NBC broadcasts on West Coast still not live, market research to blame

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Despite what that graphic in the top right corner of NBC’s Olympics TV broadcasts might imply, the footage is not live — not for us on the West Coast and in the mountain time zone anyway. And you know who is to blame for that? You are! At least that’s what NBC Sports spokesman Brian Walker says.

NBC conducted extensive market research on Americans interested in watching the Olympics, and it found that ‘primetime’ — the sweet spot starting at 8 p.m. when the hottest sitcoms and reality TV shows are aired — is the ideal time slot for the international games, Walker said in an e-mail.

Walker says the Olympic audience is different than, say, that of the Super Bowl, a sporting event traditionally aired live in all U.S. time zones. ‘The audience makeup of the Olympics is very much like that of ‘American Idol’ and ‘Dancing With the Stars,’ which have ‘live’ season finales presented in much the same way,’ he said in an e-mail.

In fact, ratings for the Pacific and mountain time zones have actually been higher than those in Eastern and Central, Walker wrote. Perhaps the Olympics would have been even more success if they asked viewers to ‘text in’ their vote for who should be awarded the gold. Hey, it worked for ‘Idol.’

So, what about the text that reads ‘live,’ called a ‘live’ bug, which appears on the three-hour delayed broadcasts? ‘It is, as a practical matter, impossible to remove the live bug graphic for the West Coast feed which is why we have time-coded it to indicate Live ET/CT,’ Walker wrote in an e-mail. ‘Time-coding’ means NBC will occasionally — 10 times or fewer per night — state when the footage was shown live in the Eastern time zone.

CNN seems to have a much easier time zapping their graphical overlays, however. For footage they shoot, it’s actually quite easy to remove those types of bugs, a CNN spokesman said. In the rare instance that CNN will show video from an affiliate station with a ‘live’ bug burnt in, the station policy is to place a graphic next to the text reading, ‘Previously recorded.’

‘You’ve got to make sure the audience knows what’s happening,’ the CNN spokesman said. ‘It sounds superficial, but that’s what you do.’

The Federal Communications Commission’s official position is not to comment on specific allegations or incidents, a spokesman said. The FCC spokesman could not recall any prior situation in which viewers were misled by a ‘live’ bug and did not provide information on whether there had been any complaints filed. So, I guess that means if you’re upset about the issue, fire away.

-- Mark Milian