I know that the goddam lady’s competition ended during the day. No problem, I stayed well away from the news.
Yeah, I also know I’m a grown man itching to watch young women skate. shrug seems normal enough to me.
So I get home, and I follow an NBC link for television coverage to nbcolympics.com to see whether the telecast starts at 7:00 or 8:00 EST… and what do I see? You already guessed, but let me finish. Right next to the television schedule is fucking full color picture of the gold, silver, and bronze medalists with the winner’s name in 30pt type.
And just to rub it in, they are hyping up the ‘upcoming competition’ on NBC television, and reminding people to follow said link for a “complete schedule”, as if their evil web site weren’t already spoilering the results.
I absolutely agree with Waverly. He was not trying to watch something he Tivoed. He wanted to watch the coverage in the manner that NBC was presenting it. So he went to the NBC schedule page, because it’s where NBC hypes as being the place to find out which sport is on when. And they spoiled their own broadcast! Idiotic.
I’ve used that schedule page many times this Olympics myself; thankfully I’ve never seen a spoiler for cross-country skiing, anyway.
I’m with you Waverly. If you are broadcasting a competition with an 8 hour delay, only a fucking moron would promote the results of said competition to people inquiring about broadcast times.
May as well tell us the winner at the start of the broadcast, save us all 2 hours.
OK, I changed my mind. It was misleading to let you think you were going to get a TV schedule. I thought you had just followed a link to “nbcolympics.com” and were expecting not to see updates.
Ok. Granted. It’s pretty nefarious to tie-in a “schedule” link with a “results” link. However, if there is a possibility of the lions eating me, I would not wander into the lions den, regardless of the enticement. The lions don’t know it’s not nice to eat someone. It’s instinct.
One hour is not that long a time. If you tune in at 7pm and the skating finals are not on, you’ve solved your problem with minimal risk. I guess it’s a matter of how much you really wanted to avoid the results. Going to nbcolympics.com, knowing one of the biggest (the biggest?) events in Witner Olympics (women’s single ice skating finals) has recently concluded and expecting it not to be splashed everywhere (especially with an American finalist and a high profile news outlet) is, I believe, a bit of an oversight.
As to the essence of your OP:
Yeah, there are obviously some idiots at NBC making poor decisions.
See? You spouted off another one liner directed at an OP when you didn’t know what the hell he was talking about. I know you later apologized for it, but it’s getting to be a pattern. (And you still owe me that drink!)
NBC should have an official page that links directly to the schedule, and a seperate link, plain as day, for updates. Bam! Schedule and no spoilers.
Based on NFL and NASCAR coverage over the past few years, I can state here and now that NBC is the worst network when it comes to any sports coverage. I hated CBS sports until I compared it to NBC sports.
I don’t care what you think of FOX when it comes to news or politics. They flat out beat the shit out of any competitor when it come to sports coverage.
I’d be more inclined to watch the national luge team from Chad play the national debate team from Iran in a game of checkers if it was carried by Fox Sports if the other choice was a game shown by NBC Sports. At least they’d make it entertaining and a little informative of what the hell is going on.
And really. Wouldn’t we all want to witness that? Imagine the prop betting available.
There’s one way to avoid spoilers on the Internet: Stay off the Internet. The entire Internet.
Don’t go to NBC. Don’t go to Ebay. Don’t go to MSN. Don’t go to Wizards of the Coast or Blockbuster Online or Anipike or that weird obscure fansite your cousin told you about five years ago.
Read a book, take a walk, get some shopping done, get to some unfinished bit of housework or reorganizing, anything that keeps you well away from the freest, wildest, most spoilerific medium in the world.
It may seem a bit extreme, but expecting good sense to prevail on a website is almost never a winning gamble.
P.S.: Yes, someone actually did post a spoiler on Ebay one time. Richard Hatch winning the inaugural Survivor. That brazen enough for ya?
I decided to watch some of the programs anyway. It didn’t start at 7pm. It didn’t start at 8pm. There were a couple skaters mixed in with other events between 8 and 10pm. I fell asleep sometime after 11pm having seen Sasha Cohen skate, but there were at least 4 of the top skaters who hadn’t been on yet.
So NBC has one of the most popular events on tape, and they withhold it like an evil nurse at a methadone clinic, waiting until prime time fades into the night before televising most of it. Fucking dipshits. All I can guess is that they ran scared from what other networks had up against the Olympics. Does a post 11pm telecast of the top skaters really help this?
Oh, and if you follow the links they give on TV, browse their television listings long enough, wade through all the spoilers, and ignore that idiot Bob Costas leering at you, you may eventually find a small note: “to avoid results, go to NBCOlympics.com/tv”. Too late, mutherfucks.
Word. I did just that when we got home from dinner tonight. I didn’t look at the internet. I didn’t read any instant messages waiting for me. Didn’t check my email. I basically went and stuck my head in the corner of the room until the baby was in bed and my wife was ready to fire up the DVR.
