a:c wakeup:call

New copy to come

The media critics have already begun to weigh in, somewhat unfavorably, on the coverage of the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Most of the criticism has been directed at NBC, the broadcaster with exclusive rights to the games.

For one, say critics, the crass commercialism of these “amateur” games has escalated to new heights. NBC paid over $700 million for the broadcasting rights and another $100 million in production costs. In order to recoup some of this huge financial outlay, NBC regularly assaults viewers with advertisements and corporate imagery. (Nevertheless, NBC is projected to turn only a slight profit.)

Greater objections have been voiced, however, at NBC’s decision to air all of its coverage on tape-delay—ostensibly because of the time difference between the U.S. and Australia. Even with NBC and its two cable networks—MSNBC and CNBC—offering damn near 24-hour coverage, it’s practically impossible to see an event from Sydney as it happens.

So what is NBC thinking? Well, the network is probably right in assuming that most viewers will not stay up all night to watch the badminton finals. Moreover, NBC seems to have assumed that delayed programming supported by the immediacy and the breadth of Internet coverage could rival the thrill and natural narrative of live television. They were wrong.

As a medium that delivers timely information, the Internet has no rival. Although NBC’s official (and impenetrable) Web site leaves much to be desired, we can flock to countless sites around the Web for instant Olympic results. In addition, the amount of in-depth information and statistics regarding the athletes, their sports, and their countries is unprecedented. It's amazing to be able to determine in a matter of seconds that Kyosti Laasonen of Finland won the bronze medal for archery in Munich in 1972.

However, the Internet is not yet television, and the two content delivery platforms remain distinct—as these Olympic games illustrate. To show events after they’ve occurred—packaged with heavy editing and laced with human-interest vignettes—bleeds any sense of spontaneity from the competition. And with the Internet, NBC didn’t recognize that, despite all its utilitarian benefits, the Web is still not capable of conveying the emotion and drama which are so often the hallmarks of live Olympic broadcasts. Watching a taped event twelve hours after the fact—after reading all the results on the Web—hardly makes one swell with patriotic excitement.

At the very least, NBC deserves credit for trying. This is an exciting time for broadcasters, but it is also baffling. Finding the right combination between television and the Internet is anybody's guess. The only way to see what works—to see what resonates with viewers—is to experiment. And, in this case, the experiment is taking place before a very large audience.

Broadcasters with future rights to the Olympics will do well the remember the following: Even in this age of information on demand, most of us, given the choice, would still exchange ready access to results, information, and statistics the Internet provides for the spontaneous, uncluttered drama of watching Mark Spitz in Munich, Carl Lewis in Los Angeles, or USA hockey's Miracle on Ice.