Good day all. The 2018 Winter Olympics are underway in South Korea, and I haven’t paid any attention to them at all. It looks like I’m not alone in ignoring them either, if the ratings are any guide.
From the headlines I’ve seen, but haven’t actually bothered to dig into, (Mostly due to a rampant case of I don’t care-itis), the ratings are sinking faster then the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. Part of the problem is the flat out incompetence of NBC in covering the games. For instance, we have this gem from Screen Grabber:
When Ester Ledecká crossed the finish line of this morning’s run of the women’s Super-G a hundredth of a second ahead of reigning gold medalist Anna Veith, the Czech couldn’t believe she’d beaten the Austrian champ. Ledecká, after all, is best known for her achievements in a completely different event: snowboarding, where she’s won two world championships and is a favorite in Pyeongchang.
Apparently, neither could the NBC commentators.
Ledecká wasn’t the only one surprised by the outcome. By the time Ledecka finished her miracle run—one, it turns out, she accomplished thanks to her lack of experience in the event, leading her to take a faster but unorthodox line on the course—NBC had long crowned Veith the gold medalist and had switched coverage to a simulcast of NBC Sports Network’s men’s figure skating free skate broadcast.
Dan Hicks pronounced Veith the gold medalist no fewer than five times, with worthless (and incredibly robotic) analyst Bode Miller at no point interrupting to note that there were still 25—twenty-five!—skiers left to compete. Only a throwaway “the last skier down with any chance at the podium” at the end of Cornella Huetter’s run suggested that the event wasn’t even halfway through.
The utter stupidity and incompetence regarding Ms. Ledecká win by NBC is going to come back to haunt them. Just reading the rest of the article, and how NBC basically ignored the fact that they were wrong is excruciating. NBC is hurting so badly, that they tried to hire Adam Rippon as a commentator. Of course, the reason they tried was pure politics and had nothing at all to do with Rippon’s abilities as an athlete or a sports commentator. Intelligently, he turned NBC down. Here are some of those details from Deadline:
After some thought, Adam Rippon has decided to decline the offer of becoming an NBC correspondent for the remainder of the Olympic games in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Earlier today, it was announced that the figure skater, who has become a prominent highlight of these games, was going to have his hand at commentary. However, he has decided to turn down the offer after he realized he would have to give up his Olympic standing and credential for the position. By joining NBC as a correspondent, he wouldn’t be allowed to participate in the closing ceremony.
While I do believe that was part of his decision making process, I suspect he wasn’t to thrilled with the probable reasons NBC offered him the job.
The outspoken Rippon first made news when he criticized Vice President Mike Pence in mid-January. Pence fired back, leading to Rippon’s rise as a gay youth spokesperson. Rippon, along with skier Lindsey Vonn, have declared they will not join other US athletes at the White House in a post-Olympic celebration.
Frankly, I don’t care about either Rippon or Vonn. The mean nothing to me in the course of my day and other then what I just read about them while researching this post, had never heard of them. Meanwhile, more and more people are tuning out the games. The ratings are not good. Here are some details on this from Deadline:
On the second Saturday of the South Korea-set competition, NBC and NBC Sports Network pulled in a 10.4/19 in metered market result for their joint primetime coverage. Down a hard 20% from the previous February 15 and February 16 lows of the 2018 Games, that’s the worst rating so far for PyeongChang coverage. It is also a drop of 32% from the melded NBC and NBCSN results of February 10, the first Saturday of these games.
In other words, if the ratings were an asteroid, the results would look something like this.
At least the people running NBC don’t have the same worries as North Korean athletes. They’re worries are a bit more…worrisome. Here is what The Sun is saying:
Having failed to land a single medal in South Korea so far, its Winter Olympic team could suffer the same fate as previous underperforming athletes – imprisonment in one of the country’s sick gulags. The most infamous case is that of the North Korean football team which made history for reaching the second round of the 1966 World Cup.
Former leader Kim Il-Sung is widely believed to have ordered them to be arrested after they lost to 5-3 Portugal days after they were seen drinking with local women in public. Instead of going home to a proud welcome, the are reported to have been sent to one of the reclusive nation’s most notorious gulags.
Considering what a lunatic the current “Leader” is, being sent to a gulag might be a blessing. They could end up being used as targets on an antiaircraft gun range. Of course, you won’t see any mention of that from NBC. They’ve been to busy fawning over Kim Dum Dork’s sister.
I have no idea how long the contract NBC has with the Olympic Committee runs, but I suspect they might not be looking at renewing it. It costs them millions to put their on air “talent” into place, along with all the support crews. This doesn’t include the actual fees they have to pay to broadcast the games. They charge advertisers a fortune. However, if no one is watching the games, then you can bet no one is seeing the ads being run.
These advertisers aren’t going to pay a premium for their commercials if they aren’t getting any sort of return. While the Moonbats that infest NBC like to think of themselves as Socialists Progressives, unlike a socialist government, they can’t print more money. If the money runs out, the company closes. NBC shutting down due to bankruptcy wouldn’t bother me a bit.
Thatisall
~The Angry Webmaster~
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