Mostly Live From Paris

I always find it funny when people don't care about something at all when it's announced, then have all kinds of things to say about it weeks or even months later after they suddenly decide they care.  NBC announced its primary broadcast strategy for the Paris Olympics more than a year ago--with the Games in Europe, live coverage all morning and afternoon, with a "reimagined" primetime show featuring highlights and replays (I don't know why this bears repeating every time there's a European Olympics, but live coverage during primetime is not possible because of the time difference).

Anyway, NBC unveiled its detailed daily schedule for the entire Olympics (which is, of course, subject to change), and it inevitably drew a share of derisive articles mockingly congratulating NBC for not showing the Olympics "plausibly live" (aka, on tape delay).  While I get that the interest has only increased over the past few weeks as the Olympics get closer, that's not exactly breaking news.  It's also not something new.  The last three Olympics were in Asia, so it's easy to forget, but NBC made the move to mostly-live in 2016 (when the Games were in Rio, which is only an hour ahead of the East Coast).  And they started showing the Opening Ceremony live in Tokyo.  The only real difference here is that this Olympics is in Europe.

It's been 10 years since the last European Olympics.  A lot has changed between then and now.  (For starters, the 2014 Winter Games were IN Russia, now Russia isn't even allowed to compete!)  In this era of streaming (with every event available on Peacock and NBCOlympics.com), NBC knows they have to make everything available live.  Which is something they started doing even when they were "holding" events for broadcast later.  In 2014, they showed the figure skating live during the day on NBC Sports Network before airing it again on tape-delay in primetime.

At the last three Olympics, the time difference was a major issue.  Since Asia has reverse time zones, they were able to show stuff live in the U.S. during primetime because it was the next morning.  The daytime show had to be on tape delay, though, because they didn't have a choice.  It was the middle of the night!  (And, for the record, they did show it all live on cable.)

Also, I hate to burst this bubble, but there will still be tape-delayed events during NBC's coverage of the Paris Games (and not just on the primetime and late night shows).  There was never not going to be!  They can only show one event at a time, and there's stuff that'll be live on cable while something else is on NBC, then shown again on NBC after that other event is over.

Even before they announced the detailed schedule, it was easy to anticipate that they'd tape delay some stuff.  The morning sessions in swimming start at 5 a.m. Eastern each day.  NBC's daytime block isn't starting until 9 a.m. after the Today Show.  The swimming finals will be shown live at 2:30 p.m.  They have to show that day's prelims sometime before the finals, which means they're getting shown on tape delay sometime between 9-2:30.

There's also an advantage to tape-delayed coverage that the critics like to ignore.  It can be edited.  When you're broadcasting live, there's a lot of down time you need to fill.  Yes, that can be the perfect time for one of NBC's sappy athlete profile pieces or to swing over and check out another event.  But how often is that filler exactly that?  Trying to fill time before the next heat.  If you're on tape delay, though, you can cut all of that dead time out and just make it look like it went right from one heat to the next.

Swimming morning sessions can also get incredibly long, with multiple unseeded heats between swimmers who have absolutely no shot of advancing to the semifinals.  By tape delaying the morning swimming sessions, they'll be able to cut out those unseeded heats and only show the three or four relevant seeded heats of each race.  It makes for a much more manageable time frame.

NBC is primarily using the broadcast network for its linear coverage from Paris.  That means all of the marquee events will be on NBC.  Except they can only show one thing at a time.  So, if there are two events that they want to show happening simultaneously, one will have to be tape delayed.  That's just a simple fact.

USA, meanwhile, will be the primary cable home and have 24-hour coverage.  That, obviously, means not everything on USA will be live, either!  USA's primetime schedule during the Olympics, in fact, will be mainly replays of one of the American teams in a team sport...and they'll continue to replay stuff until 4/5 a.m. when the first events of the next day get underway!  And some of the stuff that airs on USA during those early-morning hours will be shown again on NBC once their coverage window begins.

The big difference here, really, is that this is the first Olympics taking place in Europe since NBC moved to the primarily live strategy.  In London (when they showed plenty of live events during the day, just like they will in Paris) and Sochi, it was still the old way, when tape delay was more accepted (even though they drew plenty of criticism for it then, too).  So, yes, this will be a different experience.  But is it, really?

This year's Olympic broadcast schedule isn't all that dissimilar than what NBC did 12 years ago in London.  In 2012, they had Dan Patrick & Al Michaels tag-teaming daytime coverage...which was all live.  As was the morning coverage.  And primetime, again, has to be tape delayed when the Olympics are in Europe.  The main difference between now and the London Games is that the marquee events will end up being on NBC twice...once live during the day, then again on tape delay during primetime.

In the past, their focus was on the primetime show, which is why they held events to be shown then.  That strategy has shifted.  In 2018, NBC started airing the East Coast primetime show live across the country.  This year, it won't be (because there's no need), but the afternoon show is.  Today will be on at its normal time everywhere, though, so the Mountain and Pacific time zones will join in progress, then get an extra hour (Mountain) or three hours (Pacific) tacked on at the end.  That will all be on tape delay (the day's events will be over by then).

Now, the emphasis is more on the live coverage, which seems to be what people want.  I'm actually very curious to see how this strategy works out.  Will people still tune into the primetime show knowing it will be vastly different than what they're used to?  I don't even know what to expect in primetime!  What I do know, though, is that the daytime show will be the focus in a way it never has before.

European Olympics are unique in that everything is done by 7 p.m. Eastern.  Four years from now, it'll be vastly different.  LA is, obviously, three hours behind the East Coast, so the Olympic day won't even get started until about 10-11 a.m. Eastern, and the primetime show will be almost entirely live.  So will the late night show for that matter!  Then the Olympics are in Brisbane, which is essentially another Games in Asia time-difference-wise.  So, NBC's programming strategy for Paris, whether it's successful or not, will be very different than its programming strategy for LA.

Americans have gotten used to watching sporting events from Europe live during the morning and afternoon.  NBC is aware of that, and aware of the general attitude that people would rather watch something live than on tape delay.  So, in Paris, that's exactly what they'll do.  For the most part.  Completely live was never going to happen...and that's OK!  Because NBC is giving people what they want with its mostly-live Olympic coverage from Paris.