OT: Olympic Coverage

[Grandpa Kim]

Here is a copy of a short note I sent to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC):


Well, I've pretty much boycotted the Olympics... or rather CBC's (and all the other networks for that matter) coverage of the Olympics.

Did you know there are Olympic sports going on
ALL
DAY
LONG!

I would like to watch them. Quite a bit of them. I do not want to watch Brian Williams yap, or any of the other commentators yap or watch mind-numbing interviews or even irrelevant special features. Greece is fascinating, but I want to watch sports not the history channel!

Without trying to be deadly accurate, your typical hour of Olympic coverage seems to consist of 15 minutes of commercials, 30 minutes of unnecessary yapping, interviews and features, 10 minutes of overly long intro's to the upcoming event and 5 minutes of competition. Believe me I don't need to watch the swimmers take their clothes off, not even the girl's.

Sure, a certain amount of talk is required and Brian Williams is a fine anchor, but it's about the sports not the hype, not the opinions, not the controversy!

The hype is just unnecessary. It's the Olympics for cripes sakes! It needs no hype.

Too much opinion is annoying. I have my own opinions and they are not nearly so narrow and "party line" as your commentator's. Give it a rest and just assume I disagree.

And controversy: Bah! I've heard it all before. Give it its 30 seconds and drop it!

Don't tell me there are not enough sports to show. There are sports you are virtually ignoring. Show them. I would like to see Tae kwon do, especially now that is an official sport and no longer a demonstration sport. And not just two minutes of one bout. I'd like to watch a lot of it, get a feel for it. You could show it or another forgotten sport in those spaces between the swims, or in place of a special feature. Then I would watch, and endure the commercials and say thumbs up to CBC.

For now, though, the thumb remains in inverted mode.

Sincerely
Kim Hanson

[Fyron]

Canada is not alone. It is like that with US networks as well...

[Randallw]

Really. In Australia we just have event after event. The winners are interviewed but only for about 10 seconds, say as they leave the pool.
Has anyone seen the womens Beach Volleyball. It doesn't seem very Olympic to me. I knew the contestants could be disqualified if their costumes were too big (Like more than 10 cm (4 inches), but I am surprised how little they are. It just seems like an oppurtunity to watch women jump about on the sand in skimpy costumes.

[David E. Gervais]

I agree, this years coverage of the olympic games has gone to the media hounds. It's no longer about the sports, it's about media hype and commercials. The Olympics has lost all meaning this time around. First the government virtually removes support for it's athletes and now the media is more interested in documentries of unrelated stuff like Greece landmarks. Sure it has some interesting bits, but come on we want to watch the games not 'spotlight hogs' that think their performance as anchors is more interesting than the games.

Last night in about an hour of watching I saw one single race which Lasted 4 mins. An athlete spotlight that Lasted 15 mins and the star attraction of the interview came in 9th place Woohoo, way to go CBC, you really know how to pick a winner. not only was the race boring because the commentators hardly knew the names of the runners, they almost exclusively followed that one athlete through the entire race.

One more comment, I have digital TV and the program guid has yet to show what is actually playing.

grrr, a very bad year for the Olympics. Too bad, they have some good events too.

Nuf Said, Cheers!

[Atrocities]

Has any one noticed how empty the stands are?

[oleg]

BBC coverage is pretty decent, especially if you have digital and can choose between 5 different events. I also have Eurosport channel and it shows olympics 24h. Even better, there are no talking heads, just straight sport.

[David E. Gervais]

Atrocities said:
Has any one noticed how empty the stands are?

They are probably broadcasting the CBC feed to the big screens in the different stadiums, it drove the fans away.

..and I don't blame them.

Cheers!

[Hugh Manatee]

Atrocities said:
Has any one noticed how empty the stands are?

I think there was some religious greek holiday or something. It's one of those 'don't leave your house things'. Add to that noone wants to pay 100s of dollars/euros/pesos/rupeees/whatevers, to travel and risk getting pipe bombed to see amatuers play crappy sports noone cares about. Powerwalking is now an olympic sport..... WALKING. Not running.... WALKING [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/mad.gif[/img]. And table tennis..... PING PONG IS A SUMMER GAME [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/crazy.gif[/img]!

[Caduceus]

Atrocities said:
Has any one noticed how empty the stands are?

After living through an Olympics (Atlanta), I can tell you that there are so many events, especially early on, going on that they're *giving* those tickets away, especially in preliminary things.

But really, horse cantering and synchronized diving...?

Wildcard [img]/threads/images/Graemlins/icon46.gif[/img]

[Shrapnel]

Randallw said:
Really. In Australia we just have event after event. The winners are interviewed but only for about 10 seconds, say as they leave the pool.
Has anyone seen the womens Beach Volleyball. It doesn't seem very Olympic to me. I knew the contestants could be disqualified if their costumes were too big (Like more than 10 cm (4 inches), but I am surprised how little they are. It just seems like an oppurtunity to watch women jump about on the sand in skimpy costumes.

Has anybody else noticed the cheerleaders at some of the events? What's up with that? Totally cheapens the event IMHO.