Who said boycotting them?

I'm speaking in much grayer terms, like level of interest, general goodwill toward the program in the future (and maybe extends subtly to the effectiveness of other network promos) and the like.

There was simply no reason for the US network to show Germany & Japan over whateverthehellelse they showed, that's what I was getting at.

I don't doubt there is some minimal effect, and particuarly for much older viewers, as you state. No questioning its existence. I would question, though, it's actual significance, and in particular how much it is weighed by NBC execs when they determine what to show or not. I doubt greatly that WWII comes up whatsoever when scheduling decisions are made at NBS.

I didn't see anyone questioning why ratings have improved, and I don't think anyone would disagree with your last. It pretty much falls straight in line with what I said about the ethnocentrism of the American audience.

Americans don't care to watch any other countries in competitions--not just Japan and Germany. They wouldn't care for a competition between the Brits and Aussies either.

Well, with most sports, we got all the US athletes and then the three medal winners and maybe a human interest story or two. I'm kindof surprised we didn't get this here since it was a decent story and part of it even included us (tho in a losing effort).

SI

I would agree that the quality of the competition does not outweigh that ethnocentrism NBC execs would be well aware of, so no matter what take you have on the effect of WWII on the ratings of these games, it's clear that competition wouldn't be shown or highlighted here because of the lack of Americans.

Watched the hockey game at my brothers house... what a game! I'm not sure when coaches are ever going to learn that sitting on a lead just doesn't work very well in either the post-lockout NHL or an international competition. I couldn't believe it when Babcock had all 5 guys playing back behind the redline for the entire last 10 minutes. Especially when you have voracious forecheckers like Toews and Richards at hand... those guys need to be let loose to wreak havok on the opposition as they try to break out of their end, not have them sitting at the redline waiting.

Anyways, overall probably the best finish I could have imagined, I'm happy Sid got the goal, he is absolutely amazing and takes way more crap than he deserves.

As for the closing ceremonies... ugh. Just ugh.

Sorry JIMG but I find it absolutely ludicrous that someone would consciously or unconsciously not watch a game because of a war that ended 65 years ago. My Dad was born in 1930 and is Jewish and I have never in my life seen him bare any ill will against any Axis countries.

Lathum - you forget that Jon lives in a part of the country where they bear ill will for a war that ended....145 years ago

It's Jon. Enough said.

I understand, but I have always enjoyed having some dialogue with Jon instead of saying it's just Jon being Jon.

Fid, I hear ya about the "sitting on a lead"...it isn't just hockey, though...name any sport and I think you see the same mentality...the trying to win turning into trying not to lose. I'm not sure why what worked for the first 50 minutes wouldn't continue to work for the final 10??

Just checking this out...looks pretty fun. Registered as johnnyshaka.

I know it's not just hockey, and I agree that its a bad call in most sports. I sort of figured Babcock to be smarter than that, especially when you consider that in an Olympic setting you're giving world-class talent 10 minutes to find a crack in your armour. Especially when you have the better team... it's not like Canada fluked into that lead. Just keep hammering at them and odds are you will be as successful in that last 10 as you were in the first 50. But nope, lets just sit back and give them a half-court offense for 10 minutes.

Dola

That said, in OT he let them play again and it showed.

WTF geez are u kidding?

On the other hand, my mom was born in 1955, is Jewish, is from the North, and though she likes all the VW convertibles she sees around, she's still not sure if she feels right buying one -- and didn't feel comfortable with the fact that I took German in college in the late 90's.

Who got the torch to take to "Russia"?

I hope the NHL goes to Sochi. I know Sochi is 8 hrs ahead of the eastern time zone.

Outside of the U.S. and Canada playing, do the times really matter to us? The playing of the U.S. games at 3 in the afternoon wasn't exactly great timing either (outside of the two Sunday games).


Sure, it would suck that they would play early in the morning, but wouldn't that give the NHL the chance to expose its players and game to Europe (and its teams).

http://www.cleveland.com/olympics/in..._head_wan.html

The NHL is absolutely insane if they don't send NHL players, the buzz this game generated was priceless. I was in a bar, in Seattle where people don't give a shit about sports, on a day when it was 55 and sunny and the place was completely mobbed.

JIMGA- we're definitely going to need the numbers for the Gold Medal hockey game when you get them

SI

And in the age group I'm talking about (or was primarily thinking about), it's almost unusual to hear the Japanese referred to without being prefaced by "those damned ..."

It's possible that's entirely about us losing the automobile war but I don't believe that's the case.

They'll be out somewhere between, oh I dunno, 10am and 1pm most likely. I'll see Atlanta's overnights a lot earlier but fast nationals usually aren't ready until sometime mid morning or so afaik.

Tomorrow might be a little hectic around here so I'll mention TV Ratings, TV Nielsen Ratings, Television Show Ratings | TVbytheNumbers.com as the easiest place to get 'em when they do come out.

You damned unrepentant Rebel you.

(You're probably just saying that to make me feel better since I obviously just randomly make all this stuff up)

The ratings are expected to be shitty enough for the next one that the odds of getting that sort of buzz are fairly low.

FWIW, I know many people in that age group, including my parents, and I don't think I have ever heard that term spoken by anyone that way except maybe on TV.

Yeah, I know I'm still pissed at Japan. The way they built their cities back up after getting two atomic bombs dropped on them, which resulted in them surrendering....The nerve of them to speedskate, especially. Yeah, I know these speedskaters weren't even born until 3 decades after the war ended. I don't want them taintin' mah teevee with their octopus ink!!

sorry Lathum, but i actually have to agree with Jon on this one...there are plenty of people that will never let go of the nationalism that possesses a country during a war, especially one in which so many people fought and were killed, and that lasted for 4 brutal years (for the US).

i actually dont know the answer to this, but in reference to your father, did he have any connection to what was happening in Europe in the 30s-40s? I ask that because I remeber Eric (my roommate from college) and his grandparents who both died still hating anything that had to do with the germany or japan (he drove a mitsubishi)...they also had tatoos on their forearms, so it was pretty impossible for them to forget.

Speaking of ratings, I have to admit that I didn't realize some of the stuff mentioned in this article

Basically that NBC needed a big day yesterday in order to reach their goal of 200 million unique viewers total.

More notable is something that was brought up in the comments section, that yesterday had to be at least average in order to avoid having NBC miss their (reportedly) guaranteed rating to advertisers. Failing do to that means they have to run makegoods (i.e. free spots) and that's always a disappointment.

It doesn't make it any less retarded. Sorry. I respect the veterans of any war. I realize they saw and did things that I will never see or do, and I can't give them anything but respect for that. If you're still holding a grudge 50 years later against a bunch of athletes that had absolutely nothing to do with the military battles of the past, then you're stupid. Come on, man. I hope I'm not this way when I'm 75 years old... "Fuck that Afghani ski jumping team...after the shit they put us through in 2008. They can all die for all I care. I'm an American. Who cares if we've maintained peace with them for 40 years, and none of these athletes were even a drip from their fathers' nutsacks. I'm not watching!"

I've seen it but it's typically with people who have fought in the war. Grandpa fought in WW2 and no matter what happened in the world, he hated the Japanese. Didn't speak to his neighbor who was Japanese and would stear clear of all products made there.

Obviously his view is different as he actually fought in the war against them. He proudly displayed a rifle he pulled off a dead Japanese soldier in his office. While he may have been labeled as crazy or racist, I can understand that point of view considering life experience.

Not a surprise. I think they did a horseshit job with the games.

I was surprised by it after getting off to a relatively strong ratings start. I think some viewer fatigue may have set in with the sheer volume of coverage (most hours ever).

I think some of the issues go beyond coverage. I think that embargo on video for other networks really hurts. ESPN treated it as a secondary event and many others didn't mention it till after their local sports team results. I just think there are too many options for a network to try and censor/hide it's coverage.

ESPN is likely to treat it as a secondary anyway, until they end up with the Olympics. As for the video, when you're paying that much for something then it really doesn't make sense to give it away.

The NFL does and it seems to be working well for them. Publicity about an event where the general public knows little about the athletes would seem to be a good thing to me.

It's a new age of media and they are treating it like it's the 80's. And for that, no one is giving a shit about it.

I haven't read much of this thread, but I don't think anyone tried to argue that it wasn't retarded. But damn....if they have the fucking tattoos, I'm not going to give them shit for not wanting to watch the Olympics.

As a fan I really hope you are right because this was a great tournament to watch. I love hockey and I would probably watch it even if there weren't pros in it, but it was great tournament to watch.

A few things to watch for in my opinion, that will tell the tale on if the NHL goes back:

1) I've said this before, I think part of the reason Bettman won't commit is because he wants to get the KHL to sign a transfer agreement. If that happens it will be a step towards the NHL players in 2014.

2) The IOC and IIHF want the NHL players but the owners want something in return. It isn't solely Bettman's decision. The owners are lending their best players out for 2 weeks, while getting nothing but the risk of injury back in return. Maybe they get some sort of sponsorship agreement or money, and they would feel less worried about sending their guys over.

3) If there is a "ratings bump" in the next few weeks because of it, it would help the players' case to go back. In 2002, I heard there was little or no bump and we had the same teams in the Gold Medal game.

4) Finally I have heard talks about the Canada Cup restarting. Before the pros were allowed in the Olympics, this was the tournament they played in. If this restarts, it isn't a good sign for the NHL to go to Russia in 2014.

seriously

No question. NBC coverage is gawd awful. It's the MTV school of broadcasting. Little clips. LIttle movies. Constant talking and overtalking and analysis and let's go over here to this guy to talk about what we've just seen, now let's go over here and talk to this woman about what we're going to see, and let's see this movie about the life and upbringing of this american athlete, now let's break for 4 minutes of commercials and now we're back, let's show interviews with athletes that might have made the olympics but didn't because they got injured. It's all total and utter rubbish. American TV is so watered down fake emotion and forced patriotism it makes me vomit. Here's a concept. JUST SHOW THE SPORTS.

Last Olympics I had the pleasure of watching the whole thing on CBC, a Canadian channel that I luckily get. They showed whole events, back to back, and showed the full events. Their commentary was wonderful. They talked about the athletes there and then while the sports were going on not ONLY about Canadians but whoever were favorites and wellknowns no matter the country. Even if there were no Canadians they showed the events and talked about them. What a concept. Pity CBC didn't have a contract or whatever for these games.

As great as the hockey was during the tournament and despite the amount of "exposure" the gold medal game and other games brought the sport, it simply will not translate into anything for the NHL. Well, there might be, like, seven additional people who may go out of their way to watch an NHL game that otherwise wouldn't.

It's a great sport. I think it's the best out there, but I know where it ranks in the US (very low) and am perfectly fine with that. It would be great if it were more popular, but it's not and I don't think anything is really going to change that.

Apparently, initial reports are that the US-Canada gold medal game had a 17.6 overnight Nielsen rating. I think that's good, but I don't know what else it means or how it compares to other things (nor do I care really).

That is really good considering Hockey is a fringe sport somewhere after soccer and tennis in this country at least as far as TV goes.

Well ever since the "miracle win" or whatever in 1980 with USA beating Russia, US playing Olympic hockey is the hype to watch. The announcers even mentioned that game a couple times too.

If that holds up then they should manage to clear the guarantee with it, which is very good for NBC. I would guess the viewers-per-household number will be a little on the low side based on the below par numbers in the older female demos in the Atlanta overnights in spite of comparable HH ratings, but even with that they ought to get what they needed.

That's probably not going to happen in 4 years in a rematch, since the live game would begin at 7:15 am eastern, 4:15 am in Seattle.

I think it was a mixed bag. I think they've improved significantly the last couple of Olympics in one regard. They have their human interest stories but I feel like there have been less. Not every event has to get a humanizing face and if it does, it's a few minutes long at most. I remember the 90s games where it seemed like every couple of minutes, we'd be getting some fluff. I also realize it's a necessary evil where they think they have to do that to draw in some of the female viewers to keep them from changing channels when figure skating isn't on.

Also, there's a greater difficulty now. Look at the medal counts from Calgary vs today. There are twice as many events. So it's hard to get coverage for all of them, even with a record number of hours. We got almost every gold medal moment whether the US won or was in contention or if we were out of it (women's pursuit being the glaring omission in my mind).

I guess that's where the criticism begins. It's horribly US-centric coverage for ratings reasons. If you are seeing 6 skiiers, 3 are the Americans and 3 are the medal winners. If you only see 5, you know the Americans got a medal. God forbid the Americans sweep the podium as you might only get to see 3 atheletes, which is a shame because it would make their accomplishment seem less significant ("hell, they were only racing each other and everyone else in the world sucks at this"). Maybe you get a weird exception like the 38yo Japanese guy who gets mentioned for breaking an Olympic record of 6 Olympics in ski jump.

Also, I'm not sure how the daily coverage went. Last winter Olympics, I was unemployed and was able to catch a lot of the daytime stuff. So, this time around, I noticed a lot of the skiing events (downhill, etc) were during the day so we'd get the aforementioned chopped up bits at night. If you watched during the noon-5 spots, did you get the full downhill live? Or at least a decent portion of it?

Finally, I'm just not sure what to do about the west coast. I think I would have shown events live until 6 then local news like everywhere else. Then I'd have a special west coast replay that was a lot like everywhere else- but instead of it being half live and half recorded, it would pretty much all be recorded since most of the events would have happened already. But for some of the later evening events like short track or figure skating, they would have led off with the live coverage and then eased viewers into the recorded stuff later. But maybe that takes a huge rating hit, too, because they don't "crescendo into the featured events", making you want to hang on an watch all night.

Well, they had everything line up this time with a host in this hemisphere and only the West coast got horribly jobbed. I feel that the events were pretty much scheduled at NBC's whim to maximize ratings.

Can't wait until Sochi, just like Beijing, where there are no easy answers and everything will be cut up because it's just hard to logistically make something on the other side of the world work with our tv viewing schedule. Then people will remember fondly the halcyon days of the Vancouver Olympics and forget how badly they bitched about it (as they probably bitch about them every 2 years as never being good enough).

SI

sharing this with my fellow Canadians:



Anybody saw the post-game version they played after both the women's and men's gold wins? It then said "NOW THEY KNOW...". I still get goosebumps watching it... :)

FM

dola, come to think of it, was this ad even playing in the US or was it only shown on the canadian broadcast?

Can't really imagine it getting a big applaud on NBC. :)

FM

This is because they have virtually no TV contract and that is all on Bettman. I grew up a huge hockey fan, but moved to Cincinnati then Seattle, no hockey in either markets. It is literally impossible for me to watch a game more than once a week.

Oh I agree 100% about that. As much as I have a dislike for ESPN, the league needs to find a way back onto that Station.

Then you are in the minority. I think there may be some anti-German sentiment but to say a large number of people aren't going to watch an Olympic speedskating event because of it is IMO absurd.

An IIRC JIMG isn't talking about the veterans, who would be in their late 80's, but the kids of those veterans who inherited this sentiment because of their fathers. Sorry, I just think that is a huge stretch.

And my dad had some connections but nothing to dramatic and he doesn't talk about it.

I saw it on the canadian broadcast, thought it was a great commercial. Anyone ever find out what the music in the background is?