NBC halts Olympics for promotional monkeyshines
NEW YORK (AP) - Viewers were incensed Sunday night when NBC cut away from the Olympics' conclusion to air a sitcom featuring a monkey.
During 16 days from London, the sprawl of Olympics coverage was seemingly indomitable, running roughshod across the NBC schedule. Yet Sunday's package of highlights from the closing ceremony deferred meekly to the preview of a new NBC comedy, "Animal Practice," which then was followed by a half-hour of local news.
When taped Olympics coverage came to an abrupt halt at 11 p.m. Eastern time, viewers were advised that the festivities would resume in one hour.
Accordingly, at midnight Ryan Seacrest greeted viewers who had chosen to stick around.
"Welcome to the London closing party," he chirped. "Now it's time for the big finale."
That would be a medley pounded out by The Who. Songs included such favorites as "Baba O'Riley" and "My Generation," but not, as put-upon viewers might have noted, "Won't Get Fooled Again": Despite NBC's build-up, The Who were on hand for just eight minutes.
Olympics host Bob Costas then delivered a rhapsodic postscript before declaring a wrap for NBC's Olympics coverage at 12:35 a.m., while an interminable roster of program credits unfurled. For this, viewers had waited an extra hour on a work night.
And by then, many of them might have been wondering why the ceremony - which NBC boiled down by as much as an hour, entirely omitting acts like Muse, Kate Bush and Ray Davies - couldn't at least have been presented in one block. It could have ended conveniently at 11:08 p.m. while only slightly delaying NBC's monkey business.
Agitated viewers with a long memory were likening Sunday's Who-Airs-When fiasco to NBC's "Heidi" moment nearly four decades earlier.
That was the faceoff between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets on Nov. 17, 1968, when Oakland scored two touchdowns in the game's final minute to overwhelm New York's 32-29 lead. But viewers in the East didn't see the impossible comeback, because NBC broke away from the game with the Jets still ahead to air its TV film "Heidi" at the scheduled 7 p.m. start time.
Back then there was no Twitter, but Sunday night there was - and it lit up with complaints.
"No better way to turn people off a new show than to preempt the who & other rock legends for it," tweeted Nate Barlow.
And Nina L. Diamond voiced her ire in even stronger terms: "I think NBC has managed to become even less popular than Congress."
During 16 days from London, the sprawl of Olympics coverage was seemingly indomitable, running roughshod across the NBC schedule. Yet Sunday's package of highlights from the closing ceremony deferred meekly to the preview of a new NBC comedy, "Animal Practice," which then was followed by a half-hour of local news.
When taped Olympics coverage came to an abrupt halt at 11 p.m. Eastern time, viewers were advised that the festivities would resume in one hour.
Accordingly, at midnight Ryan Seacrest greeted viewers who had chosen to stick around.
"Welcome to the London closing party," he chirped. "Now it's time for the big finale."
That would be a medley pounded out by The Who. Songs included such favorites as "Baba O'Riley" and "My Generation," but not, as put-upon viewers might have noted, "Won't Get Fooled Again": Despite NBC's build-up, The Who were on hand for just eight minutes.
Olympics host Bob Costas then delivered a rhapsodic postscript before declaring a wrap for NBC's Olympics coverage at 12:35 a.m., while an interminable roster of program credits unfurled. For this, viewers had waited an extra hour on a work night.
And by then, many of them might have been wondering why the ceremony - which NBC boiled down by as much as an hour, entirely omitting acts like Muse, Kate Bush and Ray Davies - couldn't at least have been presented in one block. It could have ended conveniently at 11:08 p.m. while only slightly delaying NBC's monkey business.
Agitated viewers with a long memory were likening Sunday's Who-Airs-When fiasco to NBC's "Heidi" moment nearly four decades earlier.
That was the faceoff between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets on Nov. 17, 1968, when Oakland scored two touchdowns in the game's final minute to overwhelm New York's 32-29 lead. But viewers in the East didn't see the impossible comeback, because NBC broke away from the game with the Jets still ahead to air its TV film "Heidi" at the scheduled 7 p.m. start time.
Back then there was no Twitter, but Sunday night there was - and it lit up with complaints.
"No better way to turn people off a new show than to preempt the who & other rock legends for it," tweeted Nate Barlow.
And Nina L. Diamond voiced her ire in even stronger terms: "I think NBC has managed to become even less popular than Congress."
Looks like it's all been said here but I'll chime in just to cast my "vote". NBC did a terrible job. I hope the Olympics do a better job of selecting who provides coverage the next time.Â
I don't know why they sell the rights to cover the olympics to one single network?. Why don't they auction the olympic television rights in bundles to the various networks so CBS could cover one events like basketball while NBC could cover a different event like volleyball or something like that? If all of the networks could be involved, we the viewers would get to see much more olympic coverage instead of being told what to watch and when by one network! In NFL football, CBS gets the AFC and FOX gets the NFC on Sundays. It should be the same way with the olympics.Â
The coverage in general seemed pretty abysmal. Â I realized last night I didn't see one iron cross and missed men's gymnastics altogether. Â A friend said they competed the same time as the women. Â They sure as heck didn't get equal coverage! Â Lots and lots of volleyball of all types though....... Â The whole thing was very disappointing, we would just look at the schedule and sigh.
I know Dick Ebersol still has his incompetent hands in this miss. He resigned in 2011, but took a consulting roll.....maybe too much of a consulting role. It's time for someone new in the mix. NBC has lost their way.
The NBC coverage what a huge train wreck. Â With so many people having DVR's they should have run it live and let people record what they wanted to watch later. Â
NBC's coverage of the Olympics was heinous. A room full of ADHD 10 year olds could have made better programming choices.
NBC is one big epic failure of a network. They should be permanently banned from ever broadcasting the olympics.
NBC completely ruined the opening and closing ceremonies. But I'm possitive that was their plan the entire time. By airing them in prime time, they get top dollar for advertising. Then, those of us who actually wanted to see and hear the performers will be forced to buy the DVD that will undoubtedly come out, thus raking in a few million more for their corporate wallets.
And they add further insult by not broadcasting Muse's performance. They wrote the theme song for this years Olympics for crying out loud. I didn't hear NBC play it once!
The days of brushing people under the carpet and ignoring their feelings are GONE.Â
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Long live the internet! :D
Yeah I loved the fact I had to sit and wait thru all the BS in order to watch the Who when they kept saying it was coming up. I finally gave up and set the VCR for the rest of the coverage and just went back to find it. Is it any wonder why NBC's in last place?
@Zoso VCR????
 @Surveyor1 Yup. Don't have that DVR stuff yet. I know I'd love to one day though. :)
I'm going to borrow a phrase from Ken Schram and say to the NBC executives: "Come on down, take a bow, because this week's Schrammie is for you."
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I had to watch the Canadian channels to actually get good coverage of the games.
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Also can we please get rid of Bob Costas? He's so full of himself and a wannabe know-it-all that I am ashamed that he represents us during the Olympics :/
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Oh and one more thing: #NBCfail
 @BluefireJaguar To be fair, Costas actually does know a whole lot. It's annoying that NBC has chose to show more of him than the Olympians, but as far as sports commentating goes, I'd consider Costas one of the smarter ones.
 @keeper I respectfully completely disagree. He likes to think he knows a lot, but he's pulling half of what he says from his nether regions.
 @Dishwater I'd say that's less of a Costas issue and more of an NBC issue. He's gotta fill that time in with something. If only NBC would realize that all we want to see is athletes actually competing, they would dispense with the talking heads and silly interviews.
 @BluefireJaguar oi he's a talking head with hours of time to fill.  every last one of them do the same thing. the mouth starts going and does not stop until the little voice in his ear tells him toÂ
 @BluefireJaguar Example?
At least they didn't cut away for an infomercial with that South African runner mixing various foodstuffs with his
prosthetics! (Think of what he could do with a vat of pizza dough!)
Fail
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You're not as clever as you think you are.
NBC's coverage over all for the Olympics was absolutely atrocious.
If "corporations are people too"Â shouldn't they feel shame?