Last night's Olympic opening ceremony included a tribute to all victims of terror--specifically the victims of the bombings that took place in London on July 7, 2005--the day the Olympics were awarded to London. But if you watched it on NBC, you didn't get a chance to see it. Instead, you got treated to a Ryan Seacrest interview with Michael Phelps. Cordyc has a reclisted diary about it here.
Well, NBC gave an explanation a few hours ago--and it's so outrageous that it merits a diary of its own. Apparently the Peacock Network didn't see fit to let us see the tribute here in the States because it "wasn't tailored for the U.S. audience." No, I'm not kidding.
Actually, "coverage" might not be the best term to describe NBC's prime-time Olympic broadcast. NBC is trying to sell the Games that cost $1.18 billion in U.S. TV rights fees — and hundreds of millions more to promote and produce.
So when it came time in the opening ceremony for something that has been widely interpreted as a tribute to the 52 victims of terrorist attacks in London in 2005, it's not shocking NBC didn't see lingering on that as helping its overall marketing effort. When asked why NBC didn't show the memorial, NBC spokesman Greg Hughes on Saturday said only that "our programming is tailored for the U.S. audience. It's a tribute to (opening ceremony producer) Danny Boyle that it required so little editing."
I didn't think it was possible for NBC to disgrace itself more than it did by deciding not to show the tribute. But they did so in spades with this explanation. Can you imagine the BBC opting to cut out a tribute to 9-11 at a future Olympics held in the States because it wasn't "tailored for a UK audience"? If that happened, suffice to say the switchboards at BBC Broadcasting House would have blown a fuse.
I'd already given some thought to not watching the Olympics after NBC's epic fail last night. But this explanation clinches it.
6:13 PM PT: Since this made the rec list, I thought it would be a good idea to let everyone know you can tell NBC what you think on the network's Facebook page.
6:15 PM PT: KayCeSF mentions in the comments that you can email them as well at nbcolympicsfeedback@nbcuni.com.
Sun Jul 29, 2012 at 6:04 AM PT: Since this is still on the rec list, I thought I'd mention that the tribute's choreographer, Akram Khan, is none too pleased that NBC edited out his work.
