how bad is nbc olympic coverage, including scheduling, streaming, programming decisions, commentary,

[Gabi Hayes]

etc?

I'm sure there are other threads.....didn't see any, so here goes

what bugs you the most.

I'll start with this:

basketball coverage, til today has only been on their NBC sports digital hi def channel, which many cable creeps don't carry as part of basic coverage. if you have the nbc streaming app, you can try watching it there, but the schedule was WRONG, and it it doesn't load most of the time.

the best part was that today msnbc finally had the US vs Spain, but they CUT AWAY after the first quarter and sent the game back to the digital channel. I was recording it, and at the the end of said first quarter, it was too late to see any of the game in realtime on the other channel.

that's just the main complaint. myriad others, but please add yours, from miniscule (like failing to list times of track qualifiers as they move to the next round) to egregious.

nbc, how do I hate thee? let me -- and you -- count the ways

[northoftheborder]

1. showing bits & pieces of many sports, often only when Americans performing

Using multiple channels would seem to allow better coverage, and tennis was well covered, thanks to a dedicated channel. I would have liked to see more gymnastics with all the athletes, not just the top ones; I hate beach volley ball - way too much of that. Grump, grump. Can't please everybody I guess. It's just hard to follow the schedules with much of it replayed later.

Long ago, ABC covered the olympics with ONE channel, and it seems from my dim memory, that ABC just gave up most of its regular programming and played it all day, with some live, and some recorded.

[GreenPartyVoter]

2. Yes! Give the individual sports more channels. Gymnastics of all kinds on one would make me very

happy.

[justabob]

7. I'm getting tired of volleyball too

I like it ok, but it is on ALL the time, on both of the main NBC channels. By the time they finally get to the medal matches, I will be totally burned out on it.

I also don't like how chopped up the prime time is. I understand why they shuffle the sports, but I would really rather sit and watch all the gymnastics then move on to swimming or whatever rather than see three vaults and then two swim races, then 3 more vaults then the obligatory set of volleyball etc. Plus the incessant commercials make prime time almost unwatchable.

Watching during the day isn't so bad, especially on the cable NBC channel, but there is still a lot of chopping up and shuffling and it is really hard to figure out when the events you might want to see are on. I found the tv guide like page that allegedly shows when and what channel the coverage is going to be on, but so far it has been wrong. It is only by good luck that I actually got to see the events that I most wanted to watch.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

3. NBC delays an event 3500 miles away by 6 hours

NASA delays an even 155,000,000 by 14 minutes...something about a speed limit.

NBC's coverage sucks. I would guess about a 1:1 ratio of minutes of actual coverage to minutes of ads and other crap.

sP

[ManiacJoe]

4. The TV coverage is pretty sad.

However, the video streaming from NbcOlympics.com is not bad, if a bit delayed.

[csziggy]

5. NBC's coverage of the Olympics has always sucked

I stopped watching the Olympics when they took over. It just is not pleasurable to watch bits and pieces of only the events where Americans were at the top or that got good ratings on American TV. I'd like to see the best in the world in a wide range of sports, not just hours of sports Americans prefer and that our own athletes win top honors in.

From the first time they covered the Olympics they have not held to any schedule published ahead of time. That first year NBC offered dedicated channels for large satellite dish owners. A friend subscribed so she could see more of the equestrian events (she was a professional rider so it was worth the money to her). Not once were the equestrian events broadcast on the channels at the times NBC published to their subscribers. She could not sit up all night to watch live so would set her VCR by the published schedule and never got one minute of the events she had paid a high fee to see. It took her two years of wrangling with NBC and threatening legal action to have the money she had paid refunded.

Until some other network gets the contract to cover the Olympics I will watch the few events I want to see on YouTube or buy video of them.

[femmocrat]

6. It sucks, but so does DirecTV!

DirecTV has a sports preview channel that shows 8 screens at once. They advertised it as "Olympic" coverage. However, when you click on some of the squares to watch a sport that is not on NBC or MSNBC, it tells you that you can't watch it, because it wasn't purchased!

Also... why would MSNBC continue to show that prison crap on the weekend instead of the Olympics?! Sucks, stinks, and blows.