I'm just back from Italy where I spent the entire 2008 Olympics. Our hotel system had TV networks from all over, but I primarily watched live events on British (BBC), German (EuroSport, others) and Italian (RAI) networks and commentary/studio broadcasts exclusively on the BBC because my Italian and German isn't nearly good enough for extended commentary to be interesting. Here are a few random thoughts on watching Olympics telecasts for the first time outside the US:
- The BBC had taped events in the evening each day, but also broadcast those same events live during the day unlike, as I have read, NBC holding certain events for tape delay only. The German and Italian networks seemed to be much more substantially live, but my impressions may be colored by the fact that I rarely stayed on those networks if they weren't on a live event.
- Like NBCU's networks, the BBC had multiple channels broadcasting live events throughout the day. Our hotel's system didn't have the ability to access those broadcasts though so I didn't watch them.
- US networks are often criticized for being "homers" and focusing just on US athletes and the events they do well in. Other countries are just as bad. The only "non-local" story that got any significant coverage on the networks was Michael Phelps, and it was pretty brief (compared to NBC, which I understand was a Phelps-o-rama). Watching the BBC, you'd think that the Olympics was primarily women's swimming, rowing, yachting, cycling with a little equestrian and athletics thrown in. The German and Italian networks were equally focused on their teams best events.
- As expected, the production budgets of the other networks were a fraction of NBC's. The BBC looked pretty good, but I'm sure the NBCU staff outnumbered them 10:1. The German and Italian broadcast teams seemed much smaller, but again I didn't watch much non-live action.
- Nothing to do with television, but every single medal count list I saw on air or in print via the media of non-US countries while traveling had the countries ordered by the number of gold medals and not total medals. Subtle anti-US bias? You be the judge. Update edit: As commenters pointed out, and I have added in the comments, no bias seems evident based on past practices.
Welcome back! I prefer ranking by Gold medals and not total medals as the Gold medal *is* the gold standard. I ran the NBC medal-tracking widget in your absence and it was always sorted by total medals. But even with that view it was obvious China was dominating in the Gold category.
Welcome Back Bill!!!!!
This medal thing is all over the internet. Actually if you look at the Medal Tables from past Olympics (Summer and Winter), they show rankings by Gold medals first. NBC seems to have cynically used the Total medal count so as to show the US on top. The bias is the other way around! Or is the US way right and the rest of the world wrong … as usual?
Actually, the US has always used total medal count. Britain did too until this time (or maybe the time before). Other places have used the gold medal count for a number of years now. There is no official method.
If you assign points to the medals (Gold=3, Silver=2, and Bronze=1) China wins with a score of 223 to the USA's 220.
Gold decides the winner, China won.
It`s nothing against USA, here in Europe we always ordered the number of medals by the gold medals,never for the total medals. USA is the only country in the world that ordered by the total medals and just because USA won more medals.
Don`t make us anti-USA people, you just didn`t won this time, maybe in 2012.
Apparently US is the only country that ranks by total medals, and not gold medals. Even in Canada the ranking is sorted by gold medals, and it has been that way since as far as I can remember. Does it make more sense to count the number of times a country has won an event, or list the number of Top-3 finishes a country has mustered up? I think it's just a matter of perspective – it certainly does not account to “anti-US bias”. It wouldn't be fair to say someone is “anti-US” simply because they use a system that is different from that used by the Americans. One wouldn't say that using the meter or the kilogram as the standard unit of measurement as being “anti-US”, would they?
Since this was the first time getting Olympic medal information from non-US sources I will freely admit to not realizing that the “gold medal” sorting had long been the practice outside the US.
If that has long been the practice, then this is definitely *not* a case of anti-US bias.
In fact, the US has in the past typically been atop in recent history, no matter which sorting system was used.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_medal_rank…
just be glad you weren't watching the olympics in india .. abyssmal
Recently USA has been winning both golds and totals except for this year so it had been a moot point. I think its okay to have the two different methods of medal dominance. World viewers are savvy enough to keep track of two medal counts and recognize two winners; a gold medal winner and a totals winner,
I would be curious to see chinas coverage. I bet its budget was comparable to NBC's.
Recently USA has been winning both golds and totals except for this year so it had been a moot point. I think its okay to have the two different methods of medal dominance. World viewers are savvy enough to keep track of two medal counts and recognize two winners; a gold medal winner and a totals winner,
I would be curious to see chinas coverage. I bet its budget was comparable to NBC's.