> > > So, NBC has me held hostage and there is nothing I can do about it! GRRR! (This is in the U.S.)
> > >
> > > First of all, nothing is live, so I have to watch it when they decide they want to show it. Second, because it is not live, they can drag it out as much as they want. So, when they say, "Coming up, see Super Stud go for the world record in Shuffleboard," they mean, "After this commercial, we are going to prep you for the shuffleboard competition by telling you how Super Stud was decapitated as a child by dental floss and how he overcame this setback to get where he is now despite having a club foot and a goiter, too. Then, we'll drag it out even more with some more commercials and high tech wizardry." OK, great, tell me the stories about the athletes, that is fine, but don't interrupt every event with it. Show me the story, then show me the event! If I wanted soap operas, I'll watch General Hospital. Basically, I want to see the olympics, so show me. Instead, when I want to see something, I either have to sit around for hours waiting for it to FINALLY come on or I can tape it and watch it later. How ironic and stupid is that?
> > >
> > > Hopefully it is better when I get home and and I'll have MSNBC and CNBC to watch, but I doubt it.
> > >
> > > Fer"My 2 cents"rick
> >
> > They tell me that, in the trade, those big lies that begin with "Coming up..." are called teasers.
> > The object is to keep your thumb off the clicker.
> > Howard
>
> American Coverage is always terrible. When my family was overseas during the winter olympics in Lillihammer we watched the Italian coverage, my parnets could translate enough to know what was going on. The Italians didn't do the stupid life history of the Athelites stuff. The best diffrence was between the American coverage and the Italian coverage was the diffrence between the coverage of the figure skating. The American coverage will show you someone falling on there face from five diffrent angles while saying what a stupid mistake that was. The Itallians will show it once while saying, "Oh, poverina (poor little one)."
>
> During the last Olympics we lived in the Adirondacks, were we got Canadian stations, and they were less obnoxious than the American stations.
>
> Speed'llabdeepS'ball


Huh. Last Olympics I in almost on the US-Canada border, and we got mostly Canadian stations. The coverage was awful: they only showed swimming events. Some administrator at that station must have loved swimming.

Anyway, one thing that I've found works very well is to just record the whole five-hour block where NBC shows the Olympics. I may see it two days late, but I can skip over the commercials, commentary, and life stories. This cuts it down at least in half.

gab"I like gymnastics and track much better than swimming"by