Wednesday, September 10, 2008

Olympic coverage

{I know this is dated, but I only found where I'd stashed this one a few weeks ago.}

The Buffalo News's Alan Pergament says that the BBC is worse than American t.v. when it comes to playing the role of cheerleader for their nation's athletes. I know it can be jarring to find yourself watching the Olympics in another country, but sheesh, Alan, I'm not sure I can buy this: "It seems Americans are the only one concerned about objective coverage".

As it happens, all of the Olympics I saw were on NBC and their partner stations. Let me say that being worse than NBC would take some doing. Anyone who watched any of the gymnastics on NBC would have wondered if any other nations other than China & America were taking part. The swimming coverage was only marginally better.

I'll say this: the coverage on the USA Network, MSNBC & CNBC was pretty good. But the prime time coverage on NBC - the primary channel for the Olympics - was horrendous. And, yeah, the BBC annoys me too. Same goes for RTE.