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2010 Olympics: The influence of advertising on quality broadcast journalism

posted by ...Because I Played Sports
Thursday, February 18, 2010 at 5:59pm CST

Imagine yourself as Linsey Vonn yesterday – a native of Saint Paul, Minnesota, who has been working her whole life, since she was 2 years old, to bring home an Olympic gold in women’s downhill skiing.

She finally does it, gives hugs to her family in the stands, and picks up a cell phone to call some close friends from home.

Only one thing – nobody wants to answer the phone. Not because they’re not interested, but because nobody has seen it yet. NBC wouldn’t be airing her performance until later that night, on primetime television, when more people were watching.

This post is about power.

We all know – money is a big driver of power. Unfortunately for all of us, nowhere is this more apparent than NBC’s broadcast coverage of the 2010 Olympics.

What do I mean? Well, advertising money, more-so than monumental athletic performances, are influencing NBC’s broadcast decisions during the 2010 Olympics.

NBC is infuriating millions of fans by tape-delaying important events. People online are freaking out, and media publications are picking up on it. Need examples? Read this article by Henry Blodget of Business Insider or today’s piece by Sports Illustrated, or yesterday’s piece in the New York Times.

NBC infuriated millions of “people like me” when they tape-delayed one of America’s treasures – quite possibly the most-discussed performance about a female athlete (ever) – the women’s downhill (i.e., “The Lindsay Vonn Show”).

Crazy, right?

Yesterday, when Vonn performed, I sent around the NYTimes alert saying Vonn had won the gold with the message “yay!” One of my WomenTalkSports friends was a little annoyed that I had ruined the surprise. She apparently was waiting in anticipation to watch in on TV later that night.

While I understand where she’s coming from, that’s not the world that I live in. I don’t “wait” for things anymore. I demand access to real-time updates and breaking news stories because that’s what I deserve as a consumer. And that’s exactly what NBC should be broadcasting.

The world of “primetime” is, in my opinion, somewhat fabricated. NBC wants us to live in a world that’s very far from reality. Vonn won the gold before any of us got to see it. And that, my friends, is a disservice to society as a whole.

Broadcast journalists have a career because we allow them to. Broadcast networks exist because the Federal Communications Commission grants them publicly-owned broadcast licenses (FCC is funded with Congressional money, i.e., our taxes), and regulates that they commit to three key things: diversity, localism and serving the public interest.

What could be more of a “public interest” than the Olympics? Broadcasters should do due-diligence and not only cover the Olympics, but do so live, in a real-time reality that we all live in, everyday. NBC is doing a disservice to the public by choosing not to. And we, as citizens, should demand more.

This article from Deadspin says that NBC really doesn’t have a POV on this. Apparently, they think Olympics are sports for people who don’t care about sports, and many Americans don’t really care what time they see the games.

Apparently, the hard-core sports fans are the only ones really upset by this issue. But sports fans are citizens, too. Citizens with a voice, and like me, they’re starting express their feelings. It will be interesting to see if anything changes in 2012.

Bottom line: there has to be a live broadcast coverage. In my opinion, this is something that should be demanded by us, right now.