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| DELAYED REACTION | |
 September 18, 2000  |
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Will NBC's tape-delayed Olympics coverage pull out of its ratings slump? Three experts analyze the programming and its audience response. The NewsHour Media Unit is funded by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts.
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ANNOUNCER: NBC's coverage of the games -- of the 27th Olympiad.
SPOKESMAN: ...The world record and Olympic gold! TERENCE SMITH: The ratings for Saturday night's coverage proved disappointing, down 24% from the 1996 Atlanta games and well below the numbers promised advertisers. But network officials predict that the audience will grow as the games continue. |
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| A panel discussion | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Al Joyner, let me ask you first. You know a thing or two about Olympics. What have you thought of the coverage so far? AL JOYNER: Well, I just realized that this is really my first time sitting at home trying to watch the Olympic games, instead of being there, and I really felt that I wish they'd show them live, because I would stay up all night to watch them. And I think it's missing a little part. That's why they're losing some of the ratings at the beginning of the show. TERENCE SMITH: Why? Do you find it flat, the fact it's taped and of course has occurred 15 and maybe even 20 hours before?
TERENCE SMITH: Sandra Bailey, that immediacy is obviously not there. It's on tape. Do you feel you're getting a good picture of the games? SANDRA BAILEY: No, absolutely not. I'm with Al. And I tell you what, if the Olympics have lost Al Joyner and a sports writer as a spectator, they're in trouble. And I think they are. I think-- I know who won. I go online. It's not a matter of I want to stay away and not know and protect the drama. People aren't going to accept that in the year 2000. We live in real time. And we want to see our sports in an exciting format. TERENCE SMITH: Prentis Rogers, what's your view of this, of the packaging of this?
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| Profiles crowding out coverage? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Al Joyner, another complaint that has been made by critics is that... some of the profiles and features that they do are crowding out the actual event coverage. What's your view of that?
TERENCE SMITH: Sandra Bailey, what do you think the argument for those profiles, is that it introduces the audience to the individual contestants and almost gives them a stake or a higher level of interest in it. SANDRA BAILEY: I think that's true to a certain degree. As Prentis said, there certainly is a different crowd watching this. It's not necessarily the Monday Night Football Redskin fan who is watching the Olympics. But at the same time, I think it's kind of gone overboard now, and these sort of purple prose features are dominating the games. And like Al said, the game is the drama. They're exciting in and of themselves. And also with this tremendous cable component, can't we see something live on cable? I mean, we see nothing live. Can we package like a nice two-hour show? Can you tell us what to watch and then can we get on with it and actually see people competing the same day? TERENCE SMITH: Is that realistic? I know actually next door in Canada they do have the coverage on live. But just how realistic is this for a network that has paid a great deal of money?
TERENCE SMITH: Al Joyner, there's a great focus on U.S. athletes at the Olympics. Much of the coverage focuses on them. What's your thought about that? AL JOYNER: Well, since it's been... When it's being tape-delayed, it's no problem if it was live and American athletes do well, but when it's being tape-delayed and most Americans know which athletes have already accomplished their goal, it's just like, all right, I know who won the backstroke for the guy I was rooting for anyway. But I think the sad part about that is that they should just really let the people and let the race evolve around themselves because I remember as a kid I got in trouble trying to watch the Olympic games. That's what made me want to go to the Olympics. |
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| The Olympics ratings slide | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Prentis Rogers, what's your analysis of these ratings that you've seen so far? They are down sharply from Atlanta and below even what they promised their advertisers.
TERENCE SMITH: Which translates, we should explain, into about 14, 15 million households. PRENTIS ROGERS: And they were projecting to have an average anywhere from 17 ½ million to 18 ½ million homes during prime time. The advertisers were willing to live with 16 million homes. And so now you have a situation where this is the night that should be one of your highest scoring nights and you - you know, you barely get 14. Now, in perspective, you know, they'll put the spin on and say, "well, hey, it's better than anything than everybody else is doing," but that's to be expected, but that's not what people are paying their money for. So I think what they need to look at now is the live component. They've got an Internet component that can give you information, and perhaps they may have overstated how much knowing the results ahead of time would have impact. Now, in the past, the ratings did not seem to be impacted that much when it was in Seoul, when it was in Barcelona, they still did around 17. But now the information age has progressed to the point now that you just can't say, "well, people are still going to watch even if they know the result, because they want to see it unfold." I think what we're seeing now is they've got the whole day to find out what the results are; they're not as inclined to watch. TERENCE SMITH: Sandra Bailey, the Internet does change the horizon here, doesn't it?
TERENCE SMITH: Al Joyner, I bet you do the same thing. Do you? AL JOYNER: Yes, I do. I do it every morning and it's kind of like -and if I miss that, I end up going to another network to hear the results, because I'm looking for it. Like Saturday morning, I got up looking for the Olympic games and it wasn't on and I ended up watching a football game, and I wanted really to see the Olympic games but they were staged for later on that day. I think the money that NBC paid for the Olympic games - they should have it on the station all day, all the time, and let people tune in, because if you have - like going to CNBC, having to break up - looking -- at this point they might as well go back and do the triplecast. |
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| The year of the woman? | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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TERENCE SMITH: Al Joyner, this is also the year of the woman or being depicted that way in the Olympics - more women competing this year than ever before. Is that coming through?
TERENCE SMITH: Prentis Rogers, what's the impact of cable? It is on cable; it is on both MSNBC -- and some of those events are played in full -- and on CNBC. PRENTIS ROGERS: Yes. That kind of does scratch a point I mentioned. I do think that cable is probably having more of an impact than they thought. I don't mean in a major sense. But when you have this differing niche -- so, in other words, all the soccer fans are going to the cable; the boxing fans are going to the cable; the ones interested in softball and individually those may not be particularly large audiences, but when they start to add up, all of a sudden you look, you're a couple of million short. And one other thing I wanted to inject into the viewership problem that they seem to be having -- I don't think we can dismiss the fact that college football and NFL are two to three weeks deep into their season. You know, NBC says, "well, you know, we did our research and 48 percent of your Olympic audience is women 17 percent, children and 35 percent are men," but what you have here are men who are now saying college football is going - it's much better - it's an exciting game. They watched a couple of double headers on the NFL Sunday. Well, I've got my sports fix for the day. I'm not going to sit down and watch a couple of hours of the Olympics. So I think what they're going to have to revisit if they're going to use the cable component, they need to use it for live [events]; if they're going to do it because they use the tape, then I think once again when these little missed sporting events add up, all of a sudden they're losing [viewers]. TERENCE SMITH: Okay. Thank you all three very much. |
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TERENCE
SMITH: NBC's scheduled 440 hours of coverage of the Sydney games began
Friday. Split between its network and cable outlets, MSNBC and CNBC,
the coverage will continue through October 1. NBC paid $705 million
for the broadcast rights to the games, and will spend an additional
$100 million in production costs. The network has a staff of 3,000 on
the ground in Australia. Nonetheless, NBC expects to make a modest profit
after selling some $900 million worth of advertising. The coverage,
a mix of events and soft features on athletes and Australia itself,
is being broadcast entirely on tape, due to the 15-hour time difference
between Sydney and the East Coast of the United States.
TERENCE
SMITH: To discuss NBC's coverage of the Olympics, we are joined by Al
Joyner, the gold medallist in the triple jump at the 1984 Los Angeles
Olympics-- he is now coaching women jumpers at UCLA and is the brother
of Olympic champion Jackie Joyner-Kersee, and was the husband of the
late Olympic champion sprinter Florence Griffith-Joyner, and by Sandra
Bailey, the editor of "Sports Illustrated for Women"; and
by Prentis Rogers, the sports radio and television columnist for The
Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Welcome to you all.
AL
JOYNER: Yes, because I already know who won the event. That takes the
excitement out of it for me, being personal, because I feel like people
should watch it live and let it happen because I remember in 1988 that
people... I remember more than anything else when people came up and
said, "I stayed up all night to watch Flo-Jo run." I think
they get a better feeling because the drama will happen at the Olympic
games naturally. 
PRENTIS
ROGERS: I think as a sports writer, obviously I think the live is there.
If I may, I kind of see where they're coming from, too. They have the
belief that the Olympics is a family viewing event. They're of the belief
that the audience is not necessarily result-oriented. The ratings would
seem to suggest that maybe they need to revisit it. It's interesting
because this is the first year the Olympics has had such a massive cable
component. I should say the summer Olympics. I think what we're seeing
here is an erosion of their audience. The soccer fans, they may go to
MSNBC and see the soccer and not move to watch the rest of it. The boxing
fans... so taken bit by bit by bit, I think what they're discovering
is that their main audience is being chipped away, because if you watch
soccer for a couple hours or boxing for a couple hours, you're not ready
to make a five-hour commitment to a primetime telecast. 
AL
JOYNER: Yes. I've been watching some of the programs. Like I said earlier,
it's one thing about the Olympic games or any sports event, it's going
to create drama. And I think right now that sometimes some of the stories
they're trying to create our heroes for us, the people who we should
cheer for. And I think they should let the story just unfold, just like
the game. Nobody knows the outcome of the game. It ends up evolving
around what actually happened at the end results. 
SANDRA
BAILEY: I think maybe you could make the argument that they overpaid
for the games. Certainly NBC is saying, "we have to show it in
primetime because of what we paid for it." But - you know - at
10 o'clock at night, you know, it's 1 o'clock in the afternoon the next
day in Sydney. That's prime time; there's plenty of stuff going on live
then. They just want to package it all and show it. I understand the
quandary that they're in with the fact of the time difference. And certainly
it requires some packaging, but it doesn't require 100% packaging. 
PRENTIS
ROGERS: Well, yeah, I think right now they've got some calls for concern.
The Friday night rating of 16, it could have gone on the family viewing
thing. Then you've got people going to high school games and then Saturday
night when they have the 13, but now I think they're concerned because
I think Sunday night is supposed to be a high viewing night. A lot of
people are home; they've got to go to work the next day; they're in
their homes and they got a 14 - 5 or 14 - 6 -
SANDRA
BAILEY: It totally had changed it and particularly for an event like
the Olympics, which is bringing in the whole family, which is not reliant
on the traditional sports ban, the 55-year-old man on his couch who
is probably not Mr. Internet. This Olympics is relying on the family
and, you know, all the kids are on the Internet anyway. And if they're
interested in the Olympics, you know, they're finding out the results.
I mean, in the morning I go online, find out what happened, and I'm
hard pressed to watch very much of it at night because I know, and when
I turn it on it's everything I read at 9 o'clock that morning.
AL
JOYNER: Yes. That's definitely coming through. And I like that part
because I think the Olympic games definitely need to show the other
counterpart of how great these women athletes are, especially because
I have a daughter, and my daughter ended up tuning in when she watched
gymnastics.