Saturday, February 18, 2006

Winter Olympics Coverage (sucks)


NBC is really trying hard to cover the Olympics, but can't seem to understand why their ratings are poor. Let me sum up television viewing for all of the networks, as if they give a crap about what I think. When the time difference for the host country is six hours ahead, you face significant challenges because of the Internet. The best way to cmbat this is to have a more flexible schedule. Do not try to save the "high-profile" events too long. For example they are trying to broadcast in our area from 8-12 at night, I can assurethem that only about three people in this country have any desire to watch Ice Dancing during prime time. The events that interest me are sanwiched between the most boring events in the world. I would rather just read the results than try to suffer through curling or some gay ice skater. If they want people to watch they need to get the American athletes to win, and if not win then at least stop acting like some sort of primadonna. They should also show the "more exciting" events as soon as possible to prevent people from dying of boredom during "the crucial third rock" on sheet b of whatever the crap that means.
The other thing to understand is that you can hype an unpopular sport or program all you want, you can show it in everyone's favorite tv watching time, you cannot make it not boring or stupid though. If you show a crappy show/sport thurday at 8 p.m. on thursday, it won't make people watch it. I can't figure out why this is so difficult to understand, T.V. executives are firmly convinced that showing crapola in a hot time slot will boost the ratings. It will, but only because they are hunting for their favorite show which you just stuck at 10 pm on Sunday.
Moving a good show to a crappy time slot can significantly reduce its lifespan. This is because no matter how much you like a sport/show it isn't worth dragging yourself into work late or dead tired just to catch some show. Of course none of this will work if we keep trying to push unpopular ideas, Commander-in-Chief or The Book of Daniel, on people who don't want to watch it. Sure there is a small minority that want to see this stuff, but T.V. just can't be in the business of pleasing the smaller crowd or they will lose all their money.
I will now wait by the phone for the job offers from all the T.V. networks.

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