The TV Zone

You can't let another Olympics slide by without jumping into the mosh pit of NBC criticism. Now, my turn, hours after the closing ceremony which - I presume - featured real fireworks this time.

Criticism of NBC's coverage? What would an Olympics be without it. Here's my approach this morning. I'll break out some of the key points of contention that flared up over the last couple of weeks, then weigh in, offering a grade. Finally, an overall grade.

Here goes:

Too much trompe l'oeil? You know - fake stuff that made the picture prettier. This rap set the pace early on, when NBC was accused to CGI'ng some firework displays in the opening ceremony, to enhance an already spectacular display. Matt Lauer and Bob Costas (sorta) vaguely referred to the fakery, but hardly with enough detail to suggest some CGI effects had just taken over your television set. Apparently CGI was necessary because the shot involved use of a helicopter so safety was an issue. Last night's display? One assumes real, but one should never assume.

My take: If this is the biggest controversy NBC had to face of the games then hallelujah. Most everything on TV is enhanced in some way and CGI is the botox of choice. Faking news is bad. Faking a few fireworks is irrelevant. NBC gets an A for overall technical mastery of the main channel telecast (the only one I - and most everyone else - basically watched) but I suppose we'll just have to give it a D for a few irrelevant minutes of fakery two weeks ago.

Not enough coverage of smog, human rights abuse, those gas guzzling billions, etc. The criticism here is that NBC soft-pedaled all this stuff or flat-out ignored it in favor of stirring tales gold and glory, and that you wouldn't even know such a thing as controversy existed in this country of a billion-three. Moreover, that NBC happily let that all slide because parent GE is so deeply entrenched in the world's biggest market.

My take: Impressions - as opposed to actual specifics - rule in this category and this certainly seems to be an accurate impression especially in primetime (although because GE is so "deeply entrenched" in just about every anther country on that planet that that charge would be leveled even if these things were carried in Burundi.) But also ask yourself this - how much coverage of the "problems" story is justified? A "lot" leads to the charge of piling on, AND detracts from the Games themselves; a "little" leads to the aforementioned head-in-the-sand charge. It seems to me NBC generally took the right approach though could have done a better job of contextualizing the issues for a largely oblivious primetime audience. (Here by the way is that Bob Costas interview with Prez Bush, which delicately explores the incendiary issues.) So NBC gets an overall C + in this category.

The Real Time or Memorex Live time firestorm, in which NBC misled viewers (particularly West Coast ones) with the "live" bug, when in fact events had been tape-delayed. Live or tape-delay is an age-old challenge and bedeviled NBC from Sydney too. Dan Wetzel of well-traveled Yahoo even went so far as to call NBC's coverage a "loser" for this reason. Writes he: "Because I was in China, I didn’t watch NBC’s coverage [but] I can only say from the flood of angry emails it hasn’t improved since the last time I was home for the games. Tape-delayed races plausibly live coverage and covering up Chinese special effects for the Opening Ceremony, NBC is like the China Daily – a state-run propaganda newspaper – of American television. If only everyone could get the feed for the Canadian Broadcast Company, which anyone in select American markets can attest does an exponentially better job of television coverage of the Olympics."

My take: Call me old-fashioned, but I like to think that "live" always means "live" and "delayed" always means "delayed." Honestly, I don't think most viewers care whether something's live or not, and if they care deeply and passionately enough about the real-time results, then a quick google should suffice. But NBC should have just left the "live" bug off all telecasts and push this distracting little controversy off the table and into the round file where it belongs. Grade: D.

NBCOlympics.com didn't offer enough, or scooped the main network (or didn't), or offered irrelevant video, and - besides - Yahoo and others did a better job.

My take: NBCO.com is one of the damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't tales of this Olympics, but it's probably a good idea to remember what this ostensibly replaced - the old triplecast idea, which charged you to watch all the minor stuff and was a disaster to boot. What did NBCO.com do wrong? Honestly, I don't know. This was a big success, and a fix for the mildly obsessed as well as an easy-to-navigate fix for the mildly engaged grazer too. OK, maybe the Really Obsessed did better via Yahoo, but NBCO.com still gets the gold in my estimation. Grade: A.

Patriotic gore, or the treacly rah-rah-go-USA! stuff that inevitably attends the coverage of some event without making even passing note of the fact that athletes from a hundred-plus other countries were winning big too (and China easily beat the U.S. in the gold medal count.)

My take: This is the Olympics! Jingoism is so deeply and inherently entrenched in U.S. coverage of the Games thanks to ABC's far more vigorous flag-waving that viewers would be lost without it. Plus, most U.S. viewers of the Games are light-to-non-existent viewers of sports, or certainly the types of sports on display here. The narrative glue that binds them is the story of U.S. athletes. I give NBC a B here.

And finally...

Overall Grade: B. This is the Olympics. It is our - your's and mine - God given right to criticize the network that broadcasts them, and indeed we should (noisily, angrily, happily, or whatever flavor of criticism we damn well like.) But from a TV standpoint, these Games were a success born of luck (Phelps), technical skill, and a reasonably intelligent and aggressive web strategy. Too much beach volleyball - a sport most of us play half-baked at Jones beach on a lovely August day (and therefore doesn't actually seem like a sport as much as a keg accessory)? Then don't watch - and head over to all the other channels that were airing different stuff. Life goes on. NBC did just fine.