Fuck NBC
The incessant nattering of Mac and Mary Carillo, the Vaseline-on-the-lens he-lost-his-brother-in-a-terrible-farming-accident tear-jerker pieces, the special Dave Matthews-composed Wimbledon music complete with black dude playing saxophone on abandoned grass court, the mere fucking presence of that self-satisfied twerp Jimmy Roberts… as if all of this isn’t enough to make you want to shove a turkey up the peacock’s ass, THEY WON’T EVEN SHOW YOU THE MATCHES LIVE. What the fuck else are they good for if not for that?10:41 – I’m watching Federer/Ancic on NBC – 3-2 in the first set. And yet… AND YET… this set is already over. They’re showing me the first set on tape… and meanwhile THE SECOND SET IS BEING PLAYED LIVE! What the fucking fuck? Why can’t we watch the actual match instead of watching it an hour behind real time? Why wasn’t the actual match on from the start?
I’ll tell you why. The Today Show. God forbid they cut an hour off the Today Show to show us this match in its entirety. And then, rather then pick up the match in progress, they have the audacity to show it from the start on an hour tape delay. Of course, they have not alerted the viewers to this fact. Watching NBC right now, you would never know that you were not watching live television.
My first awareness of this NBC sleight of hand was during Wimbledon in 2003, when I was watching a men’s quarter live on ESPN2 that was in the fifth set. ESPN2’s coverage window ended and so I flipped to NBC to find that, rather than picking up the men's match, they were showing a Serena Williams semi on tape. They were acting as if it was a live match, actually showing scenes of Serena walking into the locker room and saying, “here was the scene just moments ago…” when in fact the entire match had been over for three hours and everyone who gave a shit knew that Serena had already won in a boring straight-set romp.
Shouldn’t this crap be illegal? Are they allowed to lie to us like this? It’s not that difficult is it? Just show the fucking matches live as much as possible. And fire Jimmy Roberts. You’d still suck, NBC, but it would be a step in the right direction.
2 Comments:
my guess is that nbc, when faced with offending either its sports fans or its legions of al roker-handshakers, decides to pick the former. i'm sure there's a blog somewhere else that decries every dent to regular nbc programming. the stepford wives don't like their daily algorithms fucked with, man.
It's true, Drew. I've worked for NBC Olympics, so I know where the Today Show sits in the Parnassian economy (Today Show, Jesus, Everything Else). What really drives me crazy, to refer to Brick's complaint to Big Daddy, is the MENDACITY. Do you feel me? It's one thing to show a match on tape delay when it's actually being played live. It's another to be so brazenly deceitful about it.
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