Sometimes I feel like I am watching Phil Hartman do his
impression of Charlton Heston through a litany of “Soylent Green” sequels.
You might remember the sketch from “Saturday Night Live,”
where Hartman runs into the scenes of movies such as “Soylent White” and “Soylent
Cow Pies,” still screaming that they are made of “people.”
Consider tonight’s broadcast of the opening ceremonies from
the Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, as “Soylent Green II,” and cue up Phil
Hartman: “Soylent Green is still made out
of people. They didn't change the recipe like they said they were going to.
IT'S STILL PEOPLE.”
Sure, NBC will stream lots of live coverage online for
people who have cable or satellite packages and high-speed internet, and the
Peacock’s sports networks will show live events, which is something sports fans
overwhelmingly favored four years ago. But the focus of the network will still
be on the overly edited, schmaltz-added prime time show each night. It has not
changed that recipe.
It starts tonight with something that the rest of the world
has already seen on the television sets live: The opening ceremonies. By
delaying the telecast, there is no opportunity for viewers who like to tweet in
real time to do so. About 65 to 70 percent of the audience will have the
broadcast available at 8 Eastern/7 Central time, while another 25 percent will
see it at 8 Pacific. Those on Mountain and Alaska/Hawaii will see it on other
schedules. So forget sharing the experience with people who live elsewhere in
the U.S., much less the rest of the world.
Then, as the competition gets under way, there will still be
the issue of “spoilers.” And the people who don’t want to know the results of
events that took place 12 or 18 hours ago because they want to watch it on
NBC’s prime-time show.
Here’s a bulletin. It’s 2014. These are sports events. They
are news, despite the way it might be packaged on NBC each night. If you want
to/have to go out of your way to avoid the information, that’s on you. It might
be best to just turn off your computer for the next two weeks.
I will give NBC a lot of credit for going ahead and clearing
even the marquee events for live coverage on cable. Real sports fans will get
to enjoy the competition as it unfolds. But that sort of increases the pressure
on the folks who don’t want to know what happened until it appears on the prime
time broadcast. While I like to be as considerate of other people’s feelings as
I can, as a former sports editor I feel the other networks have zero
responsibility to delay the reporting of any results.
It is quite silly in 2014, in this plugged in world, to call
anything a spoiler. The number of folks who are now catching up with shows via
binge watching makes having conversations even more difficult, as this great
sketch from “Portlandia” notes.
Christina and I steer clear of Twitter on Thursday nights so
we can be surprised by each week’s episode of “Scandal.” If you want to take a
similar stand so the NBC prime time show provides those thrills from the 1980s,
go right ahead. But it will be awfully tough to remain unspoiled, and you
should not harbor ill will toward the sports fans who will invariably be
talking about the outcome of the competition.
It’s how sports fans talk to each other.
