#NBCfail on covering the Olympics
It has been a while since I posted here and I had checked to see if anyone has posted on this, but no one else has so I will. There are a couple of other sources on NBC's utter failure but this one has a direct quote from them on WHY they cut it. It will enrage you.
NBC Hit For Editing Opening Ceremony Segment Seen As 'Victims Tribute'
NEW YORK -- NBC has come under fire in the British press for editing out a performance during the London Olympics opening ceremony that has been interpreted by some as a tribute to victims of the "7/7" terrorist attacks that rocked that city in 2005.
The network, which has exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to the London games, cut instead to a taped interview between Ryan Seacrest and gold-medalist swimmer Michael Phelps.
The Daily Mail scoffed that NBC replaced a "tribute to 7/7 victims with bland Michael Phelps interview."
The Guardian, in a piece headlined "Row after NBC drop opening ceremony '7/7 tribute,'" said that section of Friday night's performance has been "widely interpreted" as a tribute to the 52 victims of the 2005 bombings.
As Scottish singer Emeli Sandé sang "Abide With Me," and a memorial wall featured images of spectators' deceased loved ones, BBC commentator Hazel Irvine noted that "the excitement of that moment in Singapore seven years ago when London won the Games was tempered with great sorrow the very next day, with the events on 7 July."
Deadspin, which first called attention to the missing segment and features video of the BBC's coverage, noted that the International Olympic Committee's media guide makes no direct reference to the 7/7 attacks. In the media guide, the related dance sequence, featuring 50 dancers, is described as dramatizing "the struggle between life and death using such powerful images of mortality as dust and the setting sun."
When asked about editing the song-and-dance performance, an NBC Sports spokesman responded in a statement: “Our program is tailored for the U.S. television audience. It’s a credit to [opening ceremony producer] Danny Boyle that it required so little editing.”
James Poniewozik, television critic for Time magazine, noted Saturday that there's "some disagreement over whether the segment was actually, literally a tribute to terrorism victims," despite the reference to the attacks during the BBC's coverage.
"But it also doesn't really matter," Poniewozik wrote. "Specific or general, a tribute to the missing seems like precisely the most sensitive section of a ceremony to edit out. And besides that, given the stranglehold NBC maintains on content for an event its audience has a massive interest in, why edit anything out? It may have been a long ceremony, as they always are, but there was plenty of time to air the song rather than have Ryan Seacrest interview athletes (which NBC has the rest of the games to do, over and over and over)."
This isn't the only criticism NBC has received over its broadcast of the opening ceremony.
While NBC is livestreaming every medal event -- a first in Olympics history -- the network isn't allowing online access to the opening and closing ceremonies before the spectacles air on prime time. On Friday, U.S. Olympics fans could follow coverage of the opening ceremony on Twitter or seek out live feeds online, but couldn't watch the entire four-plus-hour spectacle on television before NBC aired it that night.
Despite the criticism, NBC's ratings didn't suffer. On Saturday, the network announced that Friday night's opening ceremony was the most watched ever for a Summer Olympic Games, with 40.7 million viewers on average.
I've been pissed and ranting at NBC since Friday afternoon in my tumblr (amid the fandom posts) and just recently added it to my journal
Reasons include the time-delay (only nation in the world to do so), cutting out the Benedict Cumberbatch 'Let the Games Commence' opening, HORRIBLE and offensive commentary during the freaking Opening Ceremony, finding out they cut the 7/7 tribute, pay-locking the NBC official Olympics Live streaming to where only cable customers have access to it (I'm out of luck), showing the really long boring stuff I'm not interested in on NBC when I can't watch any of the tennis or other interesting sports on cable, time-delaying EVERYTHING good until prime-time to the point that it was completely 'spoiled' about Ryan Lochte crushing Michael Phelps.
So I don't care about the Olympics anymore. What's the point on watching? I read about all the news online hours before it shows anyways.
I'm not the only one either as #NBCfail trended for several hours last night. Actually there was two, #shutupMattLauer was trending as well from Friday I think.
Since NBC plans to continue with it's horrible strategy I expect these tags to resurge throughout the Olympics.
This is footage of the '7/7 tribute' Liveleak if embed doesn't work:
Btw, here is the Benedict Cumberbatch opening:
Do you not see how freaking awesome it is? Let the games commence. Of course having him stand off the top of a freaking building was just cruel to us Sherlockians.
I should have known that the moment they cut this that it would be all downhill from there.
So, my fellow Americans, what do you think of how NBC has bungled the Olympics coverage? Do you plan on still watching? Can you watch? Have you found other avenues of being able to have to access to the events you want? Have you dl'd the full Opening Ceremony yet to see what all you had missed by NBC cutting into it with commercials and selected censoring? I sure as hell didn't see a lesbian kiss.
Or have you stopped watching like me?
NBC Hit For Editing Opening Ceremony Segment Seen As 'Victims Tribute'
NEW YORK -- NBC has come under fire in the British press for editing out a performance during the London Olympics opening ceremony that has been interpreted by some as a tribute to victims of the "7/7" terrorist attacks that rocked that city in 2005.
The network, which has exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to the London games, cut instead to a taped interview between Ryan Seacrest and gold-medalist swimmer Michael Phelps.
The Daily Mail scoffed that NBC replaced a "tribute to 7/7 victims with bland Michael Phelps interview."
The Guardian, in a piece headlined "Row after NBC drop opening ceremony '7/7 tribute,'" said that section of Friday night's performance has been "widely interpreted" as a tribute to the 52 victims of the 2005 bombings.
As Scottish singer Emeli Sandé sang "Abide With Me," and a memorial wall featured images of spectators' deceased loved ones, BBC commentator Hazel Irvine noted that "the excitement of that moment in Singapore seven years ago when London won the Games was tempered with great sorrow the very next day, with the events on 7 July."
Deadspin, which first called attention to the missing segment and features video of the BBC's coverage, noted that the International Olympic Committee's media guide makes no direct reference to the 7/7 attacks. In the media guide, the related dance sequence, featuring 50 dancers, is described as dramatizing "the struggle between life and death using such powerful images of mortality as dust and the setting sun."
When asked about editing the song-and-dance performance, an NBC Sports spokesman responded in a statement: “Our program is tailored for the U.S. television audience. It’s a credit to [opening ceremony producer] Danny Boyle that it required so little editing.”
James Poniewozik, television critic for Time magazine, noted Saturday that there's "some disagreement over whether the segment was actually, literally a tribute to terrorism victims," despite the reference to the attacks during the BBC's coverage.
"But it also doesn't really matter," Poniewozik wrote. "Specific or general, a tribute to the missing seems like precisely the most sensitive section of a ceremony to edit out. And besides that, given the stranglehold NBC maintains on content for an event its audience has a massive interest in, why edit anything out? It may have been a long ceremony, as they always are, but there was plenty of time to air the song rather than have Ryan Seacrest interview athletes (which NBC has the rest of the games to do, over and over and over)."
This isn't the only criticism NBC has received over its broadcast of the opening ceremony.
While NBC is livestreaming every medal event -- a first in Olympics history -- the network isn't allowing online access to the opening and closing ceremonies before the spectacles air on prime time. On Friday, U.S. Olympics fans could follow coverage of the opening ceremony on Twitter or seek out live feeds online, but couldn't watch the entire four-plus-hour spectacle on television before NBC aired it that night.
Despite the criticism, NBC's ratings didn't suffer. On Saturday, the network announced that Friday night's opening ceremony was the most watched ever for a Summer Olympic Games, with 40.7 million viewers on average.
I've been pissed and ranting at NBC since Friday afternoon in my tumblr (amid the fandom posts) and just recently added it to my journal
Reasons include the time-delay (only nation in the world to do so), cutting out the Benedict Cumberbatch 'Let the Games Commence' opening, HORRIBLE and offensive commentary during the freaking Opening Ceremony, finding out they cut the 7/7 tribute, pay-locking the NBC official Olympics Live streaming to where only cable customers have access to it (I'm out of luck), showing the really long boring stuff I'm not interested in on NBC when I can't watch any of the tennis or other interesting sports on cable, time-delaying EVERYTHING good until prime-time to the point that it was completely 'spoiled' about Ryan Lochte crushing Michael Phelps.
So I don't care about the Olympics anymore. What's the point on watching? I read about all the news online hours before it shows anyways.
I'm not the only one either as #NBCfail trended for several hours last night. Actually there was two, #shutupMattLauer was trending as well from Friday I think.
Since NBC plans to continue with it's horrible strategy I expect these tags to resurge throughout the Olympics.
This is footage of the '7/7 tribute' Liveleak if embed doesn't work:
Btw, here is the Benedict Cumberbatch opening:
Click to viewDo you not see how freaking awesome it is? Let the games commence. Of course having him stand off the top of a freaking building was just cruel to us Sherlockians.
I should have known that the moment they cut this that it would be all downhill from there.
So, my fellow Americans, what do you think of how NBC has bungled the Olympics coverage? Do you plan on still watching? Can you watch? Have you found other avenues of being able to have to access to the events you want? Have you dl'd the full Opening Ceremony yet to see what all you had missed by NBC cutting into it with commercials and selected censoring? I sure as hell didn't see a lesbian kiss.
Or have you stopped watching like me?