9/28/00 4:25 p.m.
NBC's 15-hour Olympic Hurdle
“Blame Australia.”

Robert A. George is an editorial page writer
for the New York Post------------------------------------RAGGEDmail@aol.com

his is being written on Thursday morning, edited (yeah, right, like anybody actually edits George's stuff!) on Thursday afternoon. But, thanks to the magic of the Internet, you will read it, uh, Thursday afternoon. Gee, that's almost real-time.

Now, if NRO was run anything like NBC's coverage of the Olympics, you would undoubtedly be reading this a day or two or three from now.

NBC is horrified that the ratings are at a four-decade low. One poll even suggested that Americans are paying more attention to the presidential election than are watching the Olympics! Interestingly, that has rebounded more to George W. Bush's benefit. Voters are actually focusing more on Al Gore's Olympian flip-flops and truth-stretchers rather than what a gymnast is doing on the parallel beams. But, that's a topic for another day.

There are predictable recriminations at the Peacock network. The immediate excuse is (to paraphrase SouthPark), "Blame Australia." The fact that the country is 15 hours ahead of the U.S. is being seen as the main problem. NBC feels that it has no choice but to show competition on taped delay. Which means you have interesting developments occur. Americans living on the East Coast of the United States who opened their newspapers on Wednesday morning got to see a report of Venus Williams winning the tennis gold medal. But, that match would not actually be seen by American viewers until MSNBC covered it later in the afternoon.

Even more confusing, people who listened to the radio or turned on the television — or scanned the Internet would also have learned Wednesday morning that the U.S. baseball team scored possibly the biggest legal upset in Olympic history when they beat the powerhouse Cuban squad (we say "legal" because the Soviet defeat of the U.S. basketball team in 1972 is seen by nearly everyone as a fix). Now, this victory occurred after Venus' win, but MSNBC chose to show it before the tennis on Wednesday. Of course, both broadcasts were played hours after they actually transpired.

And that's only one example of NBC's complete wrong-headed approach to the Olympics.

No wonder the ratings are collapsing. Why is the network doing this? Two reasons that are connected. One is a politically correct one based on a misreading of the marketplace. The other is a failure to understand how the public now receives its information and how that has changed viewing habits.

First, the "politically correct"-business reason. Four years ago, when the Olympics were in Atlanta, NBC first adopted the "plausibly live" technique. The reason for that is because they wanted to take away the concept of the Olympics as a "sports" event and make it an "entertainment" event. The thought was that men will automatically tune into sports events, but women — and their attractive purchase-friendly demographic — needed to be wooed. Thus, we saw the start of "storyline" Olympics. Every competitor had to have a background story — "how they got here," "the obstacles in their way," "the family tragedies overcome." In other words, the Olympics became more about narrative, instead of competitive endeavor. Those wishing to draw comparisons to America's political conventions, feel free.

Of course, this meant that sideline stories that developed helped with the narrative. As horrific as it was, the bombing in Olympic Park certainly got people focused on the show. The fact that it was happening in America also fed interest. This year, for example, the allegations of doping by Marion Jones's husband helps pique some interest.

But to maximize ratings in 1996, NBC waited to air events in prime time, emphasized skill competitions over strength and heavily promoted the American Olympians. Thus, the American female gymnast team's gold-medal performance which actually happened around 6:30 p.m. EST, didn't air until after 10 on the East Coast. This is somewhat excusable, because the delay was for only a few hours.

Meanwhile, boxing was almost invisible to American viewers.

NBC tried to do the same thing this year and failed miserably. The storyline approach has become tedious. We all know that everyone has a story to tell. Whoopee! But, the network's greater error is in delaying the footage for more than a day. This reflects NBC's failure to understand how the public now receives its information and how that has changed viewing habits. It's true that men will watch sports just for the sake of it, they won't automatically gravitate to a set when the results of an event have been known for hours. In particular, they will not watch something when the results have even been printed in the morning paper. And, as the network has found out, neither will women.

The Internet and 24-hour cable news television have conditioned Americans in general for "rapid response" information. They expect things to be shown in "real-time."

Where are the true Olympic fans? Many of them are flocking to bars with satellite televisions that get the Canadian Broadcasting Company. CBC is showing the Olympics live.

One would think that with both CNBC and MSNBC at its disposal, NBC would realize that it can air some live events — whatever the hour. ESPN showed the Australian semi-final match between Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi during the winter. It began at 3 a.m., but still got reasonable ratings. Hundreds of New Yorkers and Chicagoans got up in the wee hours in April to watch two games between the Mets and Cubs played in Japan.

The big events can still be re-packaged for prime time as warranted. That may also address the male/female split as well. Men are know for getting up — or staying up — at all hours for a sports event. If women are more interested in the style and the performance — as opposed to who wins — that's fine. That can be part of the prime-time package.

In the language of homepages, NBC needs to construct a MyOlympics for the next time. Give the people when they want it — in both real time, and accessible as desired.

To use the Field of Dreams line, if you build it, they will come.