Welcome To Josh's Blog O' Thoughts: August 2008

Well the 2008 Summer Olympics have come to a close. And like millions of other people, I probably spent too much time watching them. But they only happen every few years, so it's no big deal if no house work gets done for those two weeks right?

Anyway, now that they've completed, I thought I'd share with you some of the complaints I have about how the Olympics were covered.

1. Taped Events Are OK

I really don't care if something is LIVE. I know that's a big catch word for television programming, but I could care less. I'd much rather see the taped version at a reasonable time of day. Case in point, was the men's basketball gold medal game which was shown live during the middle of the night. That's an event I would have been sure to watch, but because of the timing, and the fact that I DO have to sleep at some point, I wasn't able to watch it. Sure I could have recorded it and watched it another time, but then I would have been missing whatever was actually showing at that time, etc.

2. Too Much Beach Volleyball

Yes we kick butt at beach volleyball. We already knew that. But, I can see beach volleyball on network TV on many regular weekends during the summer so it's nothing special. I don't have a problem with them showing matches as it gets close to medal time, but they probably could have cut some more of the pool-play games.

3. Too Much Track, Not Enough Field

We got to sit through numerous heats for several of the track events, but when it came time for field events (shot put, javelin, high jump, etc), we were lucky if we got a "summary" compilation video. Many of the track races are pretty boring anyway - just people running at different speeds. Why not mix it up a bit and let us watch some of the more unique field events? Is it because we may not be dominant in that event? Regardless, they are fun and different to watch and I'm bummed I missed out on them.

4. Who The Heck Wants To See An Entire Marathon?

I mean, come on. They run for over an hour! If there was ever a time to do a "summary" compilation video of an event, this would be it. Yet both the men's and women's marathons were shown in their entirety.

5. Show Some Obscure Events

I would have liked to see more of the events that are not normally available on network TV. Things like equestrian, archery, Greco Roman wrestling, fencing, badminton, table tennis, etc. These things got a little bit of play, but usually not much to be worth sitting down to watch. The way I see it, part of the Olympics is to expose us to sports that are very popular in other countries. Too bad we didn't get to see much of them.

6. Did They Have Soccer This Year?

I didn't see any soccer matches on network TV. One of the most popular sports in the world and we didn't get to see any of it. At least show the gold medal match!

7. Not Everyone Has Cable Or High Speed Internet Access

I didn't actually check the listings, but I'd bet that there was a decent amount of good stuff shown on NBC's other networks or their web site. News flash, not everyone gets those channels or has a connection speed capable of streaming video. They would have been better off cutting out a lot of the pointless comments made by Bob Costas and showing more actual events on their main network.

8. Warn Us With Spoiler Alerts!

I don't know how many times I accidentally saw online, or heard on the radio the results of an event that hadn't even been broadcast yet! That REALLY irks me. One in particular was when Shawn Johnson won gold on the balance beam. Since I live in Iowa, I had to hear about the results well before it was televised. Really takes all the excitement out of it! At least warn us before you spoil it so we can divert our eyes and ears.

Summary

To sum up my complaints: More variety, more content, less pointless banter.


Regardless of these complaints, I still really enjoyed the Olympics and always have. I just wish they were shown a little bit differently.

I was annoyed with the probability of having to log on to a TV listings website each day to see which Olympic events would be shown. That takes too much time. I want something that is already right on my computer and only has Olympic coverage. I couldn't find any site online where I could just download a full schedule, so I made my own spreadsheet.

This information was gathered from the NBC Olympics site. This data is ONLY for what they plan to show on their main NBC network (not CNBC, online, etc). Specifically, this was for our local affiliate, KWWL, but it should be pretty much the same for other NBC affiliates. All times listed are Central time.

For some reason, the website I got this from often times had adjoining time slots (i.e. 6:30-7:30 and 7:30-8:30) with the same description. Seems like they could have just made it 6:30-8:30. I could have modified to file in this way, but that was more work than it was worth. Another thing to note is that there is often a replay of the prime time schedule in the middle of the night, so if you see a 1:00am time slot with the same description as the prime time slot, it is just a replay.

Hope these files are useful for someone else:

2008OlympicsSchedule.ods - Open Document Spreadsheet format for OpenOffice.org (20KB)
2008OlympicsSchedule.xls - MS Excel Spreadsheet (84KB)