I'm kind of a sucker for the Olympics, but even I'm not sure I'm this much of a sucker: NBC has announced its plans for broadcasting the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, which start one year from today, and all told, the network plans to show 1,400 hours of coverage — plus another 2,200 hours of free online broadcasts.
NBC's cable networks will carry much of that load, with coverage planned for USA, MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo. (No Bravo? And what about Sci Fi? Surely there's some Sci Fi channel tie-in for the Olympics, right?) On some days, the network plus cable plus online broadcasts will add up to 212 hours of coverage. Yes, that's nearly 10 times the number of hours in a day.
NBC hasn't said how much of that coverage will be live, but they're certainly doing all they can to get high-profile swimming and gymnastics events to the East Coast as they happen. The network has managed to convince the International Olympic Committee to move the times of those events so they can be shown live — despite the inconvenience to the athletes, who will be competing in a time zone that's 12 hours ahead.
Christine Bec
Heals
Lee Angel
NBC, "a big contributor to the coffers of the International Olympic Committee," certainly is wielding its power on the schedule. Wonder how the athletes feel about this--or if it even matters? Having said that, though, I know I'll be watching!
1I just hope they do a better job setting them up than they did last time. Just to get an hour or two of gymnastics, I swear I had to tivo hours and hours of Olympics! I'd rather it be a little easier on the Tivo user so I'm not killing the space on there quite as quickly.
2i love the olympics!
3I love watchin the Olympics too, I'm especially a sucker for speed skating! Oh and snowboarding!
4I remember last time around, everything I wanted to see was on air in the middle of the night/very early morning.
5i just got back on a vacation to China. I must say that Beijing is much better than it was when I went back a few years ago. Its cleaner, the air is better, and the citizens "conduct" themselves better. They even have official city-wide line-up days. Beijing is really pulling all the stops to make sure that the 08 olympics rocks......if only they can make it less muggy. Sure wouldn't want to run the marathon in summer in Beijing
6cant wait
7that's ALOT!
8i'm glad they're putting a lot of it online since i can't watch it on tv, but yeah - thats a lot of coverage!! i'm going to beijing in november and can't wait to see what they're doing for the olympics!
9I hope they do the same thing for the winter olympics. I'm not a fan of the summer olympics, other than the baseball.
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