[dotBen]

I worked on the BBC's British coverage of Sydney, Salt Lake City and Athens Olympics (2000-2004).

The sibling comments here are absolutely right - the US coverage is terrible compared to the quality of the output of other broadcasters.

The problem is that US audiences only want to watch American competitors and most popular sports here are ones where the majority of teams and players are American. The Olympics isn't about one country and so to focus all of your coverage just on your own country creates a very tilted output, esp when America isn't featured in a final. Whole sports are not covered because there is no American competing, and to not show a final because no Americans made it through is just absurd.

For comparison, the BBC shows every heat/round from every sport. Some of it is online only or via the red button (extra channels via digital TV we don't have in the US) but they show it and commentate on it. And with no ads.

Sports like Formula 1 are not popular in the US because there are no American drivers and the single American team is hardly American (based in Europe, currently has Russian flag livery due to weird sponsorship deal). But we'll know when Americans start watching sports for the pleasure of competition and not for nationalistic reasons because sports like F1 will become more popular organically.

[el_nahual]

> The problem is that US audiences only want to watch American competitors

I think there's a [citation needed] here. This is what people think is true, but I'd argue is wrong--as evidenced by a collapse in viewership!

People want entertainment that is fun and emotional, and the US coverage isn't providing that, perhaps because they are constrained by thinking that US audiences only care about US athletes.

[fatnoah]

I agree, I want to watch the Olympics, and not Figure Skating. I know events are basically happening all the time, but for some reason I can only watch a couple events from 8pm - 11pm my time. Of that block, 50% is devoted to commercials or random "interest" stories where I learn about one of the athlete's sick horses. When I actually can see an event, I'm forced to endure the "insightful commentary".

[banku_brougham]

i deeply agree with this

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> The problem is that US audiences only want to watch American competitors

Is this an established fact, or just a widespread belief among US broadcasters?

And yes, the BBC Olympics coverage is awesome. During the London games, I chose to pay for a proxy service so that I could use iPlayer and catch the BBC rather than suffer through NBC's useless attempt.

[Fatnino]

F1 has a problem (if you want to call it that) where it's not in my timezone. I wake up on the west coast USA and an entire race will have started and finished while I was asleep.

[lightlyused]

We use a VPN to watch on the BBC for just this reason. The BBC hosts don't over analyze the coverage and the focus is on the competitors and they don't create artificial drama. Their para-Olympics coverage is top notch too.

Forgot to add advertising in the US is out of control.