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Comment by sizzzzlerz | Hacker News Reader

You must be a youngster. NBC has been fucking up the Olympics broadcasts since they started back in 1988. They've always been overly USA-centric, they refuse to air the broadcasts when the events happen, insisting on time shifting everything, and loading so many commercials into the thing, it is impossible to watch. I pretty much quit watching 3 or 4 olympics ago. Today, as I tune through the channels, I always see they're in commercial when I go through the NBC channels.

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NBC's coverage is especially bad if you compare it to coverage from other countries. NBC mostly focuses on sports where the US will do well, so if you care about a sport in which the US doesn't have a strong foothold then you're out of luck. Last Olympics I thought maybe they could treat this as back catalogue content that you could watch online, but I could only find heavily edited highlights. And they not only fill the feed with tons of commercials, but they also add little features about certain athletes' journey to the Olympics or some other thing that take time away from watching something else.

It's bewildering that they make it so hard to watch the event, the coverage is bad, and then they bemoan the fact that viewership is at an all time low.

> It's bewildering that they make it so hard to watch the event, the coverage is bad, and then they bemoan the fact that viewership is at an all time low.

I assume it would expose true numbers to advertisers, and lower the price of NBC’s ad spots.

Yeah even watching gymnastics last night, they pretty much only show US competitors. At least with swimming they were forced to show other countries.

Even in events where they are forced, by the nature of the event, to show competitors from non-US countries, the announcers spend the entire event fawning all over the US competitors without pause or silence. While a non-US athlete is up there setting a new world record, NBC aims the camera at the US guy and says things like "It's a race for bronze, folks!"

yeah, I watched a swimming heat where the announcer was speaking as if it were even possible for the US swimmer to win and they got like 5th.

NBC Olympic coverage is not great, but it was even far worse in the past. You may remember from a few Olympics ago that coverage was loaded with “human interest” back stories and the broadcast would actually show very little sports. The other day to my complete surprise, I watched archery Netherlands vs South Korea. No American jingoism in sight. It was quite refreshing. The broadcast is still US-centric, but I am seeing a bit more diversity than in the past. Of course, if I had the choice, I would watch the Olympic broadcast from another country.

NBC has held the Olympics hostage in the USA. But the last time I made an effort, a few Olympics ago, I did try to watch the gold medal round of women's judo to see the American. I couldn't watch it because NBC was showing a qualifying round of women's handball: Poland vs Lithuania or some such. So much for USA-centric.

I guess you'll never please everyone.

With the internet, you can please everyone.

Search, pay, click, watch whatever you want.

That's not true at all. There's literally no way for many Americans to find live or recorded events for free or to pay. NBC has blocked it off.

I am saying it is technologically possible. In the US, I simply do not watch sports as it all requires buying a subscription to an archaic and obviated cable/satellite TV service.

Once I can go to the sports league’s website and and pay directly for what I want to watch, I will start watching.

Just discovered I can in theory use Youtube TV. The offer being submitted is to sign up for a year. So I stand corrected.

NBC has held Olympics hostage worldwide. The whole reason, Olympics are during hottest muggiest time of year in Tokyo (Jul/Aug) because NBC/Comcast didn’t want Olympics during Football season. Previously (1964), Olympics were held in October during more temperate weather in Tokyo.

Most countries broadcast focus on their own athletes. There is wall to wall coverage of Japanese athletes on Japanese TV too right now.

That’s very depressing info, thanks

All I want to enjoy the olympics is a schedule of events in my local time and the ability to watch said events LIVE if I choose to.

I tried searching for this when the olympics started and I gave up entirely.

Is there any ability to get this?

nbc's website has both of those, thats what i've been using anyway

It is not clear to me that even paying for the online streaming option gives you the ability to watch any Olympic event at any time. I assume NBC does not want to give away everything online without a subscription to a cable/satellite TV provider, hence the obfuscation.

https://www.peacocktv.com/sports/olympics

> Can I watch the entire Tokyo Olympics on Peacock, including Opening and Closing Ceremonies?

>Peacock will show Tokyo Olympics highlights, including must-see moments from the Opening and Closing Ceremonies on NBC, as well as original documentaries, series, and specials. To watch more extensive coverage, such as the full Opening Ceremony, please tune in to the live broadcast on NBC.

> Live coverage, highlights, and commentary will also be available on the NBC App, NBCSN, the NBC Sports App, NBC's Tokyo 2020 Olympics App for TV, Olympics Channel: Home of Team USA, NBCOlympics.com, CNBC, GOLF Channel, and on the USA Network.

> *Only available for select providers. Call your cable company to see if you have access.

Ah yeah it could be clearer I suppose, fwiw just using NBCOlympics.com and signing in with youtube tv (which I share with the rest of my fam.) is what I've been doing; I've heard of others using a ~$10/mo promo on sling and using that as a cable provider

all in all it's still better than trying to fight nba/mlb blackouts, where no matter who and what you pay you end up having to watch pirate streams (which also exist for tokyo2020)

>> Can I watch the entire Tokyo Olympics on Peacock, including Opening and Closing Ceremonies?

No. Between Peacock and the NBC "family" of channels (NBC, USA, NBCSN), I can see a fair amount. That included the opening ceremony live and repeated in prime time.

Peacock does not have everything. It also has a screwed up schedule. (For example, looking for the replay of the women's cycling road race, it says it was earlier today, 26 July, when it was actually yesterday.)

Even worse, when watching a "replay" of an event, it will switch to something else. (I was watching a replay of the Japan-USA women's water polo match and it switched over to softball, twice.)

Peacock did have good Tour de France coverage; so, they know how to do some things right. I don't know why they dropped the ball on the Olympics.

An Australian VPN and 7plus is the closest you'll get.

Advertising ruins everything.

You've misspelled it. It should be "runs".

Why can't we have both?

Both are true. In the sense that advertising guts out any communications medium it touches, and animates the carcass. It's like a zombie virus.

Yes, and I wish they'd leave and stop screwing up all the stuff I care about.

But they can’t even get a feed with ads to people. I should have been able to get the NBC “live” Olympics feeds on Peacock or one of the other NBC apps at the broadcast times. Nope. Not even with ads. No dice. Cord-cutters are SOL (if you don’t want to put up an antenna or don’t have local NBC reception).

This is how you handle the Olympics if you want the ratings to nosedive.

This is how Comcast wants it -- they're still a cable company, and even though they've started pushing online, they're still a cable company first and foremost. They don't want to sell you a $20 pass to the Olympics or even a $20/mo subscription to Peacock; they want to sell you a $150/mo triple play and $20/mo home security system add-on (that may or may not actually function), because the company seemingly still thinks it's 2006 and there's nothing better.

Can't you just get a peacock subscription for $5-10/mo?

Lol, advertising is the only reason the Olympics are even possible to exist

Then it should stop existing.

Don't you think that's a bit selfish... to suggest eliminating the opportunity for thousands of athletes to fulfill a lifelong dream, just because you personally don't approve of advertising?

Can we open source the Olympics?

No. The Olympics are a commercial operation owned by the IOC. NBC has sole US broadcasting rights until 2032.

What would this even mean?

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