NBC clings to prime-time Olympic recipe

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.