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[yagal]

Note for anyone in the UK who may have wondered into the thread to feel good about the beeb's coverage, Discovery(aka Eurosport) bought the rights to the 2024 olympics and beyond. They're sharing with the BBC, but the BBC isn't going to cover like they did before, 1-2 channels instead of everything, a lot of the coverage is going to be off free tv it seems?

Its going to fucking suck and I'm so sad about it...

Not only in the UK but in the hole EU for 1,3B. I really wanna see how many people are willing to pay for Canoe/kayak, Equestrian or even Swimming

Yes it's sad

 

[killertofu]

I tried downloading the app but it would only let me watch 30 minutes before having me log into my cable provider...?

Isn't NBC like...not cable? I was confused and annoyed so I didn't bother.

 

[Not]

I will gladly take the blame for NBC (and Comcast) crashing and burning and crumpling into a smoldering little high-density charcoal briquette

You're welcome, The Entire World

 

[R10Neymarfan]

If they actually bothered to show a live raw fees of the opening and closing ceremonies without too much commentary (an awful one at that) then maybe they would have people tune in. Instead the younger crowd is pirating live feed from other countries lol

They also have little to no interest in television whatsoever. If NBC wanted good ratings then they need to provide GOOD,ACCESSIBLE,and LIVE coverage. The only way you could get that was from the web which still uses ancient flash player and didn't even provide a simultaneous feed center for multi-sport viewing. And the god awful app which was prone to frequent crashes on any platform it was on.
Also the interruptions from commercials in general turned people off

 

[Lothar]

I think the millennials prefer watching live sports over delayed sports with narratives. Old people who aren't internet saavy don't care, but for millennials who are connected 24/7 I'm not going to watch Simone Biles on NBC's primetime coverage fall on beam 6 hours after it happened on the stream.

Is this because most millennials don't work? Honest question. Most working people can't watch steams of gymnastics at 1 PM. I don't think airing it live at 1 PM would have done anything or helped with the ratings. Daytime ratings of olympics would be low because people are working and nighttime ratings would have been even lower.

 

[Mechazawa]

Time to sex up the Olympics then, old man.

 

[Enter the Dragon Punch]

I didn't watch it because I didn't want to support the whole Rio shenanigans

 

[EatinOlives]

I got tired of seeing swimming, gymnastics, and running. There are so many sports to choose from, air that shit too. (Disclaimer, I'm talking about primetime coverage.)

This this this.

Don't forget beach volleyball, dat male gaze really pulls in the ratings!

Had to resort to the app (which was fucking GARBAGE, by the way. Never worked with Roku or Chromecast) to be able to see stuff like Archery, shot-put, table tennis, fencing, and weightlifting.

 

[Dai101]

Living in country with public broadcasting company that shows Olympics:

All live and no ads (you can also watch all from their internet service free of charge).

HEAR HEAR!

Also this year showed how pittyful are televisa and azteca. Not aknowledging any Olympic sport nor athletes just because Carlos Slim beat both at adquiring the rights, luckily he gave those rigths to all the public owned channels.

You suck nbc.

 

[Plywood]

I didn't watch any of it because all the best bits were posted as videos or gifs on Twitter.

Bite me.

In the future the olympics will be periscoped by people in the stands with vertical video. This is your fault.

 

[The Llama]

Even my mother recorded the opening ceremony to skip through all the commercials...

 

[subrock]

I would have watched if the IOC wasn't a corrupt piece of shit. Rio was not ready to host these games and it was pretty disgusting that they even tried.

 

[R10Neymarfan]

Is this because most millennials don't work? Honest question. Most working people can't watch steams of gymnastics at 1 PM. I don't think airing it live at 1 PM would have done anything or helped with the ratings. Daytime ratings of olympics would be low because people are working and nighttime ratings would have been even lower.

True but the most important events for gymnastics too place during the weekend. Also I bet lots of people live stream from their phone at work

 

[Setsuna]

Don't know about NBC but as a millennial I found the German coverage lacking. They had the TV channel that followed along every event with German athletes in it, which makes sense don't get me wrong, but they also featured up to 6 live streams. Again, mostly following events with German participation, which makes sense as well.

But that's not enough.

I want all the events, one livestream for every event. I don't care if there is no commentary, I don't need commentary for most events. I just want the feed. I've actually asked them on Social Media #

Spoiler

justmillennialthings

about it and they answered they don't have the capacity to do more than 6 streams. And yet they have a big ass studio and 4 or so people in Rio to conduct interviews I don't care about.

I hope things will be better in Tokyo. For the first time since forever (?) the public German broadcaster didn't get Olympia. Eurosport has it and I'm hopefull they'll offer an Olympia Pass or something with streams to ERRYTHAN. I would gladly pay for that.

Thats exactly what they did

They had a separate live stream for each and every event and you could have English/Spanish/No Commentary

 

[JeremyEtcetera]

Buggy NBC app, tape delay, and advertisements every 2-3 minutes were the real problem, but let's just keep blaming everyone else and look out of touch.

 

[Zombine]

Give us something we can relate to like competitive College loan paying

 

[ShowDog]

It was great on the west coast, stuck with Access Hollywood until 8pm to wait for the Events to air. I loved falling asleep before the main events at 10pm. Somehow the anticipation of watching delayed sports when I already knew who won couldn't keep me awake.

 

[Brinbe]

Yeah, no. It's because they have shitty coverage.

The NFL, NBA and regional baseball are doing great.

 

[Dr.Acula]

I don't have a problem with the tape delay, after all I was at work when they were airing live as were most people so it actually makes sense, but everything was shown too late. Gymnastics and Beach Volleyball were shown close to midnight. How the hell is that prime time?

The first hour of prime time, probably the hour most people would want to watch, was always the worst hour. It was never something like Phelps. It was swimming heats and diving.

The craziest thing was the swimming. They delayed the actual events so much in order to comply with NBC's demands, that in Canada, in the Eastern time zone, I had to stay up til 10:00 before Phelps got in the pool. Then I would see this thread and people watching on NBC didn't even see the race until 11:00.

Yeah, NBC forced all the athletes to race AT NIGHT, ostensibly so they could get the events in PRIME TIME (which they SHOT PAST), then delayed the broadcast EVEN LATER.

And NBC has been doing this for a DECADE. Every Olympics everyone complains about the tape delay, and every Olympics NBC says live sports are important, and every Olympics NBC delays the games AGAIN. It is the stupidest crap I've ever seen.

In Canada, CBC even has a deal with private cable providers to show excess events on other channels. The CBC, Bell, and Rogers all compete to air sports like the World Cup, Hockey, etc. and the CBC went and GAVE Rogers and Bell broadcast rights to the Olympics. And the consumers are happy!

 

[darscot]

I would have watched if the IOC wasn't a corrupt piece of shit. Rio was not ready to host these games and it was pretty disgusting that they even tried.

Turns out Rio was a great host and completely pulled it off. Seems like you completely made up your mind before they even started.

 

[ezrarh]

Put out a shitty product - less people will watch. Doesn't take a highly paid consultant to figure that out.

 

[thepotatoman]

Can't wait to watch some sports! (switches to NBC)

"Joe Smoogan was born in Kansas City Missouri, his father was a baker born with no arms..."

Fuck it, let me just stream the sport.

They keep running these saccharine human interest pieces that are decidedly not targeted at millennials then wonder why millennials don't watch.

Who's running their business?

Just show the events live with good commentary from actual experts of the sport and numbers will skyrocket.

No one wants the bullshit story narrative that NBC tries to create for each event.

Exactly this.

It's funny that the article talks about how amazing live sports do, when NBC doesn't focus much on the live or the sport aspect of the olympics

 

[VeryGooster]

NBC's coverage sucked for London.

They sucked for Rio.

Good luck in 2020?

 

[Extra Sauce]

As nerdy things grew in popularity, jocky things declined in popularity.

"Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed."

 

[thepotatoman]

I watched a decent amount of Olympics, but until the games adds a fifth sport (can't believe the entire Olympics consists of swimming, gymnastics, track and field and beach volleyball) to the lineup, I'm kinda over it.

Oh, also all the results were on Twitter 3-4 hours before it aired on the west coast so everything was a bit anticlimactic. Too bad there's no solution for this impossible problem!

They're adding Skateboarding for 2020, maybe that'll get those millennials back on board.

 

[zero_suit]

NBC's coverage sucked for London.

They sucked for Rio.

Good luck in 2020?

Tokyo is 13 hours ahead of EST. It will be even worse.

 

[Sulik2]

This was the first time in my life I completely tuned out the Olympics. I'm 31 and used to always watch a ton, but just had no interest this year. I'll be back for curling in two years though. I do hate the fact they don't just show the sports more often though.

 

[mreddie]

NBC = Free channel, has app and online streaming blocked unless you have cable or sat provider.

Gee, I wonder why ratings were down when people went to CBC and BBC instead.

Blaming millennials LOL.

 

[ironmang]

Too many things distracting us from what's really important, watching people see who's the best swimmer.

 

[PlayALLtheGames]

Yeah or maybe it's because most of the events are boring as hell and people are turned off by all the terrible things that happen behind the scenes.

Olympics will never have the allure of decades ago because the reality is they're just not that great.

 

[Septimus Prime]

NBC = Free channel, has app and online streaming blocked unless you have cable or sat provider.

Gee, I wonder why ratings were down when people went to CBC and BBC instead.

Blaming millennials LOL.

Yeah, and then when you do login, their UX is ass, and you can't find what streams are even live. I ended up just parking it on Gold Zone for a bit.

 

[EatinOlives]

Yeah, and then when you do login, their UX is ass, and you can't find what streams are even live. I ended up just parking it on Gold Zone for a bit.

Yeah there were way too many times when you'd pick an event and it would either go "Coverage for this event has concluded" or "Coverage for this event will begin shortly" and just hang in there for like 20 minutes.

 

[John Dunbar]

I watched a decent amount of Olympics, but until the games adds a fifth sport (can't believe the entire Olympics consists of swimming, gymnastics, track and field and beach volleyball) to the lineup, I'm kinda over it.

Oh, also all the results were on Twitter 3-4 hours before it aired on the west coast so everything was a bit anticlimactic. Too bad there's no solution for this impossible problem!

what exactly do you mean by a "fifth sport"? i wouldn't say archery, golf, football, equestrian, wrestling, boxing etc. all fit under those four.

 

[lazybones18]

I admit the whole clusterfuck surrounding these Games pretty much turned me off from actively watching them. Shame too, cause there were a few sports I was very interested in watching.

 

[WillyFive]

I would argue against the claim that NBC showed the Olympics.

 

[Empyrean Heaven]

Maybe if half your primetime programming wasn't taped and available live online with better commentary, this wouldn't be an issue.

 

[Nipo]

what exactly do you mean by a "fifth sport"? i wouldn't say archery, golf, football, equestrian, wrestling, boxing etc. all fit under those four.

Those things are at the Olympics?! You should let NBC know it would have been great to see any of them in prime time.

 

[Makki]

The solution? Super Smash Bros Melee at the Olympics, Snapchatted live by Kylie Jenner.

Thats a party game, we need real fighting games

/s

 

[Heavy_D206]

Fuck you NBC

I'm in Seattle and watched a ton of Olympics coverage... live on the Canadian channel with barely any commercials!

 

[BobLoblaw]

If most of this shit was live at a reasonable time in the US, then obviously ratings would've been up. It wasn't, so there you go.

 

[Jeffrey]

The tape delay was bad, but the worst was the commercials every 5 min or so. I don't think those ceremony performances were designed to be padded with ads.

 

[thepotatoman]

Is this because most millennials don't work? Honest question. Most working people can't watch steams of gymnastics at 1 PM. I don't think airing it live at 1 PM would have done anything or helped with the ratings. Daytime ratings of olympics would be low because people are working and nighttime ratings would have been even lower.

Yeah, I wonder too. It's hard to argue against it since watching it live really should be an option, but how many people have the ability to watch it like that?

They're definitely losing out on ratings thanks to taped stuff being spoiled by the internet, but I doubt showing it live will do much better.

 

[SoRuffShoNuff]

Everyone is screaming "Oh show it live, blah blah blah" but who was at home to watch the gymnastics finals live at 3pm eastern noon pacific on a Thursday? If a huge draw like gymnastics is on during the middle of the day then you damn right they are going to show it later in prime time when they know people will actually be able to see it. A lot of the track prelims were on in the middle of the afternoon as well.

Ratings are down because the people who want to watch it live can watch it live on the stream then tune to something else later on if they replay the event in prime time. The audience is split now due to streaming.

Its going to be even worse in Tokyo, at least in Rio some of the big events were able to be broadcast live.

 

[Jack The Nipper]

No youtube highlights pissed me off. Get your shit on yt, all of it nbc. Highlights. Interviews, extras

That's a ton of money for exclusive yt

Sounds like the way they talk and the way they handle the Internet is that they hate it.

If they want progress they need to use social media in thier favor


When are the Olympics in America again? If day location also has things to do with it

 

[Disxo]

Living in country with public broadcasting company that shows Olympics:

All live and no ads (you can also watch all from their internet service free of charge).

Oh yeah! Best thing ever. Watched like 5 streams at the same time.

 

[Poetic.Injustice]

Didn't watch a single moment on TV.

 

[Sushi Nao]

I didn't watch because the IOC is totally corrupt and the whole Rio thing sounded like a nightmare, heading into it.

 

[SpacePirate Ridley]

Living in country with public broadcasting company that shows Olympics:

All live and no ads (you can also watch all from their internet service free of charge).

Same here.
They were giving the viewership in their news tonight, basically as good as ever.

Wouldnt surprise me if it went up for Japan (in europe, america is fucked because of the hours) Depending of the opening ceremony (they already closed this one with super mario lol), theres a crowd that are going to watch who usually doesnt. Its also going to be done in a more positive and modern light than the Rio fiasco.

 

[Gotdatmoney]

Watched on bunch on CBC. Was solid coverage. Except way too many interviews. But still enjoyed it. Live feeds of everything on their website. They did well.

 

[walei]

Everyone is screaming "Oh show it live, blah blah blah" but who was at home to watch the gymnastics finals live at 3pm eastern noon pacific on a Thursday? If a huge draw like gymnastics is on during the middle of the day then you damn right they are going to show it later in prime time when they know people will actually be able to see it. A lot of the track prelims were on in the middle of the afternoon as well.

Ratings are down because the people who want to watch it live can watch it live on the stream then tune to something else later on if they replay the event in prime time. The audience is split now due to streaming.

Its going to be even worse in Tokyo, at least in Rio some of the big events were able to be broadcast live.

Maybe NBC needs to find a better business model instead of relying on prime time ratings.

In Tokyo they will still have most of the big finals during East Coast prime time. They did it in Beijing by making them compete first thing in the morning local time. I think part of the problem is even with prime time live coverage NBC's way of showing the competition sucked. Crappy commentary, fluffs, commercial breaks... The problem is their show is curated for the older generation who likes those stuff but millennials would prefer uninterrupted (or minimally uninterrupted) live coverage without sensational commentaries. NBC just needs to get on with the times.