I find this fascinating. By far the biggest complaint made about NBC’s Olympics coverage is the relentless focus on all things American (witness Otto’s post). Now you’re complaining that the BBC doesn’t have enough coverage of British competitors. I do like it when we get to see more well-rounded coverage of events, but given the time limitations, I’m not sure what’s possible. I was in England during the 1984 Olympics, and found it fascinating to watch the focus not only on British athletes, but also on sports of more interest to British than American viewers. I think the main problem is that there is just far, far too much going on at the Olympics for everything to be fully covered by regular broadcasting. I look forward to the day when we will be able to call up coverage of any sport we like on our PC’s or TV’s, with choice of commentators. Until then, I’m alternating between enjoying the competition and cringing at the way it’s sometimes presented.
Not winning as many medals as America makes it easier for them to focus on the high-fliers, of course. I don’t think there were any gold or silver medal wins that weren’t heavily covered more-or-less as they happened.
With the number of medals that America wins, there’s bound to be many golds which just don’t make it to the main TV slots. So of course the fans of that sport feel hard done by. Not much that can be done, until there’s a live feed from every arena to every home.
A common rant I hear from Dopers and others in the Buffalo and Detroit area are “NBC coverage is too America-centric … for real Olympic coverage, you have to watch the Canadian channels.” I tried that back in 1996, when I was back in WNY attending grad school, and my impression was that CBC Olympic coverage was far, far more nationalistic – Canada-centric, for lack of a better word – than coverage south of the border. Sure, you’ll get extensive coverage of more obscure sports, but only if there’s a Canadian potential medallist participating.
Canadian flag-waving - pride in a distinct national identty
American flag-waving - bombastic nationalism and blind patriotism
:rolleyes:
CBC is a bit nationalistic. Last night in prime time they had the same interview with the gold medal cyclist on twice. And a lot of coverage of the poor hurdler who tripped over the first one and wiped out her neighbor. But they do something unheard of on NBC- they show stuff live! The premier event of the games, the 100m men’s final, was LIVE on CBC, and seven hours delayed on NBC on a Sunday no less! But the CBC announcers seem pretty fair when they cover the events. NBC seems to be entirely too focused on just showing certain events. Gymnastics gets lots of coverage and they went WAY overboard on beach volleyball (thank God it’s over). Want to see archery, shooting, judo, or wrestling? Tough if you don’t get cable and hard to find even if you do. Both CBC and NBC really flopped on decathlon coverage. But there are a ton of events and it’s hard to please everybody.
The difficulty NBC has is that those damn Americans are winning medals hand over fist. It’s full time coverage just to keep up with all the winners! CBC doesn’t have such problems and so there is a bit more freedom to roam over to other competitions.