« January 22, 2006 | Main | February 16, 2006 »

February 12, 2006

Confused About the Olympics, and Some Advice for NBC.

By: The Dude on the Right
I’m getting really confused with the coverage of the XX Winter Olympics. First, I talked a little bit about this in our last podcast, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on exactly where the Olympics are being held. First, if you go to www.olympic.org, they call it the "Torino 2006" games. Fine, they’re a world body, and probably go with the language of the host nation, that being Italian because, well, the Olympics are being held in Italy. The thing is that Torino is an Italian pronunciation, and even on the web site, in their English translation, they call them the "Turin Winter Games." That at my local paper, and every other television station say they are in Turin.  But NBC, who is broadcasting the Winter Olympics, are sticking with "Torino," prompting one posting on a bulletin board I occasionally read wondering why, if NBC is content on calling Turin, well, Turino, for this kind of news, why aren’t they calling Rome, well, Roma, or Florence, umm, Fiorenza. I know that the famous shroud is in Turin, and wonder if NBC, if there is ever new news about the Shroud of Turin, well, if they will know call it the Shroud of Turino? I’m so confused.

And that’s not only thing confusing me about the Winter Olympics. The other has to do with the wacky news coverage, especially on the NBC stations. I haven’t been able to pay attention to the ABC or CBS coverage, at least when it comes to my local news, to see if how/when/who they are spoiling the suspense of who/when/how won a medal, but on both my local NBC newscast and the national NBC newscast here in Chicago, this day being Sunday, they both had coverage of the Winter Olympics. The easy story was Michelle Kwan’s dropping out, but then, wanting to at least give some real news about what was going on, told their viewers that if they didn’t want to "see" anything about the results as of the time of the newscast, to turn away from the screen (don’t forget, the actual events happened over 12 hours ago, so the nightly broadcast is a tape of what already happened), and that the audio wouldn’t give away anything, but I couldn’t help but watch and figure out that Apolo Anton Ohno must have screwed up because he wasn’t on the medal board NBC flashed on the screen. Then, of course, I just went to the NBC website and found out for myself.

With their coverage, I think this is where NBC is really dropping the ball. Instead of trying to "hide" the results with bad "we have spoilers, turn away if you don’t want to know," they should just go all out and say things like "On tonight’s coverage, you get to see how Apolo Anton Ohno didn’t get a medal, how the U.S. skiers, including the controversial Bode Miller, didn’t get a medal, but thank God for Shaun White and Danny Kass, a couple of snowboarders who knew how to get the job done, getting the Gold and Silver respectively. We’ve got a slim chance at getting a medal in the Luge, but you might just want to see if the "Babe Ruth of Luge," Georg Hackl of Germany, can pull it off. After all, they’re going down that course at speeds over 70 miles per hour at times." In all honesty, those are the only reasons I’m watching the NBC coverage of the Winter Olympics tonight, but my problem is that the conclusion to last week’s "Grey’s Anatomy" conflicts with the Olympic coverage. I knew I should have ordered that Comcast DVR. Guess I’ll be stuck with year's old technology and VCR "Grey’s Anatomy" and TIVO the Olympics, or maybe just the opposite. Damn, I hate T.V.

That’s it for this one! I’m The Dude on the Right!! L8R!!!

Posted by Rightdude at 8:28 PM | Comments (0)