Lack of olympic sports diversity on TV

[orangeban]

I was in the States the other day, and was shocked by the coverage of the Olympics. It seemed like maybe 1/2, even 1/3 of segements were actually showing a race, the rest were just dramatic stock footage, or dramatic shots of London, or people gushing about how well Michael Phelps was going to do.

Truly, the BBC is where it's at.

 

[aba1]

I am not sure if this goes on everywhere but I know here on all the Canadian stations all I can ever seem to find is running, swimming or gymnastics.

I'm not sure what you are talking about. I'm also Canadian and I was keeping the TV running olympics in the background today. In addition to those events you listed, today alone I watched womens weightlifting, horse jumping, judo, gymnastics, men's water polo, and beach volleyball. And I certainly didn't watch everything, for example I had no interest in the basketball, badminton, archery, or soccer that was also broadcast (and probably others I never even noticed)

Do you live in the middle of no where with no cable?

I live in Oshawa it is just outside Toronto and we have digital antenna. We have been watch CTV mostly. Ya but we have seen almost exclusively swimming and gymnastics with the odd exception for a short while till they switch back.

I see. I'm the GTA as well. Check out the CTV site to see what everyone is running and when. http://www.ctvolympics.ca/viewers-guide/index.html

They are live streaming a bunch of stuff listed under "world feed" as part of the coverage as well.

I know I was actually checking it out a couple days ago but everything is unorganized I would look up a event and the video would either be the wrong set or immediately switch to the wrong sport. I mean it was ok most worked ok but some were just awful.

 

[TallanKhan]

Im living in the UK and while we can see any of it at any time i rather wish i could get away from it. Especially as were not doing too well...

 

[Irishanime]

Here is Australia we get a lot of swimming, rowing and cycling. Other events are seen when Australia is competing in them. Personally I think they should show more of the women's beach volleyball.

That is kind of surprising since I heard that the volleyball players are going to be wearing long sleeves to keep themselves warmer...it kinda upset the mostly male fan base. Maybe that is why you aren't seeing it? It is disappointing at the lack of diversity though...but Americans are not usually interested in "different stuff"...it might be too complicated to explain rules and stuff to the mostly ignorant audience. I think they should show more diverse events.

 

[Darknacht]

I don't know what the TV coverage looks like but NBCs web site seems to have decent diversity.
Anyone else notice that China's women tend to place much better than China's men?

are they at least still acting like the US will end up with the most medals overall?
because i heard they did that in 08 and it was rather hilarious since everyone knew that from then on it will pretty much always be china.

You do know that overall the US did win the most in '08 and are currently tied for most this year? Do you mean gold medals?

 

[teebeeohh]

I don't know what the TV coverage looks like but NBCs web site seems to have decent diversity.
Anyone else notice that China's women tend to place much better than China's men?

are they at least still acting like the US will end up with the most medals overall?
because i heard they did that in 08 and it was rather hilarious since everyone knew that from then on it will pretty much always be china.

You do know that overall the US did win the most in '08 and are currently tied for most this year? Do you mean gold medals?

i was referring to the official way of counting and there gold medals outweigh pretty much everything. and who really cares about silver and bronze medals?(unless you are from a smaller country and your whole country only wins like 5 medals)

 

[Kekkonen1]

Here in Japan it is nothing but sports Japan participate in (Judo and Gymnastics mostly) and virtually all summaries are summaries only of Japanese results. God I miss Swedish coverage where they show other sports as well, even when Sweden isn't participating or have no chance of winning a medal.

 

[robot slipper]

I moved from England to Canada, the olympics coverage here, in Canada, is awful. It's reasonable to only show interest in the events Canadians are participating in but I honestly don't give a shit about Judo or Boxing....

That's two of you who have said that. I've just popped over to the CTV Olympic's page (http://www.ctvolympics.ca/viewers-guide/index.html) and there are 20 events showing at this very moment and that looks to be fairly average number throughout the day. That doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

To be fair, when I mentioned dodgy Canadian broadcasting, I was talking about how it was about 20 (good god I'm old) years ago. Nice to see that things are hopefully improving a bit, though I would have expected that from CBC rather than CTV. Who knew!

 

[RedDeadFred]

Yeah its stupid how they restrict the Olympic games to a few events. I mean I don't care too much about the Olympics (add hockey and then we'll talk) but they should at least try to cover as many events as possible.

Buddy I've got great news for you, they've just come out with this new thing called the Winter Olympics. Hockey up the wazoo.

I know that. The Winter Olympics are street ahead of the summer ones. I'm just suggesting a way to increase the watchablity of the summer ones. In fact lets just move the current summer Olympics to winter and replace all its sports with the winter ones and just have the winter Olympics ever two years.

If they don't do this, they're streets behind.

Seriously though, the only thing I enjoy watching from the summer Olympics is fencing but I can never find that on TV anyway... How anyone could enjoy watching people swim back and forth boggles my mind.

 

[Soviet Heavy]

Canada is restricted by CBC's goddamn Canadian Content rule. We have to show a certain amount of Canadian made content or else we don't get other shows. It seems this also applies to the Olympics.

"Oh, you want to watch Judo? Well, fuck you, watch two dozen gymnastics and swimming events first, and we'll maybe let you see something other than Canadian athletes!"

 

[ellie91]

Oh God it is endless on the BBC. They love spanking tax payers cash on coverage of anything PC and of minority interest; the Olympics is a wet dream for them. Dread to think what they will do with the Paralympics that ticks some many BBC boxes I expect it will be illegal not to have the TV on when it's showing.

The Paralympics is actually being shown on Channel 4 in the UK.

On Topic: Love the amount of coverage BBC are giving these games, had to watch Beijing in Australia. Twas very frustrating as mainly showed just the Aussies and Micheal Phelps competing and only saw British medals if the Aussies were also taking part.

 

[Random Argument Man]

I don't really watch the olympics. I check TSN.ca if some canadians got some medals. I'm mostly looking forward to winter olympics and the NHL season.

 

[Angie7F]

I dont follows the olympics at all, but from what i saw i the headlines, Japan follows Judo a lot!
I think NHK has pretty good coverage...
Also, we have a pretty good sporting channel on cable.

But then again, i dont watch sports except UFC.

 

[MetalDooley]

That is kind of surprising since I heard that the volleyball players are going to be wearing long sleeves to keep themselves warmer...it kinda upset the mostly male fan base. Maybe that is why you aren't seeing it?

I've watched a fair bit of the beach volleyball(purely because I enjoy the sport and no other reason)and I've only seen one or two teams wearing the long sleeve and pants and they were for the late night games.Most teams are wearing the traditional bikini uniform

OT:Here in Ireland RTE has pretty average coverage(although their online overage is decent to be fair) and tend to stick to the "popular" stuff like swimming,boxing etc. with ocassional coverage of more niche stuff if there's Irish interest.Luckily though I have access to BBC so I can watch pretty much everything