#NBCFail returns
One-hour tape delay for Rio opening ceremony makes no sense, Nancy Armour writes,
To celebrate the Rio Olympics and the latest advances in technology, NBC will be giving a few lucky viewers rotary phones and cathode-ray tube TVs!
But you’d better hurry if you want to have a chance to win these high-tech marvels. Clip the entry form from this weekend’s newspaper and send it to NBC along with a self-addressed, stamped enve- lope. Winners will be hand-selected at random and notified by mail!
Sounds ridiculous and hopelessly outdated, right? Well, so is NBC’s decision to delay its coverage of the Aug. 5 opening ceremony. The one-hour delay — four hours on the West Coast — is being done so NBC can provide “context” for the audience.
“These opening ceremonies will be a celebration of Brazilian culture, of Rio, of the pageantry, of the excitement, of the flair that this beautiful nation has,” NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus said Monday in announcing the decision.
“We think it’s important that we’re able to put that in context for the viewer so that it’s not just a flash of color.”
Contrary to what Lazarus and the NBC folks would have you think, Brazil is not the moon or some exotic locale only recently discovered by the Western world. Of course it has traditions and charms unique to its people and culture — same as London, Beijing and every other Olympic host. Or did they think Helen Mirren made up Queen Elizabeth?
Most viewers don’t really care what spin NBC puts on the ceremony. Social media and mobile devices have conditioned us to expect immediate results and infor- mation, and anything less feels like a return to the Stone Age. If NBC won’t adapt, then viewers will simply go elsewhere for their information.
Britain’s BBC and Canada’s CBC are airing the ceremony live, which the CBC was only too hap- py to point out.
“1-hour #Rio2016 opening ceremony delay? Don’t worry, CBC will have LIVE coverage,” it tweeted from the CBCOlympics account.
NBC has a long history of burying its head in the sand when it comes to its Olympic coverage and an equally long history of getting (rightfully) skewered for it. The #NBCFail hashtag has already been resurrected, as users grumble about the delay.
There’s no reaction yet from @NBCDelayed, the parody Twitter account. Probably still trying to figure out how to tweet from a rotary phone.
“We think it’s important that we’re able to put that in context for the viewer so that it’s not just a flash of color.”
NBC Sports Group chairman Mark Lazarus, announcing the tape delay