Greetings TV Garth readers! As you are all probably aware, the 2010 Vancouver Olympics are well under way. Both CTV and NBC are offering plenty of coverage, and I’ll report some of my highlights in true TV Garth fashion!
Check out the awesome CTV display for the Olympics, shown below, which I saw in Downtown Toronto.
Buffalo’s WGRZ had a wonderful unique station ID tied to the games!
CFTO featured the standard CTV logo in the shot below.
NBC’s standard issue logo for the games appeared on Erie, PA’s WICU last Summer – but with a unique station ID layered over the bottom of the screen.
Now it’s time for the main event! What TV Garth has learned from the 2010 Winter Olympics (so far):
- K.D. Lang managed to give a soaring rendition of a song that’s…er…sore from being overused in practically every TV show in recent history. (It was even used in American Idol this past week!) Lang somehow made Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah seem fresh and powerful again.
- Opera Divas with gigantic hair make any event more exciting!
- Wayne Gretzky’s torch relay would have been more exciting if his car stopped, Debarge’s The Rhythm Of The Night started blaring out, and the crowd surrounding Gretzky erupted into spontaneous choreography. The camera would pan across the grooving dance mob (including the woman at far left with big hair) and then someone could pop open an ice cold Coke, lift it enthusiastically and then you’d even have the sponsor’s product integrated!
- It’s neat to see former Olympic champions Jamie Salé and David Pelletier pop up as guests on the Figure Skating Review seen on WGRZ’s subchannel 2-2 NBC Universal Sports.
- Shaun White went from someone I vaguely knew of, to someone who is pretty darn awesome when I saw his snowboarding run earlier this week! To paraphrase Shania Twain, That Does Impress Me Much! (Photo below from a WICU Olympics promo seen last Summer.)
- If Drag Racing were an Olympic event, I….er…I mean Anne Tenna would be there!
Stay tuned to TV Garth for more TV related fun!
I cannot judge the coverage of the Olympics via CTV since E skip season is over and the NBC-Universal cartel has utter control over the games content down in the States.
ReplyDeleteMost American viewers that care about the sporting aspects of the Olympics are royally outraged over NBC's 'coverage'. Last nights (February 21) broadcast of the USA-Canada men's hockey game was Exhibit A. While y'all got to see it live over the air, NBC relegated it to cable channel MSNBC which meant DirecTV and Comcast subscribers had to settle for the SDTV version of MSNBC.
Most of my Olympic viewing has been via USA, MSNBC, CNBC and not the flagship NBC which is more concerned about silly features than the actual live events.
ABC-ESPN ( I have issues with them, but that's another thread), CBS, or FOX cannot get Olympic rights fast enough.
Yeah, I've noticed that the NBC coverage has been a real sore spot this year especially with all the tape delays. (A relative of mine lives in California, and she was shocked that NBC was tape delayed even though she *lives* on the West Coast!) The shuffling of events to cable stations doesn't help either.
ReplyDeleteWhat I have enjoyed from NBC though is their "review" programs that have athletes commenting on performances. (I'm seeing that via WGRZ's NBC Universal Sports subchannel, which I don't think is avaiable in too many areas of the US yet.)
So far CTV has done a decent job. The mini-controversy here has only been that it's one of the first Olympics to be shown by CTV instead of CBC. Some people prefer CBC's more "traditional" coverage compared to CTV's amped up hype machine. (It's also odd to see them do national news from the Olympic vilage with crowds cheering away at anything - even tragic news events!) But they're still covering the major events when they happen, which is a plus!
CTV-Globemedia has a similar monopoly to NBC-Universal, in that they own many cable stations and shuffle some of their coverage onto them. But not nearly as much as NBC has been doing.
BTW, great post on your blog about the NBC blunders with their Olympic coverage!
Hello, nice post.
ReplyDelete