NBC Swindles Olympic Viewers

272

August 9, 2008

Published in Bild
(Germany) on August 9, 2008
by (link to original link to original)

Translated from by Ron Argentati. Edited by .

Television audience defrauded! American sports fans waited in vain yesterday morning for live coverage from Peking.

The television network NBC carried the Olympic games opening ceremonies in a canned delayed broadcast. The goal: higher viewer numbers.

NBC shelled out 588 million Euros (894 million dollars) for the exclusive U.S. rights to broadcast the Olympics. They never missed a chance to talk up the opening ceremonies, even on their breakfast TV programs.

Their competition, on the other hand, switched to their reporters in Peking, but naturally couldn’t show any live pictures. Instead, the reporters were asked to give the audience their impressions of the spectacle in narrative form.

In the meantime, video clips of the opening ceremony showed up on the Internet portal YouTube, but were quickly removed, apparently after NBC intervened.

Americans were hopping mad and vented their anger via various online forums.

A few cable customers were able to watch the live broadcast if they received the Canadian CBC network.

TV-Sender NBC verschaukelt Fernseh-Zuschauer

Betrug am TV-Kunden! US-amerikanische Olympia-Fans haben gestern Morgen vergeblich auf eine Live-Übertragung aus Peking gewartet.

Der Fernsehsender NBC übertrug die Eröffnungsfeier der Olympischen Spiele nur zeitversetzt als „Konserve“.

Das Ziel: höhere Einschaltquoten.

NBC hatte sich dafür die Exklusiv-TV-Rechte für den amerikanischen Markt 588 Millionen Euro (894 Millionen Dollar) kosten lassen. Selbst im US-Frühstücksfernsehen der NBC-Programme wurde kein Wort über die Zeremonie verloren.

Die Konkurrenzsender hingegen schalteten live zu ihren Reportern nach Peking. Sie konnten aber natürlich keine Bewegt-Bilder zeigen. Stattdessen wurden die Journalisten befragt, die ihren Zuschauern zumindest mit ihren Beschreibungen einen Eindruck des Spektakels gaben.

Auf dem Internet-Portal YouTube waren zwischenzeitlich zwar Clips der Eröffnung zu sehen, sie wurden aber wieder aus dem Netz genommen - offenbar auf Intervention von NBC.

Die Amerikaner waren stinksauer. In Internetforen machten sie ihrem Ärger Luft.

Immerhin gelang es einigen per Kabelempfang die Live-Übertragung der Eröffnungsfeier beim kanadischen Sender CBC zu sehen.

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