Dear NBC Sports,
You see that image up there? It’s the Breaking News feed on Twitter. It has 1.6+ MILLION followers. I can guarantee you that a significant portion of those followers (like, me for instance) live on the West Coast. The Pacific Time Zone. Why should this matter to you? Well, think about where the Winter Olympics are this year for a minute. What time zone? Yes, yes, that’s right, Vancouver is on the WEST Coast! Of North America! Which means it is in the Pacific Time Zone! Pretty cool huh?! All of us California sports lovers are just THRILLED that this huge event is taking place in OUR time zone! For once, we can see it live!!
Right?
RIGHT?
Oh you are kidding me! No? NO?! You are still forcing us to watch Previously Recorded events??! Freaking TAPE DELAY on our OWN coast?! Are you NUTS? Or, are you just mired in 1994? Do you not have one clue about the internet? Have you not heard of Twitter?
Oh wait – I think you HAVE:
Let’s see, I took that snapshot at 5:27pm Pacific Time. Your broadcast of the men’s 5000 meter speed skating event just NOW showed the final heat with Hedrick missing the podium and Kramer sealing the Gold. Look at that teensy font at the bottom left – You know what that says?
about 3 hours ago
That’s right – THREE hours ago you sent that tweet. So that anyone following your twitter feed would know who won. You also have an NBCOlympics twitter account which ALSO sent those results out three hours ago. You are advertising it for people to follow for all the up to date Olympic announcements. Brilliant! Except that you are SPOILING YOUR OWN SHOWS!! So basically we here on the west coast should follow you guys, but then not look? Now, sure that one only has 50,000 followers. Not the 1.6 million that Breaking News has. But hey, I have BREAKING News for you too: Their feed also tweeted results all day! LIVE!
Do I even need to cover internet sites? Like you OWN? Also with real time results and…pictures..and VIDEO?!
So what’s the point of this rant? The point is that we here on the West Coast would like to see these events LIVE!! Especially the Big Ones! Like the Opening Ceremony for instance. My east coast friends were having a roaring good time last night commenting on the Ceremony (which was pretty darn moving & visually beautiful), while I sat here watching….Entertainment Tonight? Because the west coast got it all two hours later. By then, even though we all already knew it would be Gretzky lighting the torch, we already KNEW it for sure! WHY WHY WHY? When will you TV big wigs learn that people will tune in because of the EVENT, not the time it is broadcast.
Do you have any idea how much impact would be removed from the iconic “Do you believe in miracles?!” call of the 1980 hockey game if half the world had already tweeted & facebook & blogged about it??!!
Mary Lou Retton bouncing into Bela Karoli’s arms & into gymnastics history would have been all over You Tube before we saw it live here (even though it freaking HAPPENED here!).
I know, it’s a real challenge when the games are on another continent almost a full day ahead of our time zones.
I know, because I got my ass up at 5am back in 1994 to watch (live) the gold medal hockey match between Sweden and Canada in Norway. Because the EVENT was what drew me in.
So really NBC Sports, give your viewers some credit here. Give us some RESPECT. It is 2010. There are literally dozens of ways that the results will get to our eyes well before your hideously out dated Previously Recorded Broadcasts. It is taking away a ton of the joy of sitting down to watch these events.
Do it live NBC. Do it live. Because the rest of the world already is.
Trees & Flowers & Birds! 
I’m not sure it’s NBC’s doing. I read a couple of weeks ago that Canadian television would be controlling what is seen outside their country and when it is seen. They are actually, according to the article I read, keeping some of the programming to be aired only by Canadian TV.
I would be interested in knowing if this is the case or if it is actually NBC.
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