Mid-Week Poll: Are You Watching the Summer Olympics?

For a blog that allegedly covers broadcast HDTV in the list of major topics, you may have found it strange that we haven’t said a word about perhaps the most significant TV event of the summer – the Olympics. Or maybe you haven’t found that strange. I’ll be honest; our silence on the subject is probably due mainly to my own disinterest in sporting events of any sort. However, I must acknowledge that sports (and particularly the Olympics) are a major part of many people’s lives. Have you been watching this year? If so, which events do you follow? Vote in our poll.

I have not watched one minute of the Olympics, aside from a recap of that silly James Bond/Queen Elizabeth intro to the opening ceremony that I caught on ‘The Today Show’. That’s it for me. Mrs. Z, on the other hand, likes the swimming and gymnastics competitions.

Which Summer Olympic Events Do You Watch?

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21 comments

  1. Jason

    My wife has been loving the Olympics on our new 110″ screen. They “women” gymnasts almost look life-size.

  2. Shayne Blakeley

    I have absolutely no interest in sports whatsoever, but I get obsessed with the Olympics (Summer and Winter) and leave them on at work and home all day for the duration. I’m not really sure why. I tend to prefer the straight athletic based competitions (gymnastics, swimming etc.) over the games (basketball, hockey and what not.)

  3. William Henley

    I don’t think Rythmic Gymnastics or Trampoline have started, but I guess those fall under “Other”.

    Pretty much, the TV has been locked on the Olympics – sometimes I will flip between channels. It doesn’t even matter if its not the USA. At work, we have several screens here in the command center. One has to always be on a news network. Doesn’t matter which one, it just has to be a news network. Well, MSNBC, CNBC, and to an extent, NBC, are all news networks. And there really isn’t much news other than the Olympics right now, and the local news team breaks during commercial breaks and gives updates on the news.

    So the answer I guess has been that I watch as much as I can.

    I am disappointed that neither Dish or DirectTV are carrying the Olympics 3D channel. I was able to see the Opening Ceremonies somewhere in 3D, which was amazing, but I REALLY want to see gymnastics in 3D. If you get it in 3D and have a way to capture it, please feel free to message me offline. Or hey, NBC, sell 3D BluRays of select events. I just want to SEE it!

  4. I’m watching whatever NBC throws at me in the evenings. On the off-chance I’m not working (weekends, mornings, etc.), I’ll bounce around the various stations. I actually think coverage is VERY good this year (that’s not always been the case).

  5. As a terrible American, I can’t wait until football season. I am looking forward to the eventual Men’s basketball game between Spain and the US.

  6. I’m surprised that USA, that will take gold in so many events, apparently will only get to see a few of those events live, or even on TV at all. Please tell me that there are at least a couple of subscription channels that offer most of the Olympics live.

    In Norway (in comparison, we only expect to take 5-6 medals), the biggest broadcaster is showing the Olympics 24h/day on two of their three channels, and they offer 7 additional channels for streaming on the web.

    • There are a ton of ways to watch it live here in the states.

      The stuff on in the morning and early afternoon is usually live on a few of the cable channels.

      Then there is nbcolympics.com where you can watch any event right when it’s happening. I’ve been using that a lot.

      • Good to hear 🙂

        I’ve been reading so much criticism of NBCs coverage and time-shifting, that I was beginning to think that it consisted of just one channel during prime time.

        • William Henley

          That is NBC proper – the Over The Air network. NBC also owns several cable channels, and they are all broadcasting live. You can also watch EVERY SINGLE EVENT, live, without commentary, just the raw camera feeds, live on NBC’s website. That is nice on stuff like Gymnastics, if you just want to watch like Floor Exercises, and not have it cut away to beam and vault and bars. Between NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, Telemundo, then the all soccer and all basketball stations, plus NBC Sports, I have no lack of Olympic coverage. In fact, my problem is wishing I could watch it all, and sometimes will flip back and forth between two or three different channels.

          Now, for NBC proper, they do tend to favor only the major events, and even then, focus mainly on the US athletes (I was like, I didn’t even know half the countries in Europe had gymnastics teams until this year). But yeah, there is no lack of coverage, and anyone who says so just doesn’t know where to look.

  7. Ted S.

    The only sport I care about is football, college and pro. So no I don’t watch the Olympics.

  8. Kelly

    I work master control at an NBC affiliate TV station in Indiana, so I see it for most of my 8 hour shift daily. I do try to pay attention when swimming and diving are on, but most of the time I’m doing other work. We also record the primetime coverage at home so my wife can watch it. She’s a swimming fanatic.

      • EM

        It sounds like an awesome supervillain that even Doctor Doom would not dare challenge without extensive preparation.

        • Kelly

          The news department side of things can be especially grim quite frequently. There’s a certain bloodlust that I’ve never been comfortable with.

      • Kelly

        Yeah, it certainly isn’t glamorous, but everything that goes over the air comes through MC. Of course, it’s mostly automated these days, but it does require the human touch. I’d say about 80% of the time.