NBC Goes to Tape for Winter Games

Only months after enduring a storm of criticism for tape delaying its broadcast of the Summer Olympics from Sydney, Australia, NBC and its affiliates announced Monday that the 2002 Winter Games in Salt Lake City will be shown on tape delay on the West Coast.

The rest of the nation will see the Salt Lake Games next February on live TV, typically airing from 8-11:30 p.m. on the East Coast, which would be from 5-8:30 p.m. in the West. Instead, NBC will broadcast the Games on delay on the West Coast from 7:30-11 p.m. most nights.

Mindful of the reaction--and the diminished ratings--that the tape delay from Australia produced, network executives in New York fought for months with the affiliates to show the Salt Lake Games live across the nation.

Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Sports, said in a statement issued Monday that showing the Salt Lake Games on delay in the West is a “mistake.” In an interview, he said he was “deeply disappointed,” adding, “A domestic Olympics in prime time just cries out to be seen across the United States at the same time.”

But the network’s 187 independently owned affiliates, and most important a majority of the 23 in the Pacific time zone, argued that viewers would not be best served by showing the Games beginning at 5 in the afternoon. The network airs in more than 200 cities overall, figuring in the various network-owned and -operated stations, among them KNBC in Los Angeles and KNSD in San Diego.

“We’re actually thrilled about it,” said Erin Dittman, KNBC’s director of communications. “Our audience will be able to see the Winter Olympics in prime time.”

The decision shows that a philosophical watershed of sorts apparently has been crossed in sports television, at least when it comes to the Olympics. The Super Bowl is shown live across the United States. So is the World Series. So is the NBA Finals.

But the Sydney Games proved, at least to some powerful decision-makers in local TV markets, that the Olympics could be aired on tape delay without too many howls of protest from viewers.

Critics and purists might protest--and did so at length last September. Ratings might sag--as they did last year, when NBC’s coverage from Sydney resulted in the lowest marks for any Olympics, Summer or Winter, since 1968.

The average Nielsen rating for the 17 nights of telecasts from Sydney was 13.8--meaning 13.8% of U.S. homes tuned in to the Games. That rating was 36% lower than the 1996 Atlanta Games, which NBC also televised.

But, said a senior executive, asking to remain unnamed, at one NBC West Coast affiliate, “If viewers didn’t accept it,” meaning an Olympics on tape delay, “we wouldn’t be doing it. That’s the ultimate test.”

The move to tape in the West follows months of protracted negotiations and discussions between network executives in New York and what’s called the NBC “affiliate board,” a panel representing the interests of local broadcasting executives.

Chaired by Jack Sander, an executive with Dallas-based Belo Corp., the board a few weeks ago told the network that more than 80% of the West Coast stations wanted the Games aired in prime time, when more viewers are available.

That prompted a viewer poll of 1,000 adults in California, Nevada, Oregon and Washington.

Exactly half those polled said that they wanted to see the Games on live TV, Sander said.

But of that 50%, he said, 88% then said that--because of work or commutes or the kids’ school schedules--they would not be able to see the Games live at 5 p.m. and would rather see it in prime time than catch just a few minutes of newscast highlights. The poll’s margin of error could not be obtained Monday.

“My attitude on this was, it was viewer-driven,” Sander said.

“If it had been left up to his own devices, Dick [Ebersol] would have kept it live,” he added. “I’m not a headline writer but to me this is, ‘Viewers Win.’ Because this way they get to see the Olympics.”

From Sydney, the delay was profound because--given the 18-hour time difference from Sydney to Los Angeles, 15 hours to New York--many U.S. viewers knew results long before they aired on NBC. That significantly depressed ratings.

The affiliates are betting that the delay and the time difference from Salt Lake will not prove as critical. Salt Lake is one hour later than Los Angeles.

Executives at the affiliates admit that there are financial incentives to the move. February is a sweeps month, a period when ratings determine future advertising rates, and with the exception of Sydney the Olympics traditionally have produced big ratings.

Moreover, by airing the Games from 7:30 to 11 p.m., the affiliates hope they will deliver viewers for their local news shows, the broadcast from which local stations draw a disproportionate percentage of their profits.

“Do the economics work better for the local TV stations in this regard? Yes, they do,” Sander said.

NBC could reverse course and order that the Games be shown live across the United States. But to do so would be to play the bully and to invite the wrath of the affiliates, which--in a little-known piece of the complicated financial puzzle that is the Olympics--pay a portion of the $3.5 billion NBC agreed to pay in 1995 for the rights to the Games from 2000 through 2008.

Sander conceded that the move to tape delay probably will invite a new round of bashing from those who believe they should see sports on TV as the action and drama transpires--live.

He said, “If criticism is going to be laid on anybody, it should be laid on the affiliates, not on Dick or on NBC.”

And he said, “This is a very complicated issue. What’s the right thing to do? If the right thing to do is the right thing to do, then you have to suck it up and take it.”