you need programming the viewer does not want to wait for.

What kind of programming is that? In some cases it means exceptional, serialized television. Anything that is so good, so engaging, that the viewer wants to consume it as soon as possible. A healthy fear that any delay may result in spoilers—because all their friends and colleagues will be talking about it tomorrow—is helpful. Live events benefit here as well, particularly sports. Sports lose all tension when the outcome is known—unlike solidly written television. Sports don’t benefit from dramatic irony.

So NBC has the Olympics, a sporting event that people don’t want to miss because they know their friends and colleagues will all be talking about it. And what does NBC do with such a gift? They run it on tape-delay. They strip it of the power of being live. They forgo the boon of fear of spoilers. They pretend they exist in an era pre-DVR, pre-internet.

But that’s not all. They have also decided to use a broadcast method common to news programs: the hook. When you turn on the news, the first story you’ll be introduced to is the most interesting one of the night. That’s no mistake; it’s to make sure you don’t change the channel. It’s also the last story that is going to run—likewise, to keep you watching the channel. That’s what NBC has attempted to do with their editing. Popular events—like gymnastics—don’t expect to see those all the way through: they will be interspersed between the twentieth swimming preliminary and bland commentary by Ryan Seacrest (does NBC not have sportscasters?). It’s all designed to keep you watching a four hour program that contains 20 minutes of content you actually want to see.

Well, that’s what it’s designed to do, but, again, it seems that no one at NBC has quite figured out this whole DVR deal. They’ve disincentivized watching the programming live (because, well, it isn’t live), and, in a misguided effort to force prolonged viewing of a tape-delayed presentation, have incentivized DVRing the tape-delay. It’s like they want their advertisers to pull out.

Here’s how my consumption of the Olympic Games has played out. My girlfriend comes home knowing everyone who has won and lost. Either she’s read it on Facebook, or a co-worker or friend has mentioned it in passing, or her own curiosity has led her to Google. She then hits record on NBC, and we go about our night doing non-Olympic type things. With about a half hour left in the NBC programming for the night, we fire up the DVR and skip right to the events that are still visually interesting enough to watch, like gymnastics and maybe some diving (races—swimming—these retain no value once the winner is known).

While I don’t believe everyone is as methodical, this type of behavior seems the equilibrium point for the perfect shit-storm that is NBC Olympic coverage.

NBC has countered a lot of the backlash, but it only seems to reveal further ineptness within the network. To their credit, they claim they’re providing a “story” that the American audience wants to see—through their editing and interviews. In that sense, they are probably aware that the program needs a draw to combat the effects of tape-delay (much like how viewers will watch television shows even after being “spoiled” because the story contains additional content). But their story is neither compelling nor dynamic. It serves, instead, as a repetitive talking point in which commentators frame every action and inaction. The narrative is stagnant. How many times do we need to be reminded that Phelps didn’t take his training as seriously after Beijing? How many times do we need to recognize and agonize over Wieber failing to qualify for the all-arounds?

I could go on, but others have done it for me, and have done it better justice:

Here is a post about NBC editing to create non-existent tension. Here is an article about Twitter’s (and, by proxy, NBC’s) censorship of this journalist’s criticism of NBC’s Olympic coverage. And here’s Jon Stewart’s take, to lighten to mood.