In what’s becoming a nightly tradition during the Olympics, I will once again get on NBC’s case for pulling the dreaded tape delay on us, this time for the Men’s Moguls. This was a moment that became history for Canada as Alexandre Bilodeau won the first gold medal on home soil. As I was watching and thinking that coverage was live, suddenly Tweets from CTVOlympics, even NBCOlympics and other fans watching in Canada mentioned that Bilodeau had won. This was a good 25 minutes before Bilodeau was about to ski on NBC.
Because NBC wanted to show the bread-and-butter for its coverage, figure skating, it chose to delay this moment. There was no disclaimer from NBC saying it was taped. However, the ratings are proving that people are watching and putting up with NBC’s coverage. I wouldn’t mind if NBC had put Moguls and Luge on one of its channels, MSNBC perhaps. This is what the Canadian Olympic Broadcasting Consortium is doing. Hockey is on CTV, Moguls on TSN and figure skating on Rogers Sportsnet, this way, you get to watch events live and you can pick and choose your event. This works.
If NBC wants to use the full power of its cable networks, pull what Canada’s Olympic Broadcasting Consortium is doing. Of course, it won’t do it for these games, but I can ask.
I will say the live afternoon coverage of the Nordic Combined was compelling although analyst Chad Samela screaming over Al Trautwig as American Johnny Spillane won the US’ first medal in the event was a bit much.
I know some of you are wondering if I can find anything positive about NBC’s coverage. Ok, for this post I will.
As usual, Bob Costas is tremendous. He’s America’s Olympics Host and he’s very good at being traffic cop and he can find some of the best tidbits to pass along to the viewer.
Jonny Moseley has impressed me at the Moguls. For both the women’s and men’s events, he has come up big. He hasn’t talked down to viewer, he has explained jumps, told us why certain skiers have to go all out on their runs and even notes the little things like separation in posture. I thought he would do well and he has.
Jimmy Roberts does a bang-up job on his features. One of the best writers on TV, Dick Ebersol hired him away from ESPN to do features for the Olympics on golf, Olympics and tennis. He excels in each sport. I look forward to his reports whenever he’s on.
Mike Emrick is one of the best at calling hockey and as usual, he’s doing well early in the Games calling the women’s tournament. When Teams Canada and USA went into blowout mode on their respective opponents, Doc quickly went from play-by-play to conversation with analyst AJ Mleczko asking her about training methods, past Olympic moments, even discussing her time in China. He’s always a fun listen.
Dan Jansen, the analyst on long track speedskating has been very informative on the races he’s called.
Duncan Kennedy and John Morgan on the luge have done very well.
Dan Patrick doing scenesetters from the moguls has added a very good touch.
As for those I haven’t liked thus far, the aforementioned AJ Mleczko has talked too much for my tastes.
Cris Collinsworth’s “Aw shucks” reports are not working for me. They didn’t work for me in 2008 and I wish he was not used in Olympic coverage.
I’m surprised how much I’m disappointed in Al Michaels’ hosting during these Olympics. Again, he still has some time to win me over, but I haven’t been impressed in his first three days in the studio thus far.
So you have my likes and dislikes thus far. Feel free to comment. You haven’t been shy thus far. I always post the negatives and the positives. Fire away.
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