Last night, I went to bed watching girls’ gymnastics. I found myself
very irritated. There were 24 girls in the finals, but NBC focused only
on those that they thought would medal. The result is that there was
tremendous downtime that the announcers filled with speculation,
gossip, and historical reminiscing. I was quite irritated because what
I wanted was to see more gymnastics. Anyone who is at the Olympics has
to be fascinating to watch – why only focus on those who are likely to
medal?
Come to think of it, everything about how NBC has covered the
Olympics has been abysmal. Last weekend, I was with a hardcore
copyright conservative who kept arguing that people watching the
opening ceremonies online were cheating NBC out of money. I countered
that what these people were doing was indicating what the market
wanted. Many were happy to watch the Chinese CCTV version live instead
of waiting until what NBC declared to be “prime time.” Personally, I was
quite annoyed with NBC starting around 5:30 am when we woke up to watch
the opening ceremonies only to learn that they weren’t covering it
live.
So, logically, we went to NBC’s homepage to see if they were
streaming it live. No. That’s where I think that NBC f’d up royally.
I don’t know why they decided that the Today Show was more important
than the opening ceremony, but they did. Still, there was no reason to
not stream it live on their Web site. I would’ve happily sat through
dozens of commercials to see it live. Instead, I TiVo’d it and watched
it sans commercials. Big win on NBC’s part, right?
What NBC has tried to do is configure its viewers. They’ve told
everyone how they should watch the Olympics and are peeved when people
have a different idea of how they want to watch this symbol of
nationalism. Normally, the people have no choice. Yet, because of the
Internet, there’s a lot of push for alternatives. Of course,
personally, I’m just angry and annoyed. I can think of so many ways
that NBC could’ve handled this better. What I want is Olympics 2.0.
I want an Olympics where the “best” is broadcast on TV, like now.
But I also want an interactive version. Take gymnastics. I want to know
on each apparatus who is up live. And I want to be able to switch
between different cameras and choose my own view through the stadium so
that I can watch whichever competitor I want. I want to be able to
watch live, all day, on ALL sports (even judo and the other weird ones
where Americans are not so present). I want interactive live and I want
to be able to pull down and follow any individual Olympian or team
through their events at a later point. I want the Olympics to be
treated as a bunch of spliceable objects that I can remix live for my
own viewing pleasure. And I want to be able to see it ALL. Is that that
hard to ask for? Hell, I’d be willing to pay for such interactive
watching options. And I’d certainly be willing to watch ads to see
things LIVE. But boy does it annoy me to watch a “live” NBC broadcast
that is already well reported on in the NYTimes.
So can I please have Olympics 2.0? And dear International Olympic
Committee, please don’t sell exclusive rights to the next Olympics to
an organization who is doing more to curtail and configure access than
to engage the market the way that they want to be engaged. And NBC,
would you stop being so antiquated and leverage new media for what it’s
good for?
For more from Danah, please visit her blog.
