To Show An Olympic Death, To Mention Technical Glitches, To Be Happy That The Weather Plays Havoc With TV Schedules – Already The Vancouver Olympics Are Leaving Their Mark

Philip M. Stone February 16, 2010 Follow on Twitter

The tragic death of the Georgian luge athlete cast the first real Olympic soul-searching in global newsrooms – they had the video, should they show it? Many terrestrial TV newscasts had him coming down the slope but when tragedy was about to strike most cut away – on Britain’s commercial ITV news, for instance, the anchor said it was “too upsetting” to see.

But if you wanted to see it, all you had to do was go on the Internet – it was all over the place including such major sites as cbs.com. And watching that video raised the immediate question of why weren’t those steel posts padded. Organizers say they never thought there could be such an accident at that turn. What a terrible one to get wrong.

As for whether the death itself should have been shown on TV newscasts, knowing full well that it could upset a lot of viewers, there already is a practice in place that could have allowed it. It’s pretty normal practice during newscasts when that station will show a sporting event afterwards via tape delay to tell those viewers who don’t want to know the score to “look away now” and then the score shows on screen but without audio. The same principle could have applied to this footage with the anchor saying, “If watching this video will be too upsetting then turn away now”.

NBC played it pretty smart. It showed the footage on its news program, it showed it as part of the opening ceremony programming, and then announced the next day it would not show that footage again. That should put the ghouls in their place.

Switch to the opening ceremonies and one cannot help but marvel at its beauty and pageantry – even more so in HD. But there was a major technical glitch near the end – how should the commentators have handled? What was supposed to happen  is that four pillars were to rise from the stadium floor to form the Olympic cauldron, but they couldn’t get one of the stadium floor doors to open meaning one pillar was trapped. With Canadian athletic stars from the past standing ready to light up the pillars that in turn would light up the cauldron, with the orchestra finishing its piece and having to start over again, with technicians working feverishly to free the stuck door it seemed an eternity with nothing happening. Finally the decision was made to go with just the three pillars which really didn’t make much difference to the ceremony except former speed skater Catriona Le May lost her dream to be part of the actual lighting.

On NBC the announcer caught on early there was a problem. “Truth be told,” he started, in explaining there seemed to be a technical glitch. So American viewers understood what was happening. But switch to the BBC’s coverage in the UK and there was no such “truth be told” and it was only much later, after the ceremony had ended and there had been some 10 minutes of studio banter, did the BBC return to its ceremony announcer who then told about the malfunction. So did she know right away but thought it wasn’t polite to tell, or she didn’t notice (surely she had been to the dress rehearsals so she knew what to expect), or, since it wasn’t part of her excellent written prepared narrative, there was to be no extemporaneous reporting? 

It showed an interesting difference in reporting styles although the numbers watching the ceremonies live on each network were very different. For NBC the opening ceremonies was primetime viewing starting at 9 p.m. on the east coast and the ratings were superb with some 32.6 million viewers tuning in – that’s some 14 million more than who watched the Turin opening ceremony four years ago. But the viewing wasn’t so easy in Europe – the ceremonies started at 3 a.m. Central European Time (2 a.m. in the UK). Not exactly primetime, although there were shortened tape replays on Saturday afternoon.

But if the ceremonies were at the wrong time for the Europeans, they more than get their own back with the main ski competitions occurring on Vancouver mornings which is European prime time with starts around 7 p.m. – couldn’t be more perfect. And while the organizers may be moaning about the poor weather conditions that canceled the main weekend ski events, for European TV networks that was the best news yet – Saturday is a big night out in Europe but on Monday evening everyone is at home so European TV ratings will surely benefit from Vancouver’s weather misery.  

And while it is early days yet for NBC’s coverage, the ratings are very good – 26 million watched the Games Saturday night. And numbers for Sunday indicate the coverage was doing better than expected, especially compared to the Turin numbers of four years back.

And let’s not forget the host country where some 84% of Canadians who had their TVs on were watching the ceremonies. It was by far the most-watched TV event in Canadian history and that type of percentage even puts the Super Bowl to shame.  But as more than one Canadian columnist asked, “What on earth were those other 16% doing?”

NBC has said it believes it could lose some $250 million on Vancouver although the initial ratings may change that. You can bet the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will be looking at NBC’s fortunes really close. The IOC would, under normal circumstances, have sold the US rights to the 2014 Winter Games and the 2016 Summer Games by now, but the tanking US economy led the IOC to push back the auction until this spring. But with TV networks still in advertising doldrums the talk is that auction may not take place until early 2011 when the IOC hopes network treasuries will be feeling more confident. Fox, CBS, ESPN among others have said they plan to challenge NBC for the rights although Fox has made the point it won’t pay silly money for the rights. And that’s probably what all the networks are thinking, too

But at least in its early days Vancouver shows there is Olympic fever in the US although having the competition on the same continent with the same time zones doesn’t hurt any. But the 2014 Winter Games will be in Sochi, Russia, eight hours ahead of EST, and the Turin Games four years ago showed that Games played in a time zone six hours ahead of EST suffer appreciably in the ratings. The Rio 2016 Games won’t be such a huge problem – Rio is just two hours ahead of EST – and there is an added buzz for that venue seldom seen before.

The question is not whether the Olympics are worth a lot of money, but are they worth what NBC paid in the last auction -- $2.2 billion for Vancouver and the 2012 London Summer Games. Olympic sponsors are fewer, major TV advertisers have cut back, and NBC was not really able to raise advertising rates for Vancouver much beyond what it charged for Turin.

The IOC believes it can get more for 2014 and 2016 than NBC paid for 2010 and 2012, noting it has gotten more from other parts of the world. True, other parts of the world have seen their rights fees grow enormously this time around, but truth be told, they had been paying ridiculously low figures compared to what NBC has been paying and with the possibility that US rights might sell for less then that money had to be made up elsewhere. If the IOC gets even the same from an American network for 2014 and 2016 that it got from NBC for 2010 and 2012 then it will be well ahead of the game.