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NBC's marathon: The network's coverage of the Summer Olympics is the most extensive ever.
(Fresno Bee (CA) (KRT) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Aug. 3--LOS ANGELES -- The telecast of the "XXIX Summer Olympics" by NBC and all of its sister stations is all about time.
Those of you who could not make the trek to Beijing will be able to see the chase for the gold through the huge block of time NBC is devoting to the Olympic Games starting with the opening ceremonies at 8 p.m. Friday. The Olympics run through Aug. 24. There will be 3,600 hours of coverage. Of that total, 1,400 will be televised. The rest will be available online.
Let's put that into perspective. NBC will provide 1,000 more hours of coverage than the total coverage of every Summer Olympics ever televised.
Then there is the time difference. Beijing is 15 hours ahead of the West Coast. It is a dozen hours ahead of New York, which is the time zone reference point that NBC will use for all of its coverage. And so when the majority of the coverage on the network or cable channels is called live, it will actually be on the three-hour delay for the West Coast.
"It's live on the East Coast and in the Central time zone, which is roughly 81% to 82% of all the households in the United States. Historically, we have always shown the Olympics on tape on the West Coast," says Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics and the executive producer of the network's Olympics coverage.
He is talking with television critics three weeks before the start of the games via a series of satellite links from China.
"We have done significant testing or polling on the West Coast," Ebersol says. "The viewers have repeatedly told us that the vast majority of them, well in excess of 80%, want to see the Olympics when they're available to see the Olympics.
"They don't want to see the key events of the day happening at 4 or 5 o'clock their time."
So when you sit down tonight at 8 p.m. to watch a "live" event, it will be happening tomorrow on the other side of the globe. And there will be 2,900 hours of live NBC Olympics coverage, when you factor in the huge online package.
It took a lot of compromise to get the Olympic committee to agree to some big changes for the start of many of the finals so they can be televised live in the United States. The events need to be held early in the day in China so fans on this side of the planet will be able to watch the drama as it unfolds.
NBC started making a push in 2001 to get the International Olympic Committee to agree to adjust some events to deal with the time difference. The committee agreed and has scheduled several sports, including the swimming and gymnastic finals, to be held at 10 a.m. in Bejing. That was the earliest time the committee would agree to, citing the athletes' need for time to eat and prepare for the event.
Ebersol says the committee agreed to the time changes "in hopes that it would help in the market that's the most important to them." The rights to televise the Olympics generate more than half of all the money the committee gets.
NBC paid $894 million for the rights to broadcast the Summer Olympics this year. If you do the math, that's a little more than $3,600 for every minute of the games coverage this year. The network paid $793 million for the rights to televise the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. The price for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London will be $1.18 billion.
There's another time element. Somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 athletes will compete in these games. The United States will have a roster of 596 competitors, or about one in every 17 athletes.
So should NBC devote significantly more time to cover American athletes? Or should the network try to give equal time to athletes of other countries?
"Are Americans somewhat more interested in American performers? Of course they are. But we don't insult the intelligence of the audience. They're interested in any good story wherever it may appear," says Bob Costas, who will serve as the prime-time host of the NBC broadcast. "Having said that, it isn't just that Americans tend to place or will place competitors in all 34 of the sports, but Americans tend to excel in the sports that are of the greatest interest to Americans and the ones that we tend to show the most in prime time."
Costas adds that the time given to Olympics coverage in Pakistan will feature a heavy dose of badminton. China will give more TV time to platform diving and table tennis competitions.
"This notion that America is more xenophobic than other nations, I don't think is true if you actually analyze TV from country to country," Costas says.
One way to be able to show more athletes is all of the additional coverage time. Along with NBC, viewers can watch the games on MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen and Telemundo. The online programming will be at NBCOlympics.com.
The Web site already features schedules, listings, news and biographies of the athletes. Once the games start, there will be live streaming video of 35 different sports.
As Gary Zenkel, president, NBC Olympics, puts it, if you don't have time to watch the coverage at night, there will be a place to go for immediate coverage.
Now it is a matter of the viewer finding time to watch all of the coverage.
The reporter can be reached at rbentley@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6355.
To see more of The Fresno Bee, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.fresnobee.com
Copyright (c) 2008, The Fresno Bee, Calif.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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