NBC’s decision to tape-delay the Olympics has been vilified almost unanimously, for good reason. Especially on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook, they’ve been receiving a steady stream of hate from Day 1, when they decided to make the Opening Ceremony unavailable on both television and their website until they could air it hours later in primetime. Since then they’ve continued this policy by delaying marquee events like swimming and gymnastics until the big money hours, showing them via web stream, but not as part of the television package.
NBC Sports Chairman Mark Lazarus recently sat down with Sports Business Daily to defend this policy, and I have helpfully pulled out some of his most ridiculous quotes in case any of you needed a good excuse to go blind with rage and huck your laptop into a wall like a discus. Enjoy.
“I think what we’ve proven is that the American viewing public likes the way we tell the story and wants to gather in front of the television with their friends and family — even if they have the ability to watch it live either on television or digitally,” Lazarus said. “I inherently trust that decision is the right one and that people want to see these events.”
Yes, of course people want to see the events. That’s the whole point of putting them on television. To see them. Our issue isn’t that you aren’t letting us see them at all, our issue is that you’re operating under the belief that today — in 2012 — people will be perfectly content to stick their heads in the sand and wait for you to tap us on the ass and tell us when it’s OK to pull them out to see what’s happening in the world. That’s some 1975 sh-t. We know the events are happening live, you have the ability to show them to us on television, and you are not. To say that the American viewing public “likes” getting the story this way because the ratings are up is like saying a starving person “likes” eating small portions of crappy food because they cleaned their plate.
“As programmers, we are charged to manage the business. And this is a business,” he said. “It’s not everyone’s inalienable right to get whatever they want. We are charged with making smart decisions for our company, for our shareholders and to present the product the way we believe is best.”
THE SPIRIT OF THE OLYMPICS, INDEED.
Before the Games, NBC Sports identified the finals of five events — swimming, gymnastics, diving, beach volleyball and track and field — that it will not show live on television, opting to hold until prime time. Nothing from the Olympics’ opening weekend has caused him to change his mind.
“NBC has created a formula around story arcs,” Lazarus said. “The American population wants to get to know the athletes and follow their stories.”
Just a thought: Air everything live during the day, then put together a highlight package in primetime that shows all the best events and human interest stories and close-up shots of 16-year-old gymnasts crying (or whatever it is you jerk off to) so people who missed it during the day or want to watch it again with their family and friends have that option.
But hey, what do I know? I’m just the American viewing public. Apparently I need some dipsh-t in a blue blazer with a peacock pin on it to explain things to me and deputize some haircut to tell me how doing a flip on a four-inch wide beam is, like, hecka hard.
NBC also received a lot of criticism for not showing the Games’ opening ceremony live. Lazarus said the network never planned to stream the opening or closing ceremony live, saying that such an event would be too difficult online without proper commentary.
“We don’t believe that a raw feed, which would be a host feed, without narration and broadcasting, would be a good user experience in a big stadium with lots of camera cuts,” he said. “We think we created the best experience. Frankly, I think all of the noise about Queen Elizabeth and Paul McCartney on social media and in the digital world helped build excitement for our prime-time show.”
DO YOU KNOW WHY THERE WAS ALL THAT EXCITEMENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA? BECAUSE PEOPLE WERE STREAMING IT ON THEIR COMPUTERS FROM THE BBC BECAUSE YOU WOULDN’T PUT IT ON TV OR YOUR WEBSITE. ALSO, THERE WAS LITERALLY NOTHING PREVENTING YOU FROM PINNING A MICROPHONE ON MATT LAUER AND HAVING HIM NARRATE IT WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING LIVE. THAT IS HIS JOB.
Or, you know, maybe just stop talking out of both sides of your mouth (“We have to satisfy the shareholders!” “We have to educate the viewer”) and shut up and trust us to figure out that it wasn’t really the Queen jumping out of that helicopter. I know you think we’re all pretty stupid, but I think we can handle that one.
(h/t Deadspin)
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This guy must belong to the same country club as Romney….
Oh, yes. I could never have been able to understand Lord Voldemort being killed by a 100 Mary Poppinses without Matt Lauer’s dulcet tones to guide my small American mind.
Or Viera doddling on about her music collection from the fucking stone age.
Christ, that was awful.
CTV in Canada has almost 24 coverage and had commentators doing minimal live commentary of the Opening Ceremonies because they realize that we can figure out a story for ourselves, and for the more abstract pieces they told us what was going on at the beginning and shut up for the rest of it. They also have 3 other channels covering everything else that isn’t on the main network and they even manage to fit in all the sappy Olympian story packages that NBC is so in love with. I’m pretty sure every other network in the world does the same thing or something similar to it, so what is NBC’s excuse? Oh yes, they don’t have one, they’re just run by idiots.
I’ve never said this, let alone ever thought it, but I wish I lived in Canada.
Alot of people have been complaining about the continued over exposure of Ryan Seacrest, although i haven’t seen him yet. The only two events I’ve been watching have been women’s beach volleyball (you can guess why), and soccer/football. Somehow they’ve even managed to screw that up – I won’t even get started on the inane announcers, but they got COMMERCIAL BREAKS in the middle of games. Not at halftime, IN THE MIDDLE OF THE ACTION.
I’m not sure how many of you are soccer fans but that just IS. NOT. DONE. It’s literally like going to long 10 minute commercial break during the last 10 minutes of a basketball game. I can’t imagine any soccer/football fan approving putting commercials in the middle of games.
Do the people at NBC that produce the Olympics actually like sports? Are they fans? Do they play any of these sports? Their coverage would lead you to believe otherwise.
The answer to you questions are: “No,” “No” and “Ha!…no.”
I don’t know what TV service you have, but I know that Comcast and FIOS both added an Olympic Basketball and an Olympic Soccer channel. I have been watching on the soccer channel and they have no commercials. And yes, I would be very pissed off if there were commercials.
@Randy Jones: I took your advice, and scanned the (million) channels of my cable service and discovered there is an Olympic soccer channel. I’m going to watch the games today without commercial interruption. Thank You! That brings up another question – why did I have to find out about the NBC Olympic Soccer Channel from you and not from say…NBC?
Dammit, y’all, just admit that you’ve got a huge ratings draw and you’re milking it for all it’s worth. At least you’d be honest.
Never stop posting Pushing Daisies gifs.
Does this remind anyone else of the episode of 30 Rock where NBC created a bunch of fake Olympic events to boost American morale?
“And here’s Ryan Seacrest to tell you which Olympic stories you need to see!” – Mark Lazarus
All I can think of during these Olympics is Wesley Snipes line in 30 Rocks: “I can’t go back to England. I can’t bear the thought of us hosting the 2012 Olympics. We’re not ready, Liz. Have you seen the Beijing opening ceremonies? We don’t have that kind of control over our people.”
Meanwhile, I have dipshits in my Facebook newsfeed bitching because MSN is posting “spoilers” for events NBC hasn’t aired yet.
These people are the CORE F*CKING DEMOGRAPHIC.
lol bc:
1. msn = internet explorer
2. facebook
3. reality
I’ve watched next to nothing so far, Everything i wanted to watch wasnt available, and ultimately spoiled because every website in the world broadcasts the results but not the actual event as it happens.
I just wanna watch sports, man. I could give a fuck less about the “stories” behind the athletes. Especially those athletes from some backwater, shanty-town village. They’re not gonna win anyway.
I don’t watch the NFL to learn about how rough Ray Lewis had it growing up. I watch it to see if he kills someone by hitting them too hard.
Exactly.If you want to save your taped highlights and bullshit human interest profiles until 8pm for grandma, fine. But you have a mess of channels to fill all day. Show the sports live. I watched France/Argentina in basketball today on one of they cable channels; why not simply show the games like that?
Preach. When they start awarding medals on the basis of who had the most heartbreaking childhood, fine. Until then, stick to the actual fucking action.
I never thought I’d do this, but I want to offer a qualified defense of NBC.
I honestly think you guys sometimes forget that TV is a business. What do you want a high-ranking suit to do, say “fuck you” to the shareholders? Pleasing the shareholders is literally his only job.
And NBC’s coverage is getting record ratings. That is the alpha and omega of the TV business, and it proves that they are making the right decision.
Doing quality coverage and pleasing bloggers and internet dorks like us? That doesn’t enter into it. High ratings make the shareholders happy. Airing primo events when everyone is at work makes them eager to replace the executives.
I don’t like it either, and obviously a lot of their decisions can’t be defended (spoiling last night’s swimming race, cutting out the tribute to terrorist victims, and shutting down a critical Twitter account to name a few).
But if I was a suit and I had the choice of getting huge ratings or taking flack from blogs and social media…well, it wouldn’t be a choice at all.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that the record ratings are just a result of having a captive audience who, for the most part, have not figured out how to connect to live feeds in other countries. People want to watch the Olympics, but they don’t necessarily have an alternate option here. I realize that still measures up to financial “success” for them, but they deserve every ounce of criticism they get for their handling of it.
Perhaps there needs to be a revision in how broadcast rights are doled out for the Olympics so we don’t have monopolistic bullshit happening.
Here’s the thing, right? The coverage isn’t for you. It’s not for the people that don’t want to go online and find a stream. It’s not for the people that spend their days on internet forums. And I’m kind of tired of Uproxx (but mostly WG) getting butthurt over every decision NBC makes and criticizing it.
I find it incredibly hard to believe that NBC could not find a way to make equivalent revenue by streaming live coverage online and then replaying that coverage in primetime. You could stream it online with full commercial breaks and people would gobble it up and then the people who are either too old, or want to do exactly what Mr. Lazarus says all of us Americans do, would watch in primetime.
Roman, you’re right.
Doesn’t mean NBC doesn’t suck monkey balls in every other possible way, but the job is to make money for Comcast because Brian Roberts needs to make his weekly tithe to Satan.
Roman – If I had picture privileges I’d post that Orson Welles slo-clap GIF.
If Uproxx paid BILLIONS for exclusive rights to blog about something, would they blog about it at the most profitable time for their advertisers, or would they do it when fewer people are at their computers? I’m on my computer on the weekends, why doesn’t UPROXX publish stories during the weekend. That’s when I want stories!!!!! Wah, wah wah!
I just need to make sure nobody tells me the score of the UConn women’s team vs. Turkey or whoever they play tomorrow. Good thing I’m the only one watching.
There you go Tim. And once again, bravo Roman.
Swimming started on Saturday. Finals started at 2:30pm EST. Couldn’t show the finals live then?
They don’t have to change their prime-time coverage at all. Just put the marquee events on one of their ka-billion TV stations live. It’s not like they can’t do both. They’re already airing everything live online, it’s not like the two are so different.
Just because it’s making like 30 assh*les a f*cking ton of money doesn’t mean it’s a good thing. Corporations are not people, my friend.
Bravo sir, bravo. The 2% of the population that are talking to each other are all worked up over this.
[sportsonearthblog.com]
For a little perspective.
I’ve been telling all my friends to do the following:
1. Google “VPN” and find a provider you think is best.
2. Install and set your IP address to one in the UK.
3. Go to the BBC Sports website and watch whatever you want since they are streaming live.
4. Enjoy.
5. Don’t watch a single minute of NBC until either the Season Premier of “Parks & Rec” or “Community”
“Since then they’ve continued this policy by delaying marquee events like swimming and gymnastics until the big money hours, showing them via web stream, but not as part of the television package.”
Heavens forbid they have the streaming option for people to watch it while at work. Not everyone is a blogger working from their kitchen.
I hate you for giving a shit, DG.
I apologize. That was rude. I just don’t get it. NBC has always sucked. So let’s just support BBC, or not, and forget NBC even exists. Their coverage sucks because it’s always sucked, just like everything else they do save for Thursday comedies (except The Office) sucks.
Kabletown guy never explains how it helps the “story arc” to ruin the ending on the news ahead of time.
Here in the UK the BBC decided to go balls to the wall this year and are showing everything live. With all TV providers here they’ve created 24 channels dedicated solely to showing events live, and then another 24 for HD coverage and another for 3d. And they’ve switched their teen channel (which shows family guy, being human etc) in to another Olympic channel.
There in the UK when events are actually happening in Prime Time? Wow how brave of you, BBC.
Not one Missy Franklin FTW? Come on! She owns. Do she and Yi Shiwen swim any of the same events?
I just figured out how to fix Community, you guys! We need commentators to explain the jokes and references as it’s happening. That way EVERYONE would enjoy it! It was probably Harmon being a dick about not letting NBC do cool and innovative stuff like this that got him fired. Why can’t Lazarus run everything there!?
Obviously everyone in television should ask NBC execs how to handle their channels and then do the opposite.
Seriously, people on the internet – you’re talking to each other. There are a few things I wish had been done differently, but for fuck’s sake. The TV business is a business. It’s not healthcare – you don’t NEED to watch it. Change the channel, buy a plane ticket and go to London, or whatever. But stop acting like they owe you something.
It’s pretty simple: If a large amount of people boycot watching NBC, they’ll change their ways. If they are getting record breaking amounts of TV viewers, they aren’t going to give a shit what most people are saying because those people are still watching.
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