Comments on: Are online advertisers disappointed in NBC's Olympic performance?

NBC's president, Jeff Zucker, has been defending his decision to hold back screening the Olympic opening ceremony. But are online advertisers happy?

[portorikan]

I can't believe they haven't showed any soccer... at least I haven't been aware of any soccer events on tv... I had to view a few things online. I didn't think soccer was an olympic event for a bit.

[jamesblond007]

NBC has shown soccer games. I watched a couple of women's soccer games and they were fantastic. And I have not been glued to the TV, although I wish I were. It's nice that you are able to see events online.

Let's all support our Team USA and all the athletes from all countries - they are all doing a great job, and so is NBC.

[cprender]

I am sorry, but the NBC coverage is a joke. Even their 'Live' coverage is tape delayed by 20 seconds so that their commentators can appear more intelligent.

[MaLvaDo39]

Did you see the blue-screen-of-death during the opening ceremonies?
Of course it's slow... it's Windows.

[ewsachse]

I hate to break it to you crybabies, but almost all live TV has a 20 to 30 second delay. It is not done, as some clown said, to make commentators more intelligent. It is done to dump a broadcast if some objectionable material occurs, such as foul language, "wardrobe malfunctions", and other things that would cause the FCC to levy a huge fine.

NBC/Universal does have a separate soccer and separate basketball channel set up just for the Olympics. Both of them are HD only channels, and your cable or satellite provider must carry them.

As far as taped coverage, what do you expect. China is on the other side of the world. Remember the old saying that if you dug through the Earth that you would end up in China? Should China hold the games in the middle of the night just for the benefit of US TV viewers? That is a very arrogant stance to take.

The promise of the Internet age is a farce. Instead of providing free exchange of information at one's fingertips, the Internet has instead groomed a new generation of crybaby spoiled brats who do nothing but go online to ***** their complaints on why they cannot have something now. There is a value in waiting for something great and savoring the moment, but it is lost on this generation.

[gerrrg]

What bothers me the most, is that the coverage is live in the east and central time zones, but the west coast has the three hour delayed broadcast. Note that they maintain the "LIVE" on the tape feed, to make you feel special.

I stopped watching most of the olympics except for certain sports and only some of the events in those sports. And who really watches the lousy resolution of NBC's website? Silverlight is not so good.

[steve4lee]

The 12-hour time difference means they can hold events in the morning their time, and we can watch them live in evening prime time to midnight. Mark Phelps won his gold medals around 10:30 pm live our time some nights. In some ways it works better than when the games were in the US.

I am sleepy today because I found the water polo match between USA and Germany on some stray HD channel on cable about the time I was heading for bed, and finally got to sleep after women's diving around 3 am.

[serwei]

I'm quite intrigued by how NBC covered the opening.
Got a copy of the HK TVB version, and it was startlingly different. NBC trimmed off about half the opening, all the cultural content like the Chinese puppetry and opera themes were gone. The introduction to the Scroll (yup there was an intro to set the context of a scroll) was gone. Transitions from one set to another disappeared for an ad break. It's like covering the Presidential debates with ads in place of the candidates talking, and then covering the audience reactions and transitions.

[goober_nut]

DishNetwork has a channel devoted to nothing but Olympic soccer and basketball right now.

[rowdydave]

We know the bottom line is money. NBC (and all other networks) charge more for advertising during prime time, and they want to compete with the other stations. I was in Canada during the 2000 games in Sydney. The Canadian channels showed just about everything live with very limited commercials. It was great!

As long as the almighty dollar is the goal, American TV will be about 65% content 35% ads.