Anyone Watching The Olympics?

[JB4310]

Or should I say the Commercials,

I like the Olympics, but man the commercials are relentless. If you want to watch the actual events you better DVR it so you can FF thru all the crap.

One of the interesting competitions is the snow board Cross, where 4 boarders go down the track together, pretty good action there, always enjoyed the downhill skiing

Of course my wife and daughter love all the skating, My daughter skates so I'm forced to sit through it. Though it's definitely not my bag, you gotta give them credit for the incredible athleticism.

Guy holding a woman (minuscule as they may be) over his head in one hand while spinning around on one skate, or when he throws her so high in the air and catches her after she spins 3-4 times.

JB

 

[20 20]

I remember back when cable was comming to be{atleast in this area} they said because we'd be paying{for the programs} commercials would disappear. I get sick of TV because of commercials. Even if I like a show, I'll get half way through and shut it off, because of greed/commercials. With that said I have DVR'ed some of the olympics to watch when I get a chance.

 

[dave1949]

We watch for a couple hours in the evening. Although tonight is the Group judging at Westminster Dog Show, I like to see the dogs. Even if some are a little too poofy for my tastes

I seems like figure skating pairs have fewer falls overall than individual skaters. I don't know if the moves are not quite as challenging or it's the psychology of not being alone out there. Either way, there is an incredible amount of athleticism involved. Just like a MLB short stop snagging a ground ball, they make things look a whole lot easier than they really are.

Sometimes when watching the individual skaters trying to do triple-double combinations you see one after the other falling. That sort of detracts from the beauty of the sport IMO.

The commercials are off-putting for sure. I think the only good way around that is to Tivo everything and then skip the commercials on playback. It is a little entertaining to compare the products being advertised and guess which demographic the ads are aimed at for a given program. From that, you can infer who is watching what you are watching
Dave.

 

[ToadHill]

20-20 My wife and I were talking about the pitch of the cable company just the other night. Yes it was "If you switch to cable you will pay for the service but you won't have to watch the commercials." That lasted less than a year.

 

[mjfox6]

I DVR and skip the commercials and all of the commentary and background hoopla. I watch 4 hours in about 1 hour, sometimes less if the events aren't very interesting.

I hate watching live tv, but have trouble hitting the pause button some times for bathroom breaks when DVRing!

 

[jinman]

I love the Olympics (all of it) and figure I can put up with the commercials instead of a huge amount on Pay-Per-View. An incredible amount of money has been spent on the Olympics. They have to get paid back somehow. My biggest argument was and is the amount of money spent on the opening ceremony. Is it going to be continual one-upmanship for each of the successive opening ceremonies? I love the atheletes and their stories of how they came to be Olympians. I wish they would spend more on telling us about these remarkable people and less on a show that means nothing.

 

[DANOCHEESE]

This will make you wonder. Cable/Dish companies were forced to pay more for olympic coverage. If they declined, they only get the local NBC coverage. The FEE was almost $2 per customer.

And yes you still get the commercials.

 

[dave1949]

Jim,

They really piled on the commercials last night during the men's skating. I flipped back and forth between the dog show and Olympics.

Danocheese,
Any idea how much NBC is paying the IOC for broadcast rights? I haven't run across any mention of that figure.
Dave.

 

[jinman]

I think if I were NBC, I'd be pretty miffed to be paying all this money for coverage and be scooped by Yahoo! with coverage of the women's downhill run and Lindsey Vonn winning gold. Julia Manusco also won silver. See, even TBN has news before you see it on NBC. Why didn't NBC carry such a big event live so they couldn't be scooped? It must be another bad, bad NBC decision.

Sorry if I ruined everyone's prime time Olympics coverage. At least it was good news instead of bad news.

 

[JB4310]

I have been really enjoying watching this year, even with zapping the commercials I spent a few hours watching last night.

The women's downhill was absolutely awesome last night, those incredible crashes show the speed and risk involved

The speed skating short track is pretty cool to.

Don't really get that 2 man luge thing, kinda makes me uncomfortable, more of a European thing

JB.