Tuesday, January 19, 2010

LIVE FROM THE PAST: The world-beating geniuses at NBC are at it again. This time, they've decided to tape-delay the Olympics on the West Coast -- the coast where the games are actually happening -- although they'll show them live on the East Coast. Just to rub it in, they'll call it "live" in both markets.

It may well be that tape-delay is the superior ratings strategy, and any little bit helps when you're busy losing $200 million. But if that were true, why wouldn't they time-shift all football games (and MLB and NBA playoff games, and March Madness) so that they show up in prime time on both coasts? We've established that I'm not the typical consumer of television (I watch Better Off Ted), but given how often I had to choose between going to bed and staying up for the last couple of hours of (delayed) Summer Olympics coverage, it's a viewer-suppressing decision for me.

I will, however, stay up as late as necessary to watch my favorite winter sport, Full-Contact Superhero Entropy, also known as short-track relay.