Logo

NBC Faces Olympic Challenges in London

Aug 25, 2008  •  Post A Comment

The cheering from Beijing has barely died down, and yet NBC must begin preparing for the 2012 Olympics, which was be staged in London, USA Today says. Working in a different time zone will make it more difficult for NBC to air key events live, which was a key to attracting viewers and advertisers during the past two weeks, the paper notes. Speaking of Beijing, Tom Shales of the Washington Post, says Chinese officials and NBC brought out the best in television during the games.

7 Comments

  1. And China was in the same time zone? Isn’t that going to be an issue any where the Olympics are held? We have that problem televising live major sporting events in the U.S.

  2. NBC did a truly great job bringing us the Olympics.
    The 12 hour difference made it convenient to bring daytime events to us live in primetime.
    Like we experienced doing the Winter Olympics out of Albertville in’92 for CBS, the London fare will be dilluted by other networks news divisions reporting results five hours (or more) ahead of any ability to broadcast them.
    I have but one BIG complaint of NBC’s coverage. It occurred last night during the Closing Ceremonies. Why in Hell did they have to move their logo to the top of the screen in the middle of the HD picture for the entire event? Are they that insecure that we don’t know what network was providing the coverage after 17 days? They even covered the Olympic Flame in the moments leading up to its being extinguished on one wonderful camera angle! Being in the lower right frame would have been in poor taste, but somewhat acceptable…it’s lived there for two plus weeks.
    It was unacceptable where they put it.
    Peter Bright

  3. Yes, I don’t get your ‘time zone’ analogy. China is about 10-12 hours behind US time, so why is England’s 5 hours such a problem?

  4. The problem Red is that at 7pm EST you are 12pm London time.
    Not much live sports from Beijing at noon EST in the USA on NBC, MSNBC, USA.
    NBC will be able to air more stuff live during the day, buttttt with the American public be their to watch it.
    Will Sponsors want to pay up for the 8pm-12PM EST time slot while London is totally dark.
    NBC got the IOC to air swimming finals live in prime time this year, they will not imo get to do it in 2012.
    The ratings just might not be great for 8AM EST swimming finals.

  5. Beyond all this is the unbelievable good fortune NBC had with CONTENT which made these games great (a topic often ignored).
    1. A medal struggle for the claim to national superiority not seen since the breakdown of the USSR.
    2. PHELPS. PHELPS. PHELPS. An incredible achievement to follow, step by step, that got things off with a bang.
    3. The women’s (children’s?) gymnastics teams. Intense competition. Intense controversy. 16 year olds who looked 12.
    Not over yet. Will the Chinese medals stick?
    4. Usain Bolt…the whole nine yards of him: showboating through an Olympic record. The archer pose. Writhing on the ground. Reprimanded by the IOC.
    5. The fabulous Chinese culture exposed best in the opening ceremonies…and a great source of local color stories.
    Can London beat this? We’ll see.

  6. Nobody can top the Chinese opening and closing ceremonies. Only Japan or Korea (South Korea, aka Hanguk) maybe. India, maybe. But the timezone problem will be major with the ol’ mother country.

  7. This is good info! Where else can if ind out more?? Who runs this joint too? Keep up the good work 🙂

Leave a Reply to Scott Lackey Cancel Reply

Email (will not be published)