Ruining the Olympics

I'd like to add my voice to those upset with NBC's infuriating coverage of the Vancouver Winter Olympics. While much of the rest of the world gets to actually watch the competitions as sports, we're subjected to a distilled, usually time-delayed, and fluff-filled "entertainment product" that amounts to little more than highlights. Even viewers in Seattle, right next door to Vancouver, have confronted tape delays of nearly every major event.

I was in Canada for much of the last summer Olympics, and was able to enjoy real coverage on CBC. Sadly, this time around I'm home, and in this country, even those whose cable package includes CBC have no way to access coverage this time around, since the private CTV network won the Canadian rights.

So what's NBC saying? Nothing so far.

I'm boycotting the games in protest, however futile. If I wasn't already boycotting Twitter, I might even send a protest message to their management. Instead I'm just going to hope that by 2012 the Internet will allow us to see other countries' superior coverage more easily. Or that some other, more responsible network wins the right to broadcast the games.