Apparently people on the West Coast are vastly annoyed that they're seeing the Olympics on tape delay from NBC.
Welcome to my world. It wasn't until ESPN took over Monday Night Football in 2006 that the game was shown live in Hawaii. When on ABC it had been delayed until 6:30pm local time.
Now, I don't blame people in Seattle (who rightfully say "It's a few hours up the road; why do I have to wait till prime-time?") for being upset about this, but trust me, NBC is not going to change its broadcast practices just to make you happy. In fact, they'll likely point to their ratings and say "What's the problem?"
I sympathize with you folks, but you'll have to live with it.
Posted by Linkmeister at February 20, 2010 01:58 PM | TrackBackBack in the '70s when we first came to Hawaii, one of the first things we noticed was that all Mainland TV broadcasts were on a week delay. Our family used to joke that, if the world came to an end, we wouldn't know about it for a week.
Also, I seem to remember that about 4 or 5 Olympics ago, NBC put their programming on a bunch of channels and (if you were a subscriber to Oceanic) you could buy a package of channels to watch your favorite sports - all track and field, all water sports, etc. I believe they only did it the one time, but I liked it because I got to watch all the equestrian events for a change.
Posted by: Illanoy Gal at February 21, 2010 01:37 AMLook at the Advertiser sports page coverage of these Olympics. There's a big section showing what coverage there will be on the tube, including MSNBC, CNBC, and a couple of HD channels. There's also an Olympics-on-demand premium channel, which might do what you're suggesting.
Posted by: Linkmeister at February 21, 2010 08:49 AMNever in all my ranting did I suggest that Hawaii is less deserving of real time coverage than anybody else and I don't think "just get used to it" is a reasonable expectation. We've complained about the time delays even when the Olympic events were shown "tomorrow". In fact, my complaint isn't limited to Olympic events although the Olympics bring it all to a head in my brain (ha).
NBC programming doesn't take into account that times have changed...the internet scoops all of their tape delays and if they were smart, they'd offer up full coverage...and I do mean everything...as a ppv option or a special event subscription via the various cable companies and make a gob of money on that. Instead we're forced to run on east coast time. If there is ever a real time cable option, I'm seriously going to consider a subscription.
Posted by: Karan at February 22, 2010 07:30 AMI didn't take it that you were suggesting any such thing. I only meant that it's a problem we've had to live with out here forever and our complaining had no effect whatsoever, so I wouldn't expect a campaign against the practice now to have any more than ours did.
Oceanic Time Warner offers something called Olympics on Demand which I haven't tried. I wonder if that's the PPV you're describing.
Posted by: Linkmeister at February 22, 2010 07:40 AM