Stop lying to me NBC

I don't really care that much about the Olympics, but I honestly thought the opening ceremonies advertised for this evening were going to be live, in the evening, for us and tomorrow morning in Beijing. That just didn't seem too far fetched to me.

This morning I am online, with the TV on in the background as usual, and I am reading about the Opening ceremonies while NBC is pretending they haven't happened yet. I think most Americans are aware of Time Zones, and it's acceptable to show events in the middle of the night (online or on one of your several cable television channels) to at least give us the opportunity to watch it live. I have a feeling this is going to be a theme this year: Read the scores before you see the games.

An article in the NY Times gave a live report of the events in the early morning, here are a few reader comments:

Tape delay is becoming annoying in this day and age. We trade stocks 24/7 across time zones, we get news as it breaks, etc. NBC has got seven TV and cable channels, this ain’t 1988 anymore.

— Posted by Tom

What amuses me about NBC is they’re trying really hard to pretend that the opening ceremony haven’t happened yet, even though 8:08pm has already passed in Beijing. I’m watching the Today Show right now: Al Roker and Natalie are in the NY studio saying stuff like “and the opening ceremonies coming later tonight!” while Matt Lauer & Ann Curry *are in* Beijing on screen on some kind of weird mini-tape delay. It looks like it’s early evening there but they can’t be live because the opening ceremony is going on right now. The lengths to which they’re going to perpetuate this ruse in order to protect their exclusive coverage here in the U.S. is a little insulting to our intelligence.

— Posted by Jon

I simply tired of NBC’s Olympic coverage. Over-exposure of American athletes, ridiculous behind the sport stories, and horrific timing. Remember Sydney? I was hopeful their online player would allow greater flexibility for schedules, but not showing the opening ceremonies online is further evidence of NBC’s “don’t worry, we’ll show you what we think is important” approach to the olympics. boo.

— Posted by killie42

NBC’s Olympic coverage is terrible across the board. Their TV stations don’t cover many events, case in point: this opening ceremony. Their Internet coverage is simply unaccessible.

I can’t say this is a bad thing as it further legitimizes and promotes piracy.

— Posted by NBC Dislike

This is really weird, and there really is no good excuse. Either NBC is technologically incapable of offering live feeds online, or they are not business-minded enough to figure out advertisers will still pay to advertise in the middle of the night, then they will pay again when you re-play the bigger events in primetime. Focus on the user and all else will follow. Go Team USA.