Olympics

invaderzim

Super Member
While I'm enjoying the Olympics this year it does annoy me that they've gone to only showing select events on broadcast TV and relegating others to the premium cable channels.
In years past they'd show the less popular events on broadcast in the middle of the night so I could record them and watch them later. I actually watched curling before Anastasia Bryzgalova.
I guess there has to be some downside to cutting the cable.
 
Only showing those events in which the USA has a chance of winning a medal. Could care less about Biathlon, Ski Jumping, etc. So those without premium channels get Figure Skating, Snowboard, and Women's skiing.
 
I've been watching a lot of of coverage on CBC, more than I can keep track of. I use Plex to DVR most of it. True, they feature a lot of Canadian athletes, but since they're our southern ;) neighbor, it doesn't bother me--I watch more for the sports themselves than rooting for one particular country. I haven't watched US coverage in decades...only under duress. The CBC has featured more sports, less commercials, and the commentators are not obnoxious talking heads like NBC's.
 
I'm surprised there is no Olympic event thread running in the forum.
I despise NBC’s blatant personal agenda in my face while I’m trying to just enjoy the friendly competition.
With the Canadian broadcast, it's rather nice to hear the commentary based primarily on the sports. With the opening ceremonies, they mentioned a little of the political/international situation, but they did not make a big deal out of it, nor do I recall them turning it into an opinion. I recognize the world situation of course, but IMHO this is not the place for it--I'm there to watch the sports, as much as the athletes are there to compete and win for their countries.

I rarely watch sports anyway, so this is like a once-every-four-year thing for me, and it's nice to watch the respectful CBC coverage as opposed to the dreck the US broadcast has become.
 
Over here, olympics about all day long on TV one of the national channels, I think most, if not all, gets covered.
 
Last edited:
Although I will often end up with a favorite in a competition I tend to root for whoever is going at the moment. They've all worked hard to get there and you feel for any of them when things go wrong.

Do they really expect people to add their sports channels just for the Olympics (or in my case add cable too)? I'd be happy to pay to watch them on demand; and even pay extra for no commercials; I just can't sit through 6+ commercials then back to talk about the sport for 4 minutes then 6+ more commercials then back to show one performer and more commercials. Thank goodness for DVR software.

Somehow all the sports that I think wouldn't be good to watch end up being the most interesting to me and those are the ones they don't show on the broadcast channels anymore.

I'm surprised there is no Olympic event thread running in the forum.......

Me too.

What was up with the opening ceremony and cutting to video clips? I know what the idea was behind it with them going through the 'doorways' and finding the things about Korea on the other side but it felt more like boring corporate promotional videos interrupting the events. I finally just gave up at that point and skipped the rest.
I do get that they spend a lot of money on the Olympics to get the worlds focus onto their country for a bit but that just seemed odd.

Some USA Olympics comments even reach my little country. There is some doubt about "from what planet this commenting lady actually comes from...". :rflmao::rflmao::rflmao:

This reminds me of that Seinfeld episode where Jerry tells Elaine "the original title for "War and Peace" was "War--What Is It Good For?"" and she tells that to a famous Russian author.
Somewhere someone was rolling around on the floor saying "she really believed it!!!" when Katie made the comment about the Dutch getting around on skates.

One would think that someone who has been to as many places as she has wouldn't get all her knowledge of the world from the "It's a small world" ride at Disneyland.
Disneyland+-+Its+a+small+world+ride+03.jpg
 
Last edited:
What was up with the opening ceremony and cutting to video clips? I know what the idea was behind it with them going through the 'doorways' and finding the things about Korea on the other side but it felt more like boring corporate promotional videos interrupting the events.
I was wondering, too, if those were shown on the video monitors in the stadium--it wouldn't make sense for the home viewers to see this and not the attendees. I do "get" that the idea is based on their culture. I agree it did not seem like a good match--shifting between the recorded video vs. the live coverage of the event.
 
Although I will often end up with a favorite in a competition I tend to root for whoever is going at the moment. They've all worked hard to get there and you feel for any of them when things go wrong.
That wipeout by the snowboarder from Japan I saw yesterday was a heartbreaker--I heard later on the broadcast he had hip injuries from his fall. It was also great seeing Shaun White win the gold on that one, on the last run of the event.

Do they really expect people to add their sports channels just for the Olympics (or in my case add cable too)? I'd be happy to pay to watch them on demand; and even pay extra for no commercials; I just can't sit through 6+ commercials then back to talk about the sport for 4 minutes then 6+ more commercials then back to show one performer and more commercials.
Wow, has it gotten that bad now? Yeah, that seems like typical US television now that you mention it. ;) I am actually surprised that the CBC is able to go for so long without the commercials. I mean, sometimes it's like a half hour or so. Or an entire hockey period.

I have also said something similar about on demand or subscription streaming--for my local teams, I would not be adverse to paying maybe $5/month to catch the games via an Internet stream. I've never had "cable TV" in my life--it's always been an antenna, or the several years I had DirecTV when it first came out ($29.95/month covered everything except the premium movie channels). The packages to get our local sports channels (Fox Sports Detroit) usually start at the mid level on cable, and are way more than I'd want to pay. If I can catch a few of my NCAA football games in the fall, and NHL playoffs when the team is doing well, that's all I want. It makes me wonder when the old cable TV system will break down as subscribers drop off, and start allowing fully a la carte choices for us.
 
.....

Wow, has it gotten that bad now? Yeah, that seems like typical US television now that you mention it. ;) I am actually surprised that the CBC is able to go for so long without the commercials. I mean, sometimes it's like a half hour or so. Or an entire hockey period.
.....

On the plus side I can make it through 4 hours worth of recorded 'coverage' in under 2 1/2 hour, often as little as 2 hours.
 
Over here, olympics about all day long on TV one of the national channels, I think most, if not all, gets covered.

It used to be like that here in the US. The broadcast network that got the contract to cover the Olympics pre-empted nearly all of their regular programming for the length of the games. It is very sad that they no longer do that.
 
I'm actually ecstatic about the ski jumping coverage - near the top of my fav winter events.

What I'm not liking about the coverage is the overlap.

NBC and NBCSN will have the exact same events in different time slots; I think I've seen the men's biathlon covered 3 times as well as figure skating.
 
I've resolved my DVR situation by dumping Plex and getting the HDHomeRun DVR service instead. After Plex went an entire day of missing every scheduled recording I had set up...bye, Felicia! HDHomeRun has been rock solid. I will say that CBC's coverage has been thorough, so anything I missed was usually repeated. I only missed the curling mixed doubles final match for the gold.

Just got done watching the Free Dance in the ice dancing competition, and watched Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir win their record breaking 5th (and final) Olympic medal, winning gold for Canada. Canada also won over OAR in the women's hockey this morning, and (IINM) Canada goes on to play the US in the final matchup for the gold.

I used to like it when Jim Mckay and the ABC Wide World of Sports crew would call the games. Man I'm old.
Was that the old "The agony of defeat" broadcast? :D One thing I still remember is Franz Klammer's insane downhill run in the 1976 Winter Olympics.
 
Something like, The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat .Or very close to that.
Yep, that was it, and the "agony of defeat" was set to a film clip of a downhill skier wiping out. :D Turns out that was the ABC Wide World of Sports:


I'm watching the women's short program (skating) live at the moment. I have to go back through the morning's DVR recording to see what I may have missed earlier.
 
Yep, that was it, and the "agony of defeat" was set to a film clip of a downhill skier wiping out. :D Turns out that was the ABC Wide World of Sports:


I'm watching the women's short program (skating) live at the moment. I have to go back through the morning's DVR recording to see what I may have missed earlier.
I remember seeing to my suprize, my younger brother being interviewed on the WWoS on the Army barracks dayroom TV in the 1970s. Small world, he was a cross country runner candidate for the US Olympic team then.
 
Back
Top Bottom