An Open Letter to NBC and the IOC

To: The Executives of NBC and NBCOlympics.com

CC: The Members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)

Subject: Open Letter regarding NBC and NBCOlympics.com 2010 Olympic Coverage

Before I get into the actual subject of this letter, let me first admit my bias. I was born and raised in Canada. Therefore, I have grown up watching CBC and CTV's coverage of the Olympics. Until 2000 I had never seen a single minute of NBC Olympic coverage. Since 2000 I have been forced to watch much more NBC coverage than I want to. I believe there are major flaws in NBC's coverage both on their broadcast network as well as their online content. In addition to my issues with NBC I also have a problem with the several IOC decisions all of which I plan to address. It should also be noted that much of what I am referring to is in regards to the most recent Olympic Winter Games, held in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada in February 2010, however, I noticed some of these problems as early as the 2000 Summer Olympic Games in Sydney, New south Wales, Australia.

My issues with NBC are as follows: first, NBC did not, and does not regularly, carry Olympic events live across the United States. Second, NBC's online content, for the 2010 games, required that you to be a member of a particular subscription based service in order to watch live online content (including full event replays). Third, NBC airs far to many commercials. Fourth, NBC does not air enough sport, they instead choose to broadcast multiple interviews and athlete profiles instead of showing more sport. Finally, NBC chooses to only show a particular list of events and leave out a large amount of the events held at the games.

In addition to my issues with NBC, I have two questions for the IOC. First, why does the IOC insist that you must live in a country in order to watch that nations coverage? In other words, why if I live in the United States can't I watch coverage out of Canada, the UK or France? Second, why does the IOC allow NBC to essentially charge for viewing online content, especially when other nations do not (like Canada)?

I will be specifically looking at NBC's 2010 coverage as compared against CTV's 2010 coverage. I will also do my best to only include an argument based on broadcast channels only. I'll start with the issue of live coverage. For the second time in 10 years the Olympics were held in North America. This means that a lot of events took place near or during prime time both in the Eastern time zone as well as the Pacific time zone. NBC decided to only air events live during Eastern prime time. This means if you lived in Central or Eastern time you got to watch the Olympics as they happened on NBC. If you lived in Mountain or Pacific time, you had to wait three extra hours for your prime time (aka 8pm local) to watch the events that ended at minimum 3 hours before. Compare this to CTV, not only did CTV start their broadcast day at 3AM pacific, it didn't end to 11pm Pacific. There was one exception, CTV took a 30 minute news break at 2:30pm pacific. Three sets of hosts ran the shifts throughout the day, one set from 3am-9am, another from 9am-2:30pm, then a final host from 3pm-11pm. After 11 there was another 1 hour news break, followed by some replays from 12-3 again hosted by a late night host (who was live as well from what I understand). That's 22.5 hours of live Olympic coverage every day of the games. Oh and just to emphasize this point that was all nationwide. CTV was on 22.5 hours nationwide with Olympic coverage. NBC on the other hand was live in less than half the country (by land mass, not population). Some may make the argument that The Today Show which also airs on NBC should be considered Olympic coverage, even with adding that in, NBC is only up to 7 hours a day and none of it was live in the time zone that the games occurred in. NBC should learn from their Canadian counterparts and figure out the meaning of the word live. No one wants to watch the games after they know the results. The Olympics are meant to be watched live.

NBC's record of online content has been fairly good, up until this year. NBC has somewhat led the world when it comes to online Olympic coverage. During the Summer Games in 2008 NBC provided a lot of online content all for free (with ads). So naturally I was expecting NBC to provide the same sort of coverage this year. Not so. NBC, for this games, required that you be a subscriber of a specific internet provider and/or cable or satellite provider. This means that almost half of Americans were unable to watch live event coverage online. In addition, NBC also required that same "subscription" for full event replays online. But they had lots of highlights. I don't want to watch highlights, if I wanted to watch highlights I could just watch their broadcast channels because that was all NBC carried during prime time. You want an example? The men's downhill. NBC carried 5 skiers in the men's downhill during their prime time show. I know for a fact that CTV carried every single one of the top 30 skiers and most of the top 50 on the network. During prime time CTV did re-air fewer skiers but they still aired more than 5. Another example...the Figure Skating gala. NBC carried 6 skaters (Joannie Rochette, Evgeni Plushenko, Evan Lisachek, Yu-Nan Kim, Charles White and Meril Davis and Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir). I don't remember exactly how many CTV aired but I know it was more than that. Especially because NBC did not carry any of the pairs finalists (2 men, 2 women, 2 ice dance). In addition, CTV's partner Sportsnet carried the entire event live. I don't believe any of NBC's partners did.

Commercials are essential to television, I understand this. But there is a difference between essential and over doing it. NBC over did it. During the figure skating instead of showing the skater in the "kiss and cry" area, NBC almost always took a one minute break instead. CTV took breaks too, after about 3 or 4 skaters, that equals one or two breaks ever 6 skaters or every flight. NBC also aired to many spots during events that you shouldn't break from, like the Opening and closing ceremonies. The closing ceremonies for example NBC cut the speech of the CEO of the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) nearly in half. Now, I will say that Mr. Furlong's speech did not start well (his French left something to be desired) but there is no reason to break away from that especially when it was to promote a reality TV that was immediately following the conclusion of the games. Oh, and did you know there was a concert during the closing ceremonies? If you watched NBC you didn't because they cut that too. What were the advertisers paying for? Athlete pieces about Apollo Ohno over and over again. NO, advertisers are paying for event coverage. Now that I've taken on NBC I turn my attention to the Internation Olympic Committee (IOC).

The IOC is not without controversy. Decisions they have made on where to host the games, issues with the officials. When you consider the size of the IOC, it actually doesn't do a terrible job. I would however, like to know the answer to the questions I posed earlier. The IOC claims that each nation (and/or group of nations in the case of parts of the EU) can have one broadcast network that carries the games. They are also allowing multiple cable companies (owned or partnered with by the broadcast company) to carry other elements of the games. This next statement is going to be controversial. I believe the IOC is discriminating by this policy. Cable is still not fully integrated into any nation. Only half of people in the United States have cable, even less have all the NBC channels that carried the Games. But I'm getting off topic. Why does the IOC block nations from watching other nations coverage? Is it money? Probably. Is it that the IOC doesn't care about ex-patriots? Probably not. But it sure does feel like that. To me the IOC should at the very least allow the online content to be available to the world, no matter who is broadcasting it. In my case, I would rather watch CTV and/or CBC (the contract just moved) over NBC. But I can't because my IP is blocked by CTV, something the IOC mandates. I just want to know what the true reason behind it is. Second, and probably more important, is the "cost" of some online content.

Let me preface this by saying that CTV carried ALL online content for free. Most of that content was online broadcasts of their on air broadcast coverage (yes, CTV basically did web casts of their broadcast channel for the duration of the games). It didn't matter if you didn't have cable, you could still watch TSN or Sportsnet (which are normally cable only) online. Meanwhile, in the USA. NBC forced internet providers to have "deals" with them in order for you to be able to watch live event coverage. That amounts to having to pay for Olympic content. Why is it free in some places (ok, I'm talking about Canada but I know it's not the only place) and a cost in others? Second, why does the IOC allow networks to force this "charge" on consumers? I don't have an answer to this question. I don't know why NBC gets away with it and CTV doesn't even think about it.

I know this is very long. But it had to be. There is a lot of issues with NBC and the IOC as far as I'm concerned. One more thing, perhaps if the IOC would actually look at broadcast bids instead of just taking the one that gives them the most money, they just might get a quality product, especially in the United States. I know this is rambling, again, it could not be avoided. This is how I feel about the issue.

To NBC please change your ways. Please make the largest event in the world accessible to the whole country as a live event (especially when the games are carried in a North American time zone). To the IOC either tell NBC to change or get a new Olympic contract for the United States. The Olympics don't just happen in prime time. They happen all day for the 17 days of the games. Viewers should be able to see it as they happen not when some network decides they should. NBC carry more sport, especially if you aren't going to extend your coverage. Athlete interviews and profiles are fine, but you have to have more than 4 hours to put them in. If you only have 4 hours a day, skip the profiles carry the sport. To the IOC, open the online content up to the world. Who knows you might find that I'm right. some countries have better coverage than others and you could, since you control content so much, force some changes in the whole world.

I know this is well after the fact, but I think the sentiment remains the same. I hope this letter can cause you to think and consider the coming games in London (2012) and Sochi (2014), both of which as of right now are still being carried on NBC in United States.

Thank you for reading. Please note all comments must be approved by me before they are posted. If you would like to contact me directly, my email link is listed on this page.