Today we're going to wrap up our coverage from Sochi by taking a look at the job NBC did with its coverage of the Games. As usual, NBC had its critics who always had to find something wrong with the coverage. Yet millions of people tuned in night after night, which is a pretty clear sign their system is working and makes you think they don't care what the critics say. And for the most part, NBC did a pretty solid job with its coverage from Sochi.
Let's start with the most obvious complaint of Twitterverse and their beloved "#nbcfail." There's no live coverage in prime time! What these people once again failed to understand is that Sochi is nine hours ahead of New York. In other words, when NBC came on the air at 8 p.m., it was 5 in the morning in Sochi. No events are going on at 5:00 in the morning. This was the same problem they had in London. It's not that they didn't want to show stuff live, it's that the time difference made doing so impossible. And that'll be the case whenever the Olympics are in Europe.
I love it how a lot of the people who complained about the primetime coverage didn't even live in the U.S., and if they did, they lived in a border city and got the Canadian coverage. They used the whole "they show it live no matter what time it is" argument. That's true, but they also showed stuff on tape in primetime, which is exactly the same thing NBC did. In London the "they should show it live and on tape camp" emerged. Well, what do you think they were showing on NBCSN all morning?
That's really the part I don't understand about the "it wasn't live" troop. If you wanted to get up in the middle of the night and watch the Olympics live, you were able to. Besides, NBC is trying to grow its cable channel. What better way to do that then using one of the network's biggest properties (the Olympics) to draw eyes to said cable channel? Especially since it was the middle of the night. I think using NBCSN for its overnight coverage was a great way for NBC to show events live for those who wanted to see them.
You can't even say they didn't show the marquee events live on TV. Because they did. NBCSN gave us the breakout stars of the Games--Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski as a part of their live figure skating coverage. Live coverage that included every skater, from start to finish, in every competition. They also showed every hockey game live on one of the FOUR cable channels they used in their coverage. And, in response to the frustrations many have had in the past, they once again streamed everything live online. Is that ideal? No. But if you wanted to get up at 3:30 in the morning to watch cross country skiing, you were able to. And I don't really think you can blame NBC for wanting to show events people were going to wanna watch during times when they might actually be able to watch them.
On most nights, the primetime coverage lasted from 8:00-11:30. Going into the Olympics, I wasn't sure if that was too long, too short, or just long enough. Turns out, three and a half hours was indeed just the right amount of time. For the most part, the primetime coverage was very good, and it featured more event coverage than anything else. And that event coverage was split nicely between sports, as well as within the different segments of the telecast. And I know this next part was probably pretty frustrating for a lot of people, but whatever the marquee event of the night was usually ended right around 11:00, which is the same time primetime was ending on the other networks. That wasn't a coincidence.
Outside of Mary Carillo's stuff, which is usually pretty entertaining, there were no more, or at least not as many, of those ridiculous features. And the features that they did show were, for the most part, worthwhile. And incredibly well done. The most notable of these being the story of the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl hockey team, the feature on Paralympic swimmer Jessica Long, and the wonderful Nancy & Tonya documentary.
I wish they hadn't crammed their destined-to-be-crappy sitcoms down our throats, though. They were panned (rightfully so) for cutting away from the Closing Ceremony in Vancouver for the premiere of "The Marriage Ref." Then in London, they used the Olympics as the lead-in for "Go On," which was at least actually funny, and "Animal Practice," as if anyone was going to think that show was any less stupid than all the commercials for it. Neither one of those shows lasted longer than a season (with the early cancellation of "Animal Practice" coming as a big surprise to everyone). That didn't workm yet for some reason they tried it again with "About a Boy" and "Growing Up Fisher." NBC, stop doing that! If you're going to use the Olympics to launch a new show, at least make it a good one!
That's where my criticism of NBC comes in. The Opening and Closing Ceremony should've been streamed live like the events, and the amount of editing NBC does on its TV coverage of the two ceremonies is almost too extreme. Especially the Closing Ceremony. That thing was definitely longer than two hours. And why were Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira/Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth the hosts?
Speaking of Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira, they were thrust into the primetime spotlight thanks to Bob Costas' eye. Bob didn't look good during the first couple of broadcasts, so his stepping aside on the Tuesday of the first week was the right decision. And I thought Matt Lauer did a superb job filling in. If Costas ever decided to move on from his Olympic hosting duties, I'd have no problem with Matt Lauer being named as a permanent replacement. He more than held his own. He was great. Meredith, on the other hand, was out of her element. She was OK. Not good, not bad, but you could tell she was uncomfortable.
I also agreed with NBC's decision to have them tag-team primetime in Bob's absence rather than shifting Al Michaels or someone else over from NBCSN. They would've had to juggle their entire host roster around if they'd done that, and it wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense to do that for just a couple of days. The fact that it turned out being almost an entire week didn't change that. Once Costas returned, he looked a lot better. He was probably close to 100 percent by the end of the Games. But we got a glimpse of the future and learned what an Olympics without Bob Costas might look like.
Probably because he was gone for a week, NBC didn't get to do a lot of the interviews and cultural stuff that they were planning. However, they hit a home run with the way they handled the elephant in the room. One of the things Americans made a big deal about heading into the Olympics was Russia's new "anti-gay" legislation. It was going to be a difficult topic to broach, but one that had to be broached nonetheless. The way they did it, though, was perhaps the best way possible.
On the late night show after the ladies' free skate, Johnny and Tara came to visit Bob and talk about the competition. Bob segued to it, noting that it was unrelated but still relevant, and asked Johnny how he had been treated in Russia. It's very clear to everyone that Johnny Weir is gay, and he doesn't hide that fact. So you'd think if anyone was going to be discriminated against in Sochi, it would've been him. And he responded by saying that everyone had been great towards him. As it turns out, after all that paranoia and overreacting, there was nothing to worry about.
Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski were the stars of NBC's coverage from Sochi, and I gained a lot more respect for Johnny Weir because of the way he handled that question. I just hope they find a way to utilize them in Rio. I'm also worried about how the "#nbcfail" community is going to react to the Rio Games. Because in Rio, NBC's going to get the chance to do something it couldn't in London and Sochi, show events live in primetime.
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