On Fri, Aug 3, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Darren Glass <[email protected]> wrote:
> > >> Your position is not just intellectually inconsistent, it is practically >> inconsistent, in the terms that you identify as important to you - namely >> spoilers. >> > > I don't really understand what you mean by this. All I am saying is that > if all anyone cared about was what I wanted then all news outlets and > everyone online would refrain from putting the winners out until primetime > in whatever time zone I am in, so that I have a chance to watch > spoiler-free. I am, however, an adult who realizes that the media world > doesn't revolve around me or people who think like me. And therefore I > tolerate (and dont even really whine about too much) the fact that lots of > people are watching these events earlier than I am and wanting to talk > about them. > > Whether you think these Olympic spoilers are "fair game" or not does > depend on whether you think of the Olympics as a news event or an > entertainment event (or somewhere else on that spectrum), and my point is > simply that there are people in both camps. NBC is trying to have its > cake and eat it too by compromising to both crowds. And I think that with > a few notable missteps they have been doing a pretty good job considering > the degree of difficulty. > You had asked me why I am critical of ex post facto commentary; I have given a couple of reasons, one of which I thought might resonate with you, since you had stated that you were irritated by spoilers. When NBC has done ex post facto commentary in the past, it has led to spoliers, in that the commentary tends to telegraph what is going to happen. You may or may not have noticed that in another long thread I have actually been mounting a moderate defense of NBC's Olympic coverage against most of its critics. What we are talking about here in this thread is not something NBC is doing (as far as we know now), but a hypothetical possibility of adding commentary after the fact. Assuming NBC is not doing this, then my position has in fact been that NBC has been moving in the direction of a workable compromise between Olympics as athletic event and Olympics as reality show. The three prongs of this compromise are: 1) making live, real time viewing of every event available online; 2) televising a good mix of live and near-live events overnight and during the day, and 3) televising a primetime, 3 hour or so package aimed at the mass, general audience focused almost exclusively on a handful of events that have great appeal to American non-sports fans (e.g. gymnastics, swimming, diving, bikini-ball). I would like to see NBC go ahead and televise even these events live or near-live during the day, as I think it would only increase their primetime audience, but then I am not the one who has paid hundreds of millions of dollars for the rights. I am even a defender of NBC's tape delayed coverage of the Opening Ceremonies, as that seems tailor made for an edited for TV primetime package. My only real outrage has been reserved for NBC's Gynmastics coverage - not at delayed commentary, which again, has not as yet been established, but at their gross and heavy handed editing of the actual competition that completely distorted its nature, falsely making it seem that the American girls were in danger of losing the Gold Medal so their last round of performances would seem more interesting, when in fact the poor performance of the Russians (the worse of which the primetime audience never saw or knew anything about) had already assured the outcome. I have also been a longtime critic of the tone of NBC's Gymnastics coverage, which is melodramatic and biased and jingoistic, and always has at least one eye on the downstream marketing potential of the various competitors rather than what they are actually doing in the event. -- 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
