Here is a nice, Grade A slice of 100% fresh bullshit from NBC about their bastardized coverage of the Girls Gymnastics the other day:
http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/nbc-sports-summer-olympics-coverage-criticism-gymnastics-misssy-franklin/ The money quote: "Asked about NBC editing out <http://www.deadline.com/2012/08/nbc-edited-out-pivotal-womens-gymnastics-fall-to-create-fake-gold-medal-suspense/>the fall of Russia’s Ksenia Afanasyeva in Tuesday’s gymnastics event to create suspense for a U.S. team Gold win, Lazaus said it was cut “in the interests of time”. He added that “it was immaterial to the outcome” of the U.S. team’s Gold win. “All of the drama was about the US performance, not what the Russians did or did not achieve, said Lazarus. “It did nothing to alter the suspense”." Lazaus actually stuck the landing on this bullshit double somersault. Several times during Thursday's coverage of the all around competition NBC pimped the growing, close race for third place between American Aly Raisman and one of the Russians by saying that it was going to come down to Raisman's floor performance, just as it had when she nailed a pressure packed program to win the US the Team Gold. Except, of course, almost nothing about that is true. I have now done the specific calculations I was freeballing while while watching it on TV, using in part information available at http://www.nbcolympics.com/gymnastics/event/women-team/phase=gaw400100/doc=floor.html. By the time Raisman started her floor performance the US was already so far ahead of the Russians that she only needed a 10.34. To put that in perspective, of the 24 girls who did a floor routine from the final 8 countries who were competing for a medal that night, the *lowest* score was 12.466, and that was by Anastasia Grishina, the Russian girl who fell on her face, and whose performance NBC says it cut because it was so low it was, in their words "immaterial to the outcome". In other words, Raisman could have fallen on her face three times during the floor routine and the US still would have won the Gold Medal. When the NBC shill says "all the drama was in the US performance" he is scoring a perfect 10 in bullshit - there was precisely ZERO drama in the US performance. ALL of the drama that night was in the Russian performance right before the US went, and 33% of that got cut. Does NBC seriously expect us to believe that they cut the most important performances from what must be one of the top 3 or 4 nights from their entire, multimillion dollar Olympics package for time? They could not find 2 minutes to televise the complete ending, out of the more than 4 hours of coverage they had that night (and they seem to be able to go late on that primetime show whenever they want to)? Have I mentioned how pure this bullshit is? Clearly, the only reason they cut out that performance was to give the illusion that the competition was closer than it was, that the final floor exercises were more pressurized and significant and dramatic than they were. I know, Kevin has explained that NBC treats its Olympic coverage (at least in primetime) like a Reality Show, and we know there is precious little reality in Reality Shows, with the producers scripting conflict and drama to create interest. I can accept some of that (especially when I can watch relatively more straight up sports coverage of much of the Olympic games earlier in the day). But at the very least have the grace not to lie to us - don't piss in our face and call it lemonade. -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
