I remember back to years past when a sport I especially liked (or that just caught my interest) was on, and I would be watching it for hours. If figure skating was on, it was just figure skating (broken by commercials of course) until the competition at hand was over. One skater would go out and do their thing, they'd sit for their scores, the audience would clap politely, and the camera would then be on the next skater preparing to go out. Figure skating, pairs, ice dancing, speed skating, skiing, bobsled, luge, skeleton - you could watch the entire sport of your choice at once.
This time - or perhaps this is just the first time I'm noticing it and they've been doing it for a while now - it's all broken up and patched back together. To begin with, it's almost impossible to determine when your sport of choice is on. Remember the old TV Guide, where they would block several hours at a time and label it according to the sport being shown? Now, it's "Hockey, Curling" or "Speed Skating, Ice Dancing, Luge" all at once. I was excited to trip over pairs skating a few nights ago, and settled down to watch it. They showed one - ONE! - pair of skaters, then cut to commercial, then skipped over to luge for a round or two, then back to commercial, then skiing, then commercial... I have no idea if they ever did the second pair of skaters, let alone when I'll be able to see the other sports I care about. (Biathalon? No thanks; but I have to watch some of it if I want to catch Moguls.)
In this day of DVRs and on-demand viewing, it seems absolutely ridiculous to set it up this way. Curling's on at 2 a.m.? That's cool - you can set your Tivo and you won't miss a minute. Speaking of curling, I was watching last night. NBC would break for commercial or to talk to their commentators, then the camera would hop back to the competition and several more stones were on the ice. WTH? Since NBC is already playing Benihana chef with the coverage, you'd think they wouldn't clip the actual playing!
Whose fault is this? Is it NBC, trying to hold more viewers and sell more ad space? Is it the IOC, trying to get more people into more sports (and bowing to the commercial interests by setting more time between competitors)? Is this a response to America's growing ADD problem? Can't focus on one thing, let's hop back and forth between all of them. Or maybe it's a way to hold viewers and keep them from straying to other networks - I hear American Idol is on, so maybe if they tease you with 5 minutes of your favorite sport, they hope to keep you on the edge of your seat waiting for your sport to come back on rather than seeing what else is on.
Come to think of it, here's another complaint: they aren't even cutting into their normal daytime programming for this. In college (okay and a few years after), when I used to watch Days of Our Lives, I developed an intense hatred for the sport of tennis during that time because - for a solid week - they would preempt Days for some tennis tournament. However, for the last couple of days when I've been working from home, the cable guide has listed Days of Our Lives. They'll cut it for tennis, but they won't budge it for THE OLYMPICS?
All I know is that now I can't get a true respect for the skill of Shani Davis, or the grace of Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto, or the speed or Lindsey Vonn, when I'm not seeing their performances back-to-back against the other competitors in their field. NBC, IOC, BOC, whoever's fault this is, please put it back the way it was. It wasn't broken. Don't fix it.
