I watched the replay on Peacock this morning and successfully avoided spoilers -- except that I could see that the telecast was less than 2:07 in length! I was watching the whole time wondering.. are they going to edit out part of the race? how on earth does the race end and they wrap up the broadcast that fast??
I watched the replay on Peacock this morning and successfully avoided spoilers -- except that I could see that the telecast was less than 2:07 in length! I was watching the whole time wondering.. are they going to edit out part of the race? how on earth does the race end and they wrap up the broadcast that fast??
I bet they could get away with broadcasting a full marathon in only 85 minutes if they transmit it at x 1.5 speed. Who would notice? And then maybe even play the commercials at 0.85 speed.
The marathon started here shortly before 11pm (coverage) and ended 1.30-ish. At 1.30am PST or 4.30EST, nobody much is watching, although marathon fans MIGHT BE. They missed an opportunity for interviews, to personalize the activity. That sort of debriefing would be relevant and meaningful: newsworthy. The end was abrupt. Missed opportunity.
Y'all sound like a bunch of grandparents that bought a subscription to USATF+ just to see your eight-year-old grandchild finish 158th at the JO Cross Country Nationals.
You really have to wonder, who makes the production decision, "Ok, we have hundreds of thousands of fans watching the marathon. Screw the finishers. Quick, get over to the Bulgarian guy doing the 170kg snatch. Yeah, that's what viewers want to see."
Come on now, you really think "hundreds of thousands of fans" are glued to their screens watching some skinny guys run down a street for 2 hours? I'll watch a marathon but I'm under no illusions about it being a popular spectator sport.
Quibble over the exact number of viewers in the middle of the night in America. Fine. But there is no quibbling that the audience for Bulgarian weight lifting at 4:10am ET, right as the marathoners were finishing, was zero.
I think the commentary was just fine, the cutting away was horrible
The commentary was not fine. It was downright awful. Carrie T talked about nothing relevant to the race. No idea what was going on behind the first 4 runners. No idea the UK runner (Cairess?) was making a late charge. No mention of Bekele. Only one passing reference to Kipchoge being 8 minutes back. No idea where Mantz and Young were. Etc
of course she made sure we knew the all the guys were hurting, giving 100%, needed the crowds, the atmosphere was great, etc.
No that was Kara again, not Carrie T. We need someone better. I don’t mind CarrieT. I can’t stand Kara. John Anderson would’ve been good, he at least seems to know and follow the sport.
While we're at it, the camera angles were abysmal. Who was the cinema studies major who decided that fully 30min of the broadcast should be slow-mo shots of feet? It was often unclear if the camera was on the chase pack, or a random group hundreds of yards back.
Hahaha….. The execs know one thing: Ratings. After the top ten finishers, switching to another sport makes sense.
Nobody wants to watch the hobby joggers trickle in. They should have IMMEDIATELY terminated transmission after the top 3 crossed the line. Like even if there was no other sport to show, the screen should have instantly gone black with no outro.
Correct - Non placing Stick Figures = ZERO ratings.
I woke up at 3am to watch the last hour+ thinking that they'd be showing the marathon (on over-the-air channel), but it was a f-ing replay of the previous night primetime Olympics recap coverage. I couldn't even watch a damn minute of coverage. Went back to bed and obviously won't bother trying to watch the women's race tonight. Can't even show the marathon at 2am EST... wtf?!
You used your VPN to punish yourself watching the Gran Britania BS spouted by Steve Cram & co?! 🤢🤮 EuroSport feed very good by comparison (although still GB -centric, but less 🤢🤮 than Cram's carry on).
NBC programs the Olympic Games which has dozens of sports. People competing for medals in other sports are more deserving of NBC’s airtime than the last place person in the marathon. Just because it’s not a sport you care about, doesn’t mean it shouldn’t get airtime.
This Olympics NBC Universal made it possible to watch almost anything live or replayed. Compared to previous Olympics the coverage is unparalleled.
I'm not sure how many people really wanted to watch the last marathoners finish.
I watched the marathon on Peacock (via replay at a sane time of day), and I'd grade it about a B. Of course, having watched US network TV all my life, my grading scale is pretty inflated. The commentary was awful, but at least they let me watch most of the race with minimal Paris travelogue distractions, and having only an elite race there was none of the usual celebrity and human interest story nonsense. It was OK, and not bad value for the $6/month fee.
I'm not sure how many people really wanted to watch the last marathoners finish.
I watched the marathon on Peacock (via replay at a sane time of day), and I'd grade it about a B. Of course, having watched US network TV all my life, my grading scale is pretty inflated. The commentary was awful, but at least they let me watch most of the race with minimal Paris travelogue distractions, and having only an elite race there was none of the usual celebrity and human interest story nonsense. It was OK, and not bad value for the $6/month fee.
I'd give NBC/Peacock an A for the women's marathon and another A overall for the rest of their track and field coverage. Kara and Paul Swangard were very good today and I believe that Kara is better at covering a marathon than track. They had Des Linden on board as well and she had good commentary. The camera work was superb with the overhead views. Not sure if we can credit NBC for that but overall I thoroughly enjoyed today's replay program and barely used the fast forward.
Having watched all of the track and field events via the Peacock replays, I missed Ato Bolden's commentary. That was bad because he *makes* the sprint coverage for NBC. Peacock had Dawn Harper-Nelson at times but I missed Ato. (I gotta find a replay of him calling that disasterous men's 4x100).
Rowbury and Tollefson did a great job in the replay coverage. I love Rob Walker but he never got Cole Hocker's name pronounced right, calling him "Hoaker" despite Carrie Tollefson finally shouting IT'S COLE HOCKER!
Come on now, you really think "hundreds of thousands of fans" are glued to their screens watching some skinny guys run down a street for 2 hours? I'll watch a marathon but I'm under no illusions about it being a popular spectator sport.
Quibble over the exact number of viewers in the middle of the night in America. Fine. But there is no quibbling that the audience for Bulgarian weight lifting at 4:10am ET, right as the marathoners were finishing, was zero.
LOL, NO, at 4:10am in 'Amurica' the Neilson ratings for the W Marathon were zilch, In Bulgaria, at 11:10am, ratings were through the roof as not 1 but 2 of their athletes won medals, including a bronze.
I'd give NBC/Peacock an A for the women's marathon and another A overall for the rest of their track and field coverage. Kara and Paul Swangard were very good today and I believe that Kara is better at covering a marathon than track. They had Des Linden on board as well and she had good commentary. The camera work was superb with the overhead views. Not sure if we can credit NBC for that but overall I thoroughly enjoyed today's replay program and barely used the fast forward.
Having watched all of the track and field events via the Peacock replays, I missed Ato Bolden's commentary. That was bad because he *makes* the sprint coverage for NBC. Peacock had Dawn Harper-Nelson at times but I missed Ato. (I gotta find a replay of him calling that disasterous men's 4x100).
Rowbury and Tollefson did a great job in the replay coverage. I love Rob Walker but he never got Cole Hocker's name pronounced right, calling him "Hoaker" despite Carrie Tollefson finally shouting IT'S COLE HOCKER!
My mother-in-law tends to mispronounce things and gets really mad if you correct her, to the point that she’ll purposely (I think?) continue with her incorrect version forever. She always says “maho-maho” for that fish you can order in restaurants, as an example. Maybe that announcer has done kinda mental block like that and then refuses to admit he was ever wrong.
I'm not sure how many people really wanted to watch the last marathoners finish.
I watched the marathon on Peacock (via replay at a sane time of day), and I'd grade it about a B. Of course, having watched US network TV all my life, my grading scale is pretty inflated. The commentary was awful, but at least they let me watch most of the race with minimal Paris travelogue distractions, and having only an elite race there was none of the usual celebrity and human interest story nonsense. It was OK, and not bad value for the $6/month fee.
I'd give NBC/Peacock an A for the women's marathon and another A overall for the rest of their track and field coverage. Kara and Paul Swangard were very good today and I believe that Kara is better at covering a marathon than track. They had Des Linden on board as well and she had good commentary. The camera work was superb with the overhead views. Not sure if we can credit NBC for that but overall I thoroughly enjoyed today's replay program and barely used the fast forward.
Having watched all of the track and field events via the Peacock replays, I missed Ato Bolden's commentary. That was bad because he *makes* the sprint coverage for NBC. Peacock had Dawn Harper-Nelson at times but I missed Ato. (I gotta find a replay of him calling that disasterous men's 4x100).
Rowbury and Tollefson did a great job in the replay coverage. I love Rob Walker but he never got Cole Hocker's name pronounced right, calling him "Hoaker" despite Carrie Tollefson finally shouting IT'S COLE HOCKER!
Meh. While the lead group of 12 runners was breaking up they were busy showing shots of some gigantic sculpture, slomo of feet hitting the ground in tandem, some closeup of some runners faces in slomo from action several minutes earlier, and crowd shots. When they finally got back to showing the reduced lead pack the commentators made no mention of the surge in speed
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