An Olympic broadcast challenge

From the BBC’s annoying channel-swapping, to NBC’s terrible adverts-to-sport ratio, how is the way we watch major sporting events changing, asks Raymond Snoddy

There have been the usual, inevitable whines about the BBC’s Olympic coverage, even though 45.24 million viewers tuned in – a record number for an overseas games.

The complainants should be sat down in a darkened room and forced to watch NBC’s coverage which managed to reach smaller numbers than London, despite a much compressed time difference for US viewers.

The charge sheet is long and various.

The US network spent $1.2 billion on the Rio rights and it has to show ads to get its money back – but critics have dubbed NBC ‘Nothing But the Commercials’.

There were no less than six ads in the time-delayed opening ceremony – yes, time-delayed – to better hit prime time, even though there is only a one-hour time difference between the eastern US and Rio.

Then, in its main network coverage, there was a total obsession with American contestants and the families of American contestants in the sorts of sports that most turn Americans on – gymnastics, swimming, track and beach volleyball.

Every broadcaster focuses its main lens on the performance of its own nationals and celebrates – in the case of Great Britain, celebrates considerably – domestic achievements.

In covering what is one of the greatest international gatherings, the BBC does at least try to be less blinkered and tell the stories of other nations and other achievements.

You would also think that NBC would be aware of the numbers of American viewers with affiliations to other countries and reflect that in its coverage.

The NBC presenters tend to be presenters embedded in the details of their obscure sports rather than presenter-Olympians who not only know what they are talking about but can give the flavour of achievement – and with NBC the vast majority are men.

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Yet who can forget the performance of a woman presenter in NBC’s coverage of the opening ceremony in London she asked “live” on air who Sir Tim Berners Lee was even though the broadcast had been delayed and she had plenty of time to find out.

NBC has a serious problem. It’s in a broadcasting marathon and has paid $12 billion for exclusive coverage of the Olympics up until 2032.

What is it going to do and how much money is it going to lose as viewing habits continue to change?

There is no escape from the dilemma caused by the size of the US with its different time zones. The big bucks are in prime time, and if you want the prime time audience for the big events you have to go in for delay.

The world, however, is no longer like that with instant access to breaking news and live streaming from all around the world.

Such delays perhaps just about work for the entertainment of an opening ceremony, but for little else. Many Americans may have simply given up and watched live streaming coverage on the BBC or Canada’s CBC.

More than 29 million global browsers followed the Rio games using live pages on the BBC Sport website and apps with streams and catch-up.

The most popular was Andy Murray’s winning final against Juan Martin del Potro which was followed by 1.9 million browsers.

At least this time NBC has been putting live Olympic coverage not just online, but also broadcasting “minority” sports live on its cable channels. It was therefore possible to watch the Murray gold live on Bravo in a hotel bar in Half Moon Bay in Northern California, but only after the barman had been persuaded to change the channel by a handful of tennis nuts.

Overall Fortune magazine gave NBC a bronze at best for its Olympic coverage and notes that it faces an underlying demographic problem.

Prime time viewing was down by an estimated 17 per cent and advertisers may have to receive compensation in the form of later free slots. The decline was even steeper in the commercially important 18-49 age group – possibly as much as 30 per cent lower.

There is an additional worry that in the US the young are not so sport-orientated as previous generations and are simply not there to reach.

As for the BBC, the complaints about presentation seemed quite minor stuff – that it was sexist to say the tears of Murray and del Potro were “not macho” or from the Christians that the Christian faith of stars such as Usain Bolt were air-brushed out.

And you either love or loath John Inverdale.

Where time-shifting was the NBC bug-bear, the BBC got it in the neck for changing channels at crucial moments in events.

If you are there and watching this is a minor irritant. But if you have decided to pause or record an event, as many people now do, this is very annoying indeed.

The complaint has a long history with viewers – particularly over Wimbledon. You record a channel to see a long Murray match and you miss the end and get the news instead.

The complexity and scale of the Olympics multiplies the problem, although you can choose an individual sport on the red times and stick with it.

For those who want to watch a diversity of live events then there is no easy answer. When to switch to another event is down to the judgement of producers in the control room, as is the decision that the drama has become so intense and unmissable that the viewers expecting to see the News or EastEnders will just have to wait.

And viewers to Newsnight who had to wait until midnight for their programme were not amused.

Whatever the decision, some people are going to get very angry.

As a public service broadcaster the BBC feels, rightly, that it cannot abandon the core of its normal schedule and concentrate solely on the Olympics, even if it is only once every four years.

After all there are some very strange people out there who have no interest in sport whatsoever and have never ever been to a single football match.

By the time Tokyo comes around, the BBC or the set-top box operators will surely have solved the problem if they haven’t already. Simply put a tag on an individual event so that the recording follows wherever it goes.

The problems of NBC are more intractable. They have declared themselves happy with estimated revenues of $1.3 billion this time. Will they do as well in Tokyo when the time delay issue and desertions to live streaming will be even more challenging?