On the modern Olympics: it helps to remember that it is now an advertising event that happens to have sports competitions.
Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
51–60 of 300 posts
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#52TFA is not well-informed. Maybe the NBC people should have better marketing, but the Olympics coverage is not terrible. If you have a basic cable or satellite package, you can sign into this app: https://channelstore.roku.com/search/nbc+sports Presumably some of the lesser TV appliances also have a similar app. If you don't subscribe to a basic pay TV package, maybe you could do a trial subscription to Hulu or someth…
In my view, if a tech-savvy person putting significant effort in still can't find a way to view the coverage, even if they have a subscription, NBC is doing a poor job.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#53What I like about NBC Olympic broadcasts is when they cut to shots of Bode Miller's girlfriend at the bottom of the mountain every few seconds. Great stuff.
"/s" detected.
This is what's wrong with most US media: it's insufficient to portray X for its own value, a spackling of drama must be applied on top and that must take priority over X.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
BBC have lost the rights this year, sadly. They can only show a few things and Discovery have the majority of them, so I and am pretty sure many people I know will not be watching.
I think the BBC can only show 2 live events at a time, unlike the previous 2 Olympics where they had amazing live coverage of pretty much every event. Can't help feeling this is a very very short-sighted move by the IOC (selling the European rights to Discovery), and will further dimish the prestige of the Games.
Agreed! A key thing that I don't think they realised is that the free to air rights across Europe always created an intrigue among the population that fed into the youth. No matter the background of a child in the UK, for instance, they would typically have completely free access to damn near every Olympic event.
That's gone now, and that's really sad.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#55I don't understand why the Olympics have to be so fast. Build an insane amount of infrastructure, have dozens of events simultaneously all of the time, then ship everyone home.
I end up missing just about everything. If I want to catch some of the storylines, I really need them spoon fed to me.
If they stretched out the events over a month or two we would get double benefits - we could actually consume more of the events, and they would drastically reduce their need to build venues/villages/etc.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#56You must be a youngster. NBC has been fucking up the Olympics broadcasts since they started back in 1988. They've always been overly USA-centric, they refuse to air the broadcasts when the events happen, insisting on time shifting everything, and loading so many commercials into the thing, it is impossible to watch. I pretty much quit watching 3 or 4 olympics ago. Today, as I tune through the channels, I always see t…
Advertising ruins everything.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#57Just FYI, the pictogram sequence was my favorite part of the opening ceremony.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#58TFA is not well-informed. Maybe the NBC people should have better marketing, but the Olympics coverage is not terrible. If you have a basic cable or satellite package, you can sign into this app: https://channelstore.roku.com/search/nbc+sports Presumably some of the lesser TV appliances also have a similar app. If you don't subscribe to a basic pay TV package, maybe you could do a trial subscription to Hulu or someth…
In my view, if a tech-savvy person putting significant effort in still can't find a way to view the coverage, even if they have a subscription, NBC is doing a poor job.
Searching for an app that lots of people already have installed doesn't seem like "significant effort" to me. If people don't want help or advice with this I don't see the point of this thread.
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#59Find yourself a canadian VPN endpoint and check out the CBC coverage (website or "Gem" app). It's pretty complete and much more accessible.
23 hours a day! And lots of live - of that's the middle of the night in USA/Canada
Re: Why does NBC make it so difficult to watch the Olympics?
#60You must be a youngster. NBC has been fucking up the Olympics broadcasts since they started back in 1988. They've always been overly USA-centric, they refuse to air the broadcasts when the events happen, insisting on time shifting everything, and loading so many commercials into the thing, it is impossible to watch. I pretty much quit watching 3 or 4 olympics ago. Today, as I tune through the channels, I always see t…
Can we open source the Olympics?