Wednesday, August 25, 2004

And Now, An Olympic Moment: The New York Times has a humorous piece today parodying the human drama of NBC's Olympic coverage. I understand all too well the economics behind sports broadcasting and NBC's need to drum up ratings to make back its billion dollar investment, but sometimes it is a bit too much. I was in Spain during the 2000 Games and watched the Spanish telecast. They showed every heat of the swimming (my favorite sport), live and in order. No docudramas. No commercials. It was sport-viewing bliss.



I know that NBC will never duplicate this because of the need to keep events in prime time and the desire of a large portion of the viewing audience to see such human interest stories. But in the era of OnDemand and Pay-Per-View, I hope that by 2008 there is an option to pay $100 for an "All Sports" telecast -- all of the races (even the ones without Americans!) and none of the stories. I may not know about the Romanian gymnast who lost her home or the American swimmer that had a toe amputated, but that is ok by me.

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