PLAUSIBLY FINISHED

It was fun while it lasted.

Anyone remember when the Olympics were a thing? When everybody within spitting distance of a TV tuned in every day for hours on end? It was only nine years ago when the London Olympics pulled in 217 million American viewers, making it the most watched broadcast in US history, probably because they thought everyone would speak English for a change.

Because people were even less interested in what
you aired in between.

NBC, which has been broadcasting the Olympics since 1988, has the contract tied up through 2032, which might have seemed like a smart move when people A) cared, and B) still had far fewer viewing choices. Those days appear to be over as much as Naomi Osaka's dreams of winning medals.

And would someone please explain to them
that it's 2021?

And while viewership has increased since the opening ceremonies (probably the least-watched since  they were held at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia, Greece), it appears that the only thing that will keep the games afloat financially for NBC is running more commercials.

Let me give an example. We were watching live coverage the woman's beach volleyball competition over the weekend. Not being "plausibly live" (what NBC insultingly called its taped Olympic broadcasts in 2018) gave it a little more excitement than it would have otherwise. The time-outs allowed only one brief commercial before the game resumed, which made things zip along nicely. 

But the sponsors must have also been promised a particular airtime, because, from out of nowhere, the image of the volleyball match shrunk to the left side of the screen.

On the right side, at roughly twice the size, was a series of commercials with the sound. I swore I would never buy any of those products. This was a useless threat, since I never buy anything I see advertised on TV anyway. But it felt good saying out loud.

How dare Norway's volleyball team ruin the
Olympic spirit by wearing shorts!

Women's volleyball, you likely know, is the sport where the participants have to wear bikini bottoms rather than shorts because... well, I'll let you take a wild guess. Yet Olympic officials want to prove they're down with the kids by including, for the first time, skateboarding, surfing, and sport-climbing. 

This is like the Academy Awards' desperate move of nominating comic book movies in a boneheaded belief that it will goose the ratings -- even as they continue to drop year by year. Let me explain it to both the IOC and NBC: The kids don't care about your awards shows.

Yes, that's what the Olympics are: A two-week awards show where drama takes precedent over accomplishments, featuring heart-tugging mini-documentaries with melodramatic scores and narration that ping-pongs from joyous to somber in the blink of a failed drug test. Even its new motto -- "Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together" -- sounds like something dreamed up by a committee in the belief that the kids will find it groovy.

Laugh it up, funny boy. See how long
the good times last.

You think people would have learned by now. In 1951, NBC signed Milton Berle to a lifetime contract , believing he would remain the biggest TV star of all time. What they didn't realize was that he had already peaked. By the end of the decade, the one-time "Mr. Television" was reduced to hosting Jackpot Bowling.

Berle's deal -- $200,000 per year, before dropping to $60,000 when he starred in a short-lived ABC series in 1966 -- was lunch money compared to the $7.75 billion NBC has splurged on the Olympics through 2032. 

By then, the audience will likely be even smaller, necessitating the IOC to create even more events to bring the eyeballs. Maybe jackpot bowling?

 

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