As a person who lives and dies by the media, I pick and prod at ways things could be done better when it comes to television, radio and the like. I'm sure most of us are avid Olympics watchers. The opening ceremonies alone were over 4 hours long, and those who watched got to see the largest LCD screen on the face of the planet. And then, the sports got underway.
Beijing is 15 hours ahead of us for those that live on the west coast. If you live in other places, do the math to determine how far ahead it is for your part of the nation, it's not tough. NBC, the leading broadcaster for anything and everything Olympics, usually has sports on in the early to late morning, then the big broadcast takes place in "prime time". Here's a secret for all of you who don't know already: those sports that you are watching in such high anticipation, hoping for the U.S. (or whatever country) to win the gold, have been over for quite some time.
The way I figure it, the sports that you are watching have been over for 3 hours. For those of us who have ESPN as our homepage, we cringe the minute we open our browsers because the headline usually reads: "Phelps wins gold" and we sit back and think, "no point in watching now".
Throughout all this, you are welcomed by the loving voice of Bob Costas saying, "Thanks for joining us, we'll have all the events for you LIVE tonight." Well actually, Mr. Costas, those events have been over for a while now, but thanks for the effort.
How does it feel when you turn on the television to watch that event you've been waiting 4 years for (maybe not but you're pretty excited) and they put up those four letters in the top right-hand side of the screen, then you realize, hey, this isn't live!?!
This has been the torture of my life these last 7 days. Knowing the outcome before I see it. It's almost as if I can see into the future. Do you think it's OK for NBC to lie to the public and say that the events are live? I sure don't.
