I record NBC's primetime Olympic telecast on the West Coast and start watching it about 60 to 90 minutes later. Tonight, somehwere in the middle third or so of the coverage, NBC broke into the lead up to a preliminary heat in one of the track events so Chuck Todd could make a someone breathless announcement that three sources (but not the Romney campaign, at least for the record) had confirmed that Paul Ryan would be Romney's VP choice. Andrea Mitchell also came on with an additional nugget. Both were surprisingly poorly prepared and seemed to stumble quite a bit in their delivery (Mitchell especially).
Why were these guys so rushed and poorly prepared? I guess because this was some kind of scoop and they wanted to be the first ones to get it out there. Apparently they did not even have time to write out a script on a teleprompter (one can almost hear Todd snarling "We'll do it live!). Or was it because they knew only the west coast was going to see it? Given the multiple layers of recording and tape delay, I am unsure as to when the announcement was actually made, and at what point NBC interrupted the program. Was I watching a 3-hour old (when it was recorded on my DVR) announcement that the East Coast saw on the original (but still prerecorded) Olympic show? That seems unlikely to me, because it would mean that NBC knew about the Ryan announcement when the primetime show started, but let the west coast wait an hour and half or so to tell us. Perhaps there was an announcement on NBC, or my local NBC affiliate, prior to the Olympic telecast, and then NBC just allowed the previous, now stale, breathless Todd cutaway run as it did live for the east coast. If so, that seems lame - the news was already old and told, just let us watch the preliminary heat. Or, was the cutaway live on the west coast? If so, then did the east coast see it too? I am not sure what time the cutaway occurred, but it may have been during the window for local news after the primetime show on the east coast. Maybe the east coast got Brian Williams making a calm, professional report breaking into local news coverage, while the west coast got a quick and dirty report attempting to fit in just before the start of a preliminary race (they rejoined it already in progress). -- 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
