In Twitterverse, Olympics fans cringe at spoilers [updated]

 

At least four hours before NBC’s prime-time Olympics coverage began airing Wednesday on the East Coast, NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Chuck Todd tweeted this report about American skier Lindsey Vonn:

USA! USA! Americans nab top TWO spots in women's downhill. Yes, Vonn won the Gold.

 Todd quickly followed that with another tweet:

Getting lots of angry tweets about #Olympics report; Apologies; Seriously. But trust me on this: WATCH TONIGHT. Some amazing runs.

Todd’s tweets underscored the dilemma facing Olympics fans. With NBC airing much of the Vancouver Olympics coverage in tape delay for prime-time audiences, can viewers – especially those plugged into social media networks like Twitter – expect to be sheltered from spoilers?

The issue is generating a vigorous debate -- on Twitter, natch. “I agree that this is all NBC's fault for keeping us beholden. But I just don't think Tweeters need to deliberately spoil results,” tweeted one viewer Wednesday.

A Toronto-based watcher put the blame on the network: “Why should NBC control what's discussed when?... In Canada, we have had live coverage for years.” David Folkenflik, media correspondent for NPR, wrote on his Twitter account that “NBC decided to handle Olympics as entertainment, not news. No reason anyone else should heed.” (My colleague, James Rainey, has reached out to Chuck Todd for his take, and we'll update with his thoughts on this.)

The network has argued that it is packaging coverage of the Games for prime time because that’s when most viewers are watching – and when the most ad dollars are available. To build the suspense, NBC has slashed the amount of live streaming of the Games available on NBCOlympics.com compared to what it put up during the Beijing Olympics, offering live viewing of just hockey and curling this year. (Meanwhile, the competitions that do air live in prime time pose their own challenges. Gawker noted Wednesday that during coverage of the men’s snowboard competition, viewers could hear Shaun White’s giddy coach congratulating him with an expletive-laced atta-boy.)

But NBC’s decision to delay much of the coverage has also put the network’s own reporters in an awkward position. Anchor Brian Williams reports the day’s results on “NBC Nightly News” with a graphic, but first warns viewers who don’t want to know with a spoiler alert, according to spokeswoman Lauren Kapp.

[Updated at 12:44 p.m.: Todd, in an interview from Denver, where he's covering President Obama, told the LAT's James Rainey that he got “a few hundred” complaints about revealing Vonn’s downhill win before it aired on tape delay.

“I didn’t realize how sensitive this whole West Coast-delay thing was to viewers in the West. It didn’t take long to learn,” he said. “I got beaten up quite a bit over it.”

Todd, who covered sports news earlier in his career, said he still thinks it’s fair game to post news from Vancouver for his 21,000 Twitter followers. No one at NBC’s home office asked him to be more careful, though he said he will consider fronting further news from the winter games with “spoiler” alerts.

He’s enjoying using Twitter for an erstwhile fling as a sportswriter and has found a contingent of sportswriters who love political coverage. “So,” he said, “we are feeding each other’s addictions.”]

-- Matea Gold

Photo credit: Wally Skalij/Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Romas]

Spoilers? What's wrong with these people. Who wants to watch a live event after the fact. I like to know results when they will happen, not when some moronic media megamonolith decides. Can't even see live video from Canada because our internet is being censored by NBC. whow, what ever happened to an open internet and since when is censorship by a corporation legal in this country? All NBC cares about is its Ad revenue and not about the viewing public.

[Peter]

I just can't believe that we have Olympics occurring in the Pacific time zone, for the first time in my life (since 1984), and none of it is being played live in its' own time zone. My aged relatives really aren't happy about having to stay up until midnight to see the figure staking.

Between the insanely high amount of commercial breaks, and NBC's constant leapfrogging from five minutes of coverage of one event, to five minutes of another, to studio thoughts from certified moronic football commentator Cris Collinsworth, this is the worst Olympic coverage I can remember. The Winter X-Games a few weeks ago were a much better produced piece of television, albeit in a place with actual decent snow for these events.

Vancouver 2010 might be gold for some US athletes, but NBC's coverage gets a DSQ from my family board of judges.

[ArchtMig]

Events that are 4 hours old by the time NBC airs their prime time show on the east coast are 7 hours old by the time they air the 3-hour old prime time show in the west. Unless one is in a coma, it's impossible not to hear/read/see spoilers about the events. By the time NBC shows us half-day old coverage here in LA, I have already learned of the results from the radio, from the LATimes.com home page, from the internet, and even from Diane Sawyer and Katie Couric on the nightly news, plus a dozen other sources ---- and I don't even do twitter!!!

There is absolutely no suspense left for the events on the prime time coverage. It takes 90% of the thrill out of watching when you already know the outcome. That these games are in our own time zone makes it that much more hatefully egregious that we are the only modern nation on the planet that can't see them live.

I hope NBC's ratings for the prime time show go in the cellar, and that they lose hundreds of millions of dollars on this whole thing. I can't wait until NBC is no longer in the olympics broadcasting business.

[James Sullivan]

I love the Olympics but NBC is doing such a bad job this year that I'm not watching much at all. If NBC can't broadcast the Games in their entirety they should let another station do the job right.
Go USA! Suck eggs NBC!

[UnionDame]

I think NBC has made a big mistake in its coverage of the Winter Olympics. They could very easily have run the events in real time, especially in the western time zone. If they were trying to keep secret the results in order to increase viewership, then running tape delay across the country according to prime time schedules, means people in the mountain and western time zones will have tons of places where the results will be shared - from websites to personal telephone calls. There excuse of 'prime time and more dollars" is ridiculous. NBC should have run the events at real time on all of their many channels, and then created a prime time highlight program to entertain those who want to be entertained. The article is correct when they say the Olympics is news (sports) not entertainment.

[Steph W]

Um, how about just not checking Twitter if they're so concerned about "spoilers"? Sheesh.

[Bah]

Vancouver is within the West coast time zone. Anyone living in Seattle and Los Angeles should be able to watch live events. Morning / day time soaps and court room dramas ain't gonna compete for viewership among the 10% unemployed Americans who have nothing else to do.

We don't tape delay the world series, super bowl, march madness, or even golf. This is just insane.

[Nobody]

If CBS bothered to cover the skiing to any extent (they only showed 3 or 4 runs, and not even all the Americans), then people might be more interested in waiting to see. And their coverage in general is pretty poor. They show 10 or 12 figure skating pairs (most of which won't even come close to contending for a metal) yet only show a few skiers or boarders. Worthless.

[Karl Dahlquist]

These are LIVE events, broadcast worldwide live by most countries. Today I watched a bootleg Canadian feed of the US hockey game, the womens skiing combine (Lindsay Vonn crashed) and other events.

When the World Cup airs this summer, I doubt there will be tape delayed coverage...people will be up at all hours watching events LIVE.

[Stephen]

NBC isn't blocking you. CTV is blocking you because their contract with the IOC says they have to. It's just like NBC is blocking everyone outside of the USA.

But to the point I think it's a good thing that NBC guy got blasted. Maybe if some of the NBC front line talent gets enough heat they can convince NBC brass to do the right thing.

[osuffan]

NBC should be showing all the events live (or as many as possible) using every channel they have at their disposal. Go ahead and put the most important/popular in prime time. People will still watch who couldn't see it live.

[Cassie]

I am probably the only person in the world who doesn't mind watching events after I know the results. Sure, the suspense is gone but watching "how" someone wins is just as entertaining to me. Now, that's not to say I wouldn't like to see the events live, but considering most events (aside from sports) are usually tape-delayed for the West Coast anyway, I'm used to it by now.

People who don't want to know results before they are shown on NBC should avoid Twitter and probably the internet in general. It wouldn't be that difficult on Twitter - just turn off notifications.

[Steve]

NBC is why I don't watch the Olympics anymore. Why don't they just call the telecast the "Bob Costas Variety Showcase"?!?!

Pre-packaged crappola dumbed down for the dumbest among us.

[Mel Smith]

In Twitterverse?! What about on your own website LA Times?? The men's figure skating is just now beginning on the West coast, but LA times is already displaying as their feature article on the site who the winner is. A little hypocritical, wouldn't you say?

[Epy Taw]

NBC should be ashamed of themselves. Granted, I think they've done this in the past, but in Seattle, we just switched to a Canadian station (that one didn't get the contract this time) where most events were shown live. It's very insulting to know that we could probably drive up to Richmond or Vancouver and watch an event HOURS before it's broadcast on NBC. How many people, especially kids, can stay up on a school (or work) night past midnight? I've never hated a network before, but this makes me want to delete NBC from my channel lineup.

[LA Woman]

I love the Olympics.
I loathe NBC right now.

I would gladly have paid for live, online. streaming coverage of competition.
Or watched online with commercial breaks. Whatever. I get that you need to make money on it. FINE. But for crying out loud, don't make us wait many HOURS to watch events; and the scattered event-hopping is so hard to watch. I figure the delay is partly so they can do all their talking-head bits and insert the appropriate fluff pieces -- but I really hate most of that. Just let me watch the competitors compete. I don't need all your fancy-schmancy "packaging."

(And that they showed, over and over again, the footage of the poor luger who died in prime time, without warning about graphic footage to come makes it difficult to watch with kids.)

Altogether idiotic.