NBC has drawn criticism over their choice to air events by tape delay in primetime, rather than live as the events are taking place. That criticism even extends to one sportscaster at NBC affiliate WTLV in Jacksonville, Florida.

Most of the country's complaint with NBC's coverage is that the tape delay shows events hours after winners have been declared on the Internet, ruining the fun of watching for millions who can't escape being bombarded by updates from Facebook, Twitter, and other online media. While this is a legitimate argument, there are ways to avoid the inconvenience - plus, it's still nice to see how results were achieved.

Dan Hicken has a different argument about what's wrong with the coverage - one with which I can sympathize much more than those who are irritated by getting results before seeing the event. After their newscast started 7 minutes late due to Olympics coverage going beyond its scheduled end time, Hicken went into a rant about how Bob [Costas] is the sole reason they started later than scheduled. If you haven't watched the Olympics coverage, Costas is essentially the strawberry jam that holds together the PB&J sandwich that is the multitude of Olympic events in each broadcast. While he does a great job moderating the many events and interviewing athletes, he can get a little long-winded.

Although the rant itself is pretty funny, watching the reactions of the anchors awkwardly looking at the camera makes this a must watch clip.

Beside the humor in the rant provided by Hicken stands the fact that NBC is providing their primetime coverage of Olympic events in an edited-for-time, tape-delay format. This means that, in theory, it shouldn't be difficult to end at a scheduled time. Knowing people that work in TV, I have to say I feel for them when they're sitting up extra late waiting for a "live event" to end so they can do the newscast and go home.

What do you think of NBC's coverage of this year's Olympic Games? Do you agree with the complaints, or are you happy with things? Let us know in our poll!

 

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