An Olympic failure?
At work when calls are few and far between, it’s easy to hit the net and read the news and check in with the world and make sure everything is cool. While doing this, it’s easy to come across a few stories that leave me less than impressed. A few articles that I’ve come across today are some rather interesting editorials that have been critical of the Torino Winter Games that just finished in Italy. Many of them have even gone as far as to call the 2006 games a complete failure.
Their reason for this label? Low ratings on NBC. Well let me hold nothing back when I say whoop dee fucking do.
The last time I checked, there are over a hundred countries taking part in the Winter Games, and just because one nation is suffering in network ratings doesn’t make the entire event a collossal failure. I’m sure many ignorant “we’re the center of the world” Americans, namely the assholes running NBC are only interested in one thing, and just because they didn’t smoke the competition doesn’t mean the games was a big, fat failure. If anything, the games in Torino were very successful. More profitable than the last few winter games and free of voilence and any major scandals. When reading an article posted by USA today, they were ignorant enough to accuse the Olympics of having an image problem. Well, if that is true… that’s not the fault of the Olympics, but of the network that is broadcasting the games. But we’ll get to that later in this entry.
The one part that had me jaw dropped in horror is that the USA Today article had the gall to make suggestions on how to make the games more appealing to the ADD audience in America. Here are their suggestions in bold lettering:
1. Put more ‘reality’ in Olympic TV: In a world of risqué reality TV shows, people crave nitty-gritty details and down-and-dirty competition.
This first idea isn’t so bad, and could actually work, only if they did like a big brother like atmosphere in the Olympic village. That way people could connect with their athletes, which would in turn make them want to tune in when that Athletes complete during their respective events. This is one reason why NBC ratings are low, viewers do not feel connected with their athletes and as a result don’t care how they fare. Meeting them in a semi-reality TV kind of way would give them a face to go with those names and allow people to care about their Olympic representives. But than again, to suggest this would mean that NBC would have to postpone or cancel airings of Regis & Kelly and Days Of Our Lives for two weeks, and they just wouldn’t want any part of that…
2. Let viewers have a say: Viewer voting on televised competitions such as American Idol has given rise to new phenomena: official judges might get the last word, but they’re no longer the only voice.
This has to be the most absurd idea I’ve ever heard of. First of all, what makes one nation so special that it would be allowed a vote over the other 100+ nations that complete? While I’m sure USA Today is trying to make honest suggestions in the face of American Idol just pummelling NBC in the ratings the last few weeks during the games, but I can assure you that the other nations and the IOC would laugh their asses off before giving a loud, resounding “NO” from everyone involved. I think something like this would work better that the USA Trails, but at the actual event itself… not a snow ball’s chance in hell.
3. Tap more tech: Rather than banking on the younger set watching TV, Olympic organizers need to move faster in distributing content through other media. Think more podcasting, streaming video, text messaging, even ring tones that have Olympians saying cool phrases, Mullen says.
This idea has already been used in many other countries. Bell Canada telephone service added a feature were people could watch events live on their cell phones, so they wouldn’t miss events while on the bus or at work. Tech ideas like this would be cool, but again that is a failure of marketing and PR, not the games itself as each country is responsible for their own PR and marketing to their people. So who is really to blame for this immense failure?
4. Spotlight big rivalries: Any sporting event without rivalry is boring especially the Olympic Games, says Michael Lynch, senior vice president of marketing for Olympic sponsor Visa USA.
This is a good idea, but without the Cold War to depend on, who is going to be the big rival? Russians are always a good target, but with Hockey even we Canucks are a good target to fuel a rivalry. Again this is more of a PR and marketing failure as NBC really didn’t have a clue on how to promote their games. They should take notes from other nations, who are actually scoring record ratings in their markets…
5. Decide more medals head-to-head: Gold, silver and bronze medals in timed events could be decided by a single race pitting the three finalists with the best times, says Lynch. “The less done by the clock the better.”
Just the mere suggestion of changing the events to suit one market is beyond stupid and is just outright insulting. With that said, let’s move on.
6. Offer more and hipper music, less and hipper talk: Olympic events need to move to the beat of diverse genres of current music, suggests Carol Moog, a consumer psychologist and blues harmonica player. “It should look more like a music video,” she says.
They tried this at the 2002 Games when it was in Salt Lake, having rock concerts at the medal ceremonies and what not. The result, an Olympics that blew so bad it made the summer games look more exciting. The games are the best feature of the events, and if NBC needs to bring in rockstars to try to spice things up, they’re working with the wrong PR Firm. And for the record, if you want to get someone who talks a little more ‘Hip’, perhaps Bob Costas wouldn’t be the best person for this job. Again, this is all a failure at NBC, not Torino.
7. Go back to the 4-year wait: Sponsor pressure nudged organizers to reschedule the Olympic Games from every four years to separating the Winter Games and Summer Games two years apart beginning in 1994 with the Lillehammer Winter Games. “It’s created Olympic fatigue,”
While this might be true for the United States, the other nations actually enjoy having the two games split up. I for one have had more fun watching the olympics when separated than I did when they were in the same year. I hated it when both games were held in the same year cause by the time the second of the two was half over, everyone was sick and tired of the games and wanted it over. Having two events in one year is way more overkill than having one every two years. Many nations like each game having their own spotlight, and I’m sure the Athletes appreciate having their own time to shine and to want to reverse that for corporate profits, not wise nor would it be fair to those involved.
8. Be less predictable: “Unpredictability and surprises really can work to your advantage,” says Don Mischer, producer of the Atlanta and Salt Lake City Olympics opening and closing ceremonies, as well as the 2006 Super Bowl half-time show. For the Atlanta Games, Mischer and a handful of people kept the last torch carrier a secret and awed the crowd when Muhammad Ali came out.
You know, things like this are cool… but the ceremony itself doesn’t always have to act like an episode of Survivor to draw in viewers. Secrets are nice and if the unpredictable results of the event itself are not enough for someone, then don’t watch it. There are many people who like the show as it is… and just because it doesn’t have as many twists as an episode of 24 doesn’t mean that it’s not exciting or fun to watch. That doesn’t mean that everyone else hates the way the Torino games were run.
9. Be more extreme: Olympic organizers could rip a page from ESPN’s extremely lucrative X Games adding a slate of grittier, heart-pumping events. For the Winter Olympics, organizers should consider adding a snowboarding competition that includes a terrain park with jumps and sliding rails, says Ron Semiao, creator of ESPN’s X Games.
I think the Olympics have more than met the X-Games followers halfway just by letting snowboarding on the ticket already. If the people can’t get into the events that are already there, again that is a failure on the part of those marketing the games, not the games itself. It’s like the station blaming the NFL if the superbowl doesn’t get good ratings. If you ask me, Ariels are more extreme than anything a friggin’ snowboarder can do. I actually have more fun watching the bobsled than I ever do watching some moron on a board ride a rail. There is extreme in the games already, so if that isn’t being presented to the people that way, it’s not the games that failed… it’s the network for not taking advantage of what they have. Are you noticing any kind of pattern with my own critique forming?
10. Rethink the Olympic mission: “Is it about athletic competition at the highest level, or is it about generating revenue?” asks David Carter of Sports Business Group, a consulting firm. Like other big-time sports, the Olympics has become “addicted to the corporate dollar,” he says. As a result, more critical decisions are being made by the network and sponsors, not athletes or organizers.
This last suggestion is a complete farce. For the last nine suggestions, this USA Today article has been making suggestions to make the Games more Corporate friendly… not athlete friendly. Then for it’s last suggestion, it’s has the gall to question the Olympic spirit and it’s tie to recent corporate greed. Hello Pot, I’d like you to meet the kettle. The whole event is supposed to appease to the athletes, and if corporations make a bit of money in the long run… that nice but the games should never change to appease the corporations. Quite the opposite, it’s up to the corporations to make the games work for them. The world as a whole is pretty happy with the games, and the fierce competition to host them is pretty much proof of that. All events are going to draw in the corporate dollar, and I think the Games are less of a whore to the dollar than the professional sports are… but that’s just my opinion.
Okay, it’s one thing to torch the constructive suggestions made by one rather biased editorial, it’s another to offer a few of my own. When I read international reviews of the games, they comments were actually quite kind to the 2006 Games. Many people outside of the US are calling this year’s Games a complete success, and ratings in many nations (even Canada) have been high, and at times record breaking. It’s not like the US hasn’t had any reason not to tune in, their nation placed second in the medal total and had a lot of Olympic glory to catch. The fact that no one is watching all this great stuff is not a failure on the part of the Games, but the networks that are presenting them to their respective nations.
So this means the blame for the games losing interest in the US should fall with the people who truely deserve it: the idiots running the coverage over at NBC. Their coverage of the games is nothing short of shameful, and is by far considered one of the worst on the planet. Yes, it is a fact that NBC forks out billions for the right to cover the games, but for the amount of money they’re shelling out for the games… they’re getting very little for it in return. The people to really blame for this are the network executives and the producers who need to be fired and replaced by people who are capable of doing a better job. Other nations are not having a problem pushing the games and are cashing in with amazing ratings, so what is NBC’s problem? The real question is where do I start…
Here are some real suggestions for improving viewership with the games in the US and for NBC:
1. Showcase the World, not just the hometeam:
A lot of nations are guilty of doing this, and this is one part of the games that I am proud of when it comes to the coverage that is handled by our stations here in Canada. Sure, they would prefer to cover Canucks when given a choice, but go out of their way to let us watch the all the athletes, not just the Canucks. This year I wanted to watch atheletes and olympic legends like Roberto Tumob make his last run on the alpines before calling in quits. I enjoy watching all hockey games, not just those played by Canadians. The Swiss and Finns played some amazing games, and our channels showcased as many hockey games as possible, not just those played by our own team.
NBC is not only guilty of this, but by just focusing on one team (Team USA), fans miss the chance to watch what have been some amazing accomplishments by other athletes from other parts of the world. World records were broken, but no one watching NBC would find out unless it was done by an American. This kind of biast programing is hurtful to the network cause there are many people living in the US that originate from other countries that would love to watch both Team USA and the team from their country of origin. So to only show USA and their results was hurting their potential for high ratings, and it’s just sloppy work compared to the wall to wall coverage that other networks are pulling off on smaller budgets. Which leads us to our next complaint…
2. Full Wall to Wall Coverage:
Ths is one of my biggest beefs when it comes to the poor coverage coming from the major networks. NBC doesn’t show wall to wall coverage and only shows clips of the days highlights during primetime hours only. What kind of crap is that? There is over twleve hours a day for two weeks of Olympic competition, and many events take place at the same time, so some countries actually air the Olympics on multiple channels to make sure everyone gets the best possible coverage and a chance to watch everything. Not with NBC, as they prefer to clip everything into a neat, tidy little package and show them when they prefer to show them as opposed to when they are actually happening. For a company that is paying billions for the right to showcase the Olympic Games, they’re using less than 5% of the actual footage that is shot during the event, and that’s just a waste.
The CBC in Canada has a deal with our sports network TSN so we can watch live coverage on more than one network. That way Canadian viewers get towatch as much coverage as possible. So if there is an event I’m not too fond of on one network, I can tune in to another and see if the other channel has a better event. This kind of choice will draw in more viewers. More choice not less will equal better numbers in the long run… something networks need to realize. NBC seems afraid to interupt their regular programing in favor or wall to wall coverage, and I think that’s the cowardly way out. I think Americans can live with ‘Days Of Our Lives’ for two weeks every four years, and air your episodes of Regis & Kelly from the Games and use talkshows like that to add more focus to the athletes. To not show all the coverage is an insult to the games which again leads into my next point…
3. Live Baby, SHOW IT LIVE!
It’s hard to get someone to tune into your Olympic coverage, if they read the results of the same event online because it ended twelve hours before NBC’s coverage started. It’s hard to build a suspense (and keep things unpredictable) if people already know the result of the events going into the coverage of the games. The internet has made Olympic results instant and in real time… so the only way to keep up is to make your coverage also in real time. I can only speak for myself, but I like watching the events live and as they happen. How would you react if a network aired the Superbowl ten hours after it ended instead of live? The ratings wouldn’t be as good cause everyone would already know who won and wouldn’t bother tuning in unless it was something they wanted to watch, like their favorite team winning. This is how NBC presents their coverage of the Olympics and people are wondering why Americans are losing interest in the games… it’s because it’s on a 12 hour delay! It’s not live and this kind of disconnect leads to low ratings.
Let me give you another Canadian example. When the hockey or any other desired event takes place, it doesn’t matter if its two o’clock in the afternoon or at night… Canucks tune to watch it as it happens live and expect it to be aired when it happens. A friend of mine who lives in the States actually goes to a bar whenever the hockey games or events he wants to watch is on, cause his bar goes to the Canadian coverage so everyone can watch it live, and not when NBC wants to show it. No one wants to watch the Oscars twelve hours after the statues are handed out, no one would want to watch the World Series twelve hours after the first pitch is tossed, so why on earth would anyone want to watch the Olympics long after they’ve occurred?
Because of the internet and it’s ability to beam results across the world in real time, NBC needs to wake up and smell the 21st Century. This is why I consider the US coverage to be the worst in the world. No one wants to watch a sports event that isn’t live and would prefer to watch it in real time as it happens. This crummy coverage could be the reason for the decline in ratings. People would rather tune into something that isn’t already pre-determined because watching delayed sports events that you already know the result to is worse that watching Re-runs.
4. Money should never be the biggest factor in selecting who covers the Games:
I’m not going to spend the majority of my entry bashing just NBC. While they are about 80% to blame for what has been horrid coverage of the 2006 Games, the IOC is to blame for letting them cover the games in the first place. NBC did offer the biggest wad of cash to buy the rights to cover the games, but based on the horrid job they’ve done lately… I think the IOC needs to use more than just money as a deciding factor in who covers the games. To just irresponsibly toss around the games to the highest bidder is what has lead to this crappy 3 hour a day coverage and that has got to stop. Hold the networks accountable and let them know that if they don’t showcase they games right, or at least with respect… they’ll be tossed out of the running no matter much much cash they offer.
These are very modest suggestions… and they are a hell of a lot better than the moronic ideas that the USA Today article came up with. Other nations have no problems broadcasting the games, so the problem is the network, not the IOC or the games. Torino was a fun Games to watch, it’s just a shame that many Americans didn’t get to watch it. And whose fault is that? Certainly isn’t Italy’s…
Peter
These Olympics weren’t a particular failure. They just continued the trend of people caring less and less about the Games. The Winter Games are particularly filled with events probably concoted by MTV and advertising execs to appeal to teens and 20-somethings. They’re great if you participate in that activity or something like it, but if not, you’re not going to suddenly start caring about
Warning Comment
pot smoking or whatever else they invented. That’s why they think they have to resort to music and other gimmicks to spice things up because no one gives two s*its about most of the events. As I’ve written before, I only watch the Olympics for sports I’d watch outside the Olympics: hockey and soccer. The rivalries will depend on the sport. I consider our biggest rival to be Canada in hockey, but
Warning Comment
Mexico in soccer. And frankly, I don’t see what the opening and closing ceremonies have to do with sport. The fact that it’s the only part of the Games my mom watches says it all. And while one can make many criticisms of NBC (the taped delay being the worst, esp. in this era of instant communications), it is simply not true that they refused to broadcast non-US hockey games. In fact, I personally
Warning Comment
I think you guys get the same kind of coverage that we get here in Norway. We had wall to wall, live coverage on three channels, with 2 of them showing events again in the evening and one even all night long in replay. Our ratings were through the roof, but we love winter sports here, particularly cross country, biathlon and alpine. I am appalled at what I hear about NBC. No wonder no one
Warning Comment
watched the gold medal game on NBC myself. Most of the other hockey games were either on NBC or its affiliated cable channels. I watched parts of Czech-Finland, and Germany-Switzerland in hockey. Even Kazhakstan-Russia for crying out loud. In flipping around, I saw Italian speed skaters, Austrian skiers and I think a Japanese figure skater.
Warning Comment
prepackaged, not live recaps of events that only include Americans. It’s that kind of self-centered, gotta be entertained every second, and right freaking now (AND I MEAN IT!) attitude that makes me glad to live here.
Warning Comment
What USA Today offers is a Bush administration style solution. The real problem isn’t the way it’s packaged (though that could be improved) and can’t be fixed with a little more pizazz. The problem is the actual content. Most people just don’t inherently care about most of the sports. It’s that simple.
Warning Comment
Sometimes I wonder if people actually watch the coverage or just assume how NBC is doing these things based on either a) past criticisms of NBC in past Games, b) the fact that it’s an American network and all American networks are supposedly nativist or c) both.
Warning Comment
My biggest beef with the Olympics isn’t the sports, but the commentators. I watched pathetic performances by atheletes where the comentators gave breathless play by play,and I watched stellar performances getbitchy coverage. Half the time the announcers didn’teven seem to know the sport they were covering. Folow that through with some asshat producer determining what I wanted to watch and
Warning Comment
scheduling two figure skaters followed by two bobsledders followed by two giant slalom skiers really pissed me off; I don’t want heavily edited content; I want continuity. I’d rather see the fifth-ranked skier surge to the forefront instead of top-ranked Bode Miller skiing like he was on drugs (he probably was, given his performance). I don’t want to see two prima donna speed skaters feud over who
Warning Comment
disrespected whom; I want to see the outstanding Dutch team kick ass. I’m old enough that I remember Jim McKay and his coverage of the Olympics fondly. He actually knew what the hell he was talking about,and he wasn’t so insecure that he couldn’t hand the microphone over to an expert to explain things better. Entirely missing from this Olympics was someon- anyone- announing who could actually
Warning Comment
explain what I should be looking for in performances, escepially in the ludicrous snowboard freestyle event, which I agree look like some starbuck’s jittered producer’s MTV idea of what “young people” want, somehow ignoring that ALL of the athletes were under 40, and most of them were competing in legitimate “classic” Olympic events, not a faux-sport like free-style snowboarding, which no one
Warning Comment
networks, just so you could see the “unimportant” quarter- and semi-finals…where, of course, most of the drama ofthe Olympics takes place. NBC should be banned from hosting the Olympics again, after this year’s coverage.
Warning Comment
I watched more of the Olympics than I have in years, my kids were really interested in them too, especially the snow boarding, it’s too bad a few people have to try and ruin it for everyone,
Warning Comment
With regards to number 4 in your suggestions, they are doing this to an extent. Over here in Britain Sky (which is only available to certain viewers) once bid for the rights to the Olympics. The IOC rejected their bid due to the limits on people who could watch.
Warning Comment
I think the points you’ve laid out to help with Olympic viewership are right on the money. I will say, though, that it might be wrong to overlook the X Games. I’m not saying add every sport from it to the Olympics, but obviously ESPN is doing something right that NBC is not. I wouldn’t mind if they added more snowcross races, it’s not radically different from a lot of the skiing.
Warning Comment
I say they should wait 4 years for all of them, I am tired of it every 2 years. It should be like an eclipse or something, or like a year -round party 😉
Warning Comment
Well like I said, I had no trouble watching any event live that I wanted to. “If the product is selling well in other nations, why would they change it just to appease one market? ” I don’t think they should. If people in other countries love mogul jumping or freestyle pot smoking or whatever else they’ve contrived, then let em watch it.
Warning Comment
Another downside of adding all these cheesy events that no one (at least I know) cares about is that the Winter Games are now so big that they can no longer be held in an intimate atmosphere like Lake Placid or Lillehammer. Now they’re held in metropolises (Turin) or even in whole provinces (I think Vancouver 2010 is going have events in Whistler which I believe borders Alberta).
Warning Comment
“I’d gladly pay $5 to see a single event uninterupted by other things so I could watch it from start to finish” Actually, I wouldn’t because the only event I really care a lot about is hockey and they’re all broadcast here live uninterrupted. Even non-US games.
Warning Comment