I'm An Entitled Asshole & I Hate NBC
 

Sent this into the blog section of http://www.nbcolympics.com/index.html this morning:

I have a few questions & comments, and oddly enough, I'm not even going to ask why there are no "contact" or "feedback" links/pages other than this blog form on the entire NBC Olympic website.

1st off, I love the Olympics, especially the Winter Games. I have a High Def TV that I invested a lot of money in about 3 years ago. NBC's HD coverage of the Summer Games in 2004 was fantastic! The HD feed seemed to be 24/7 Olympics, with the regular NBC feed showing the normal daily shows & a couple of hours of Olympic coverage during prime time. I watched the HD channel pretty much all day & loved that I could watch live events at 8 in the morning.

I eagerly awaited the 2006 Winter Games & the almost 24/7 coverage I assumed would be on the HD feed. What happened? Why is Meet The Press on my HD feed this morning? Why is the weekday daytime schedule filled with talk shows & soap operas? These programs are not in HD anyway, so no one would care that the HD channel is all Olympics like the Summer 2004 games.

I'd also like to ask if anyone there has watched CBC Canada's coverage of the games? I live just outside Buffalo, NY, so we get CBC on our local cable provider & I can pick up their HD feed with my antenna. This is a major national channel that is pretty much 24/7 HD Olympic coverage. Take a look at any day on their TV schedule page - http://www.cbc.ca/television/index.html - from 7-8 AM until 11 PM, it's pretty much all Olympics, with the occasional news show thrown in. They also have 4-5 hours of coverage in the middle of the night. This is what NBC's HD channel should be doing. I've honestly had CBC'd HD feed on my TV at least 50% of the time so far this weekend. I have it on right now watching Women's Hockey, even though you have it on one of the other channels. I guess The Chris Matthews Shows is needed on both the regular & HD feeds for some reason.

I'm probably a bit jaded on all of this, since I do have the CBC feed from Canada & I remember the HD coverage from Summer 2004, but come on! Why would you go with the 24/7 coverage for the Summer 2004 Games & put normal programming on for the Winter 2006 Games? It doesn't make sense to me.

I'll watch the NBC HD Feed a little bit when it comes on, but for the most part, I'll be sitting here watching CBC's coverage & wondering why we have no Canadian Tire locations here in the states.

Great letter. Jay Leno and Conan would agree that NBC is going down the shitter, they take stabs at NBC's ratings quite often during their nightly show monologues.

Canadian Tire money is Canada's second currency ;)

Well Done! I miss my old large dish satellite TV, I used to get CBC and a lot of other cool channels.

|thumb

I didn't think that a US station was actually allowed to show complete live Olymic coverage. I know they could show reruns of events but only after ensuring that an acceptable outcome was achieved.

That is stupid that NBC is showing regular shows like soaps and crap on the HD channels when really there is no benefit watching shows like that in HD (and you said most are not in HD anyway).

Idiotic. :(

Edit to add this:
Isn't the Olympics a litttttttle bit more important than soaps and talk shows? Show them on the regular channel and the Olympics (which comes every 4 years) on the HD channels.

Preaching to the choir here. I've been bitching since before it started about what I knew would be a lack of live coverage. Where we would only see a bunch of "up close and personal" style crap, the americans in the event and the top 3 to 5 others.

But then I'm a guy that bought the Triple Cast years ago and enjoyed the hell out of it. 24/7 live coverage on 3 channels... ahhh heaven. (although that would probably be a little overkill for the winter games)

edit: I need my curling fix, dammit!

Awesome GG! I will be sending them something nasty..
Im glad im not the only one pissed about this.
I am still pissed about last nights coverage with dropouts every 2 fucken minutes.. cant these people do anything right.. and on top of that I already know the results because NBC cocksuckers are too stupid to show LIVE coverage. Cable provider did give us Universal HD and they will cover all hockey live in HD:) Overall NBC screwed up again..

GG you just have way too much time on your hands :D

We don't have the cable hooked up to the TV, because we hardly watch it. But, I dig the winter olympics despite not being a sports fan. I'd be really pissed if I expected to watch some hockey, or hell, even curling in HD and couldn't do it. At least you can watch the CBC coverage. It's funny, Canada is one of the things I miss most about living in Buffalo. Well, that and La Nova pizzaria...

I didn't notice any dropouts during commercials though.

Amazing how that works |lightsabe

Oddly enough, you did touch on something with that - NBC hates to show live events from the Olymnpics because they don't have TV Time Outs like they do in the major sports. CBC doesn't seem to care, I watched the Female 3000 Meter Speed Skating live this morning (and then the edited & full ofg commercials version on NBC at 3)

I also know most of the results for the coverage that starts in about 15 minutes |banghead|

I was thinking how cool it would be to kick back and watch the Olympics today and there's nothing on but Nascar.. WTF?

I can't believe how shitty this coverage is..

I also have HD widescreen... I was so excited about watching the Games.. I've been an avid follower since I was a kid..

This totally sucks

CBC probably doesn't mind loosing some commercial air time during the Olympics because each Canadian tax payer helps fund the network (and its worth it.)

Do you guys realize what you're complimenting Canadian broadcasting?
You MUST be Americans, you would never hear those words from a Canadian's mouth!

emmanuelle - I love CBC Sports - I can't get enough hockey, curling & duck pin bowling |thumb

I am still trying to figure out if curling is really a sport or just a joke on us americans

I forgot to mention that I sent a copy of my email to CBC, thanking them for their coverage as well. I got a reply today - probably a copy & paste, but it's nice to get it :)

Date: Mon, 13 Feb 2006 15:10:57 -0500
From: "Olympics4"
To:
Subject: Winter Olympics on CBC

Thank you! We are delighted that you have enjoyed our HDtv coverage of TORINO 2006 * THE OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES on CBC TV. It is always nice to read e-mail like yours and we have put it aside so that our production crew can appreciate your words upon their return from Turin.

Once again, thanks for writing and thank you for watching TORINO 2006 * THE OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES on CBC TV.

CBC Audience Relations
Olympic Unit

hehe- I nearly spurted my pepsi when I read that last night

btw- love your sig!

I love curling despite only getting to see it every 4 years (or maybe that's 'because only getting it' ) I keep trying to watch it right now but for some reason my tv back here is having problems with CNBC

I love watching curling, My parents had a cabin in a town in Northern MI we spent weekends and summers that had a curling club we could go and watch them play at.

Ever watched the movie "Men with Brooms"? I about died laughing, MadHatter wasn't sure though, he just didn't grow up with curling like I did, lol.

I don't have HD TV, but I'm pretty pissed at the coverage too, I was looking forward to working with my little tv in my office going non-stop olympics and was horribly dissapointed that wasn't the case. Not a huge hockey fan (sorry) but I love every other winter sport in the games.

I will say one nice thing about NBC...they are going to broadcast the Women's Hockey Finals live in the middle of next week (Men's finals are scheduled for the weekend when they are broadcasting anyway)

Now if we could just convince them that all the other events that occur during the week are much better than Days Of Our Lives :D

...and if a see another ad on MSNBC for the HD coverage that's only on at night, I'm gonna bite someone in the leg |violin|

I have NEVER understood what people see in soaps. I've worked a few places where the ladies were totally addicted to them and I wanted to say, "GET A LIFE!" lol