I’m sure some people’s first responses to this would just be to turn off the text alerts and avoid Twitter and Facebook. But even if you accidentally catch the tail end of the evening news before Olympic coverage starts, they are blabbing about the winners.
I haven’t been watching mainly because I’m on vacation, but having the results spoiled does have an effect too. I set some key events to my DVR back home that I did want to watch, and I’m sure I’ll just end up deleting them without watching.

Bryce and I are doing our best to not be spoiled about the Olympics, however it’s really hard for us to stay away from every news or social media outlet all day long. It’s pretty annoying, and I wish it wasn’t like this. I really like watching sports because I like watching people compete, but being spoiled totally ruins it for me.

Exactly right.
I was listening to ESPN radio here in STL and they were running the winners of womens skying and were talking about how great of a race it was and then told us the winners. I was upset because I was looking forward to watching but I already knew who won.
I do not get why there is such a delay.

It isn’t necessarily an NBC problem, it is a “living on the West Coast” problem. None of the events, unless you are watching them on CNBC or USA are going to come to us live, all of the events are at least two to three hours later than what they are shown live on the East Coast. Knowing this conundrum since I moved here, I force myself not to look at ESPN.com or CNN.com because the results are already there. Oh yea, NBC also has to make money, so they do set up some sports during the night time so they will get higher ratings, which they did successfully last night and I believe they beat or almost beat Idol.

It’s the same thing with American Idol, Lost or some awards program. I have to literally stay off Facebook because all of my East Coast friends are either tweeting or posting a status update of something.

If anything, I wish they would start the programs an hour earlier, staying up until 11:30 or midnight just to see a horrible final men’s figure skating performance is difficult.

But I DVR most of it so I can watch my other shows and then fast forward through all the sentimental segments or people that will never win.

Solution: move to the East Coast, not even the coast, you can live in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan and you will get to see many events live, as they happen. =)

So all of you are saying we have to avoid normal life for an entire day just to be excited to watch the Olympics. That is exactly my point, we shouldn’t have to do that!

I say play everything live throughout the day and do a quick 2-hour recap show during prime time.

Nowadays with Tivo, I hardly watch sports live unless it’s a playoff or championship game. Most of the time I already know the winners before I watch it. But most of the time, it does not ruin the drama, athleticism, ascetics or competition- all of the things I love about sports anyway.

I watch some sports on dvr as well. But the NFL would have half the ratings if they played all the NFL games on tape delayed during prime time. People definitely prefer live.

I think NBC ruined it all after Conan…

Seriously though, I haven’t seen much of it at all so far due to a hectic work week. But, I plan on watching some this weekend if possible. Although, I do have some housework to do. Maybe I should get the text updates.

Well with the networks, ratings are everything. Just saw a blurb that said NBC’s coverage of the Olympics is scoring better ratings than ‘American Idol.’

Ratings = higher $$$ they can charge for advertising which = more $$$ which = “Who cares what the viewer wants as long as the ratings are good?”

From what I heard from people who work with NASCAR, they had to fight tooth and nail with the networks to get them to move the start times for races back to normal times like 12:30 and 1:00 instead of 2:00 and 3:00 (EST). MLB wanted to start some World Series games on FOX earlier this past year and Fox told them no way.

YES – they should absolutely play it live throughout the day – it’s ridiculous. This is a huge event and we have a large number of athletes there – one of the biggest groups, in fact. As someone who was blessed enough to be able to go the Vancouver Opening Ceremonies Friday and attend two events on Saturday, I’m very “into” the Olympics. But, with kids who have reasonable bedtimes and with no DVR option, we don’t get to see much. And, that is unfortunate. Seems to me, talk shows and other programming during the day could be bumped by live Olympic coverage and that would be fine by me.

Well, you *know* it drives *me* nuts. I think it’s harder for me, being a born-and-bred ESTer who is used to being the first to see things on TV. I feel the three-hour lag not just with TV shows, but with commenting on blog posts where all the ‘action’ happens before I’m even awake.

I happened to be listening to K103 yesterday as I was fixing dinner, and they were courteous enough to say, “If you want the ____ (specific Olympic sport) results, go to our website.” Maybe that annoys some people, but I appreciated the courtesy.

i’ve been recording it on my DVR and watching it 12 hours later

If there were still just three channels on the TV and no internet, NBC would still be showing them live (since they’re being held in one of the time zones the U.S. shares with Canada. But NBC hasn’t ruined the Olympics, expanded choice and competition for our eyeballs has ruined the Olympics.

There’s a pretty easy solution. Create an Olympics Season Pass available on Comcast/Directv. They do it for major golf and tennis events, MLB, NFL, NBA, and NHL.

People that want it free wait til NBC has it on when it makes the most sense for advertisers and demographics for them to give it away for free.

For those that want the experience live as it happens, they pay. These can even be live feeds with no announcers and just lower third graphics to tell you who’s who. Easy peesy.

At least the hockey games are live. I’m loving it!

Hasn’t NBC ruined just about all things TV?

I’ve been using http://www.watchvancouverolympics.com. Not the greatest quality sometimes, but it’s live. Mind you, I can only speak for hockey since that’s the only sport I’m really interested in, and as Ross said, they’re all live.

Nice find Jake, thanks for sharing that.

Well they certainly have chosen to largely ignore the implications of social media power in today’s culture. That is evident especially for the Olympics.

Really? That is awesome you were there.

Then who would be able to watch? Not everyone has DVR or has the opportunity to watch during the day. Let’s be realistic here.

Right I’m cool with the recap show, but instead of it being from 8pm to 12am every night, why not show live events throughout the day and during prime time do a recap show that is shorter.

I’ve never understood how US TV makes everything only fit in prime time. We have live coverage at any time of the day or night for those who care, with recaps in prime time.

But there’s often been discussions in the rest of the world about how the timing of Olympic level events is often co-ordinated around US TV “requirements”.

I thought some of it was just rumour until I started working in the event industry…what US TV wants, it gets. What the people want, meh…

So true. I’m a NASCAR fan, and the networks used to dictate when the races started. So you’d never know when it was going to start…could be 1pm, could be 4:30pm. This year NASCAR said forget it, and are starting all the races at a set time (mostly 1). I say, good on ‘em for sticking it to the networks!

TV is a wasteland. Period.