Closing Olympic blunder for NBC
The network bumps the Who to late night
Closing Olympic blunder for NBC
David Hiltbrand, Inquirer TV Critic
These may be the words for which we will always remember the London Olympics. They were uttered by Bob Costas during the Closing Ceremonies as the epic “Symphony of British Music” was building to a crescendo:
“We’ll be back from Olympic Stadium in about an hour for the London closing party featuring The Who. But stay tuned now for a full episode of Animal Practice, the new NBC comedy presented commercial free.”
That’s right, the network that had already taken the liberty of cutting out Ray Davies singing “Waterloo Sunset” and deleting the entire performance by Muse, the band that wrote the London Olympic theme, decided to move the Who into the wee hours so that it could promote one of its new sitcoms. But this one’s got a monkey!
What expert was giving you musical advice, NBC? Ryan Seacrest? Little advice for next time in Rio. You can keep Jessie J and the Spice Girls. We’ll take the Who. Or maybe we won’t watch at all. Then we can be sure we won’t get fooled again.
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OK good someone else noticed this as well. NBC was pretty pitiful this time around. Maybe they have been in the past, but this was the first time I noticed. All I planned on was eating breakfast and watching some events but NBC decides to only have one channel on during the morning so we have to watch primetime after 99% of the world knows the results.
Sochi 2014 will be even worse with that time difference. At least Rio 2016 is only an hour ahead so there shouldn't be much problem.
Then again NBC and Comcast could be the best chance Philadelphia has in 2024 of hosting the Games if the city wanted it.— WilliamKGreen- As soon as I heard that, I turned off the TV and went out to walk the dog. Never did turn the TV back on again.— herbysson1
- I love the competition but you can have the opening and closing ceremonies. I turned it on and saw kids singing "Imagine" and immediately turned the channel. Sorry. Just a little to sappy for me.— rjw817
- NBC/Comcast dropped the ball big time. Good thing I streamed the Olympics live from a European site. Spice Grrls? child please.— Tyrone Biggums
- People complain every 4 years about TV coverage of the Olympics, for whatever reason. Time to stop being disappointed and do what I did after the 80 Olympics, stop watching. I did not watch a single minute of this year's olympic coverage. Easy enough to just follow along with the ticker of ESPN or just about any sports show.— Master Dreamz
- When Eric Idle sang "Always Look on the Bright Side of Life" I knew what was coming in the lyrics, and NBC didn't really do a good job in bleeping out the key word (Life's a piece of s---), which for one thing surprised me that they allowed him to sing that in the first place. Silly Brits.— mportik
- But this show has a monkey and a former Mad TV "star." Regardless of what you thought about the music, cutting out for a new sitcom is shameful. London is only 5 hours ahead of the east coast. Was NBC really expecting us to believe that a 2-7 simulcast was impractical?— Ripley1776
- The whole opening and closeing ceremonu was grossly over done again and cheesy ......the games are classic....but the folks that run these things could cut it down to a half hour max and spend all the money on food for the poot.....It was an embarrasment to the atheletes..and their perfomances...— nuggett
