TOO MANY COMMERCIALS DURING THE OLYMPICS

I agree 100%. Its not so much the amount of commercials, I understand
NBC has to cover costs, but the number of same commercials over and
over. I have actually stopped drinking Bud Light because if I even see
a can or bottle of it i get pissed off. Kind of a reverse Pavlov
experiment. Thank goodness for dvr and my mute button.

i completly agree. it is the most ridiculous thing ive ever watch on
tv. They should be embarresed of them selves

You're kidding, right? You wouldn't prefer pay to view coverage,
would you?

If it really bothers you that much, buy a DVR (Tivo) and fast forward
through the commercials.

Airing an event like the Olympics is no cheap task, especially
considering NBC has essentialy thrown away all of its regular
programming to bring non-stop coverage.

You should really direct your complaints to the advertisers
themselves, as they are the ones who stipulate in the contract when
and how often their commercials have to air.

I don't mind the ads because in my view, it helps to improve the
coverage (especially the camera angles for my favorite Olympic event,
swimming).

I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
GLAD that other people out there are pissed at NBC for jamming the
Olympics with commercials. I remeber watching Apollo Anton Ono
speed-skate his way to a gold medal in the '02 Salt Lake olympics and
RIGHT after he finshes (and completely without warning from the
announcers) this dumb-ass Saturn commercial featuring a mountain lion
chasing a little minivan through the snow comes on. I encourage
EVERYBODY out there to complain to NBC about this!

Your math is a bit wrong. We were watching last night and I was
thinking about this. We timed it. We watched some of the Beach
Vollyball. It was TWO minutes of action then THREE-FOUR minutes of
ads. Then they talked a bit. Showed another TWO minutes of action
the ANOTHER break. Sheesh! It was ANNOYING! I know then need to
have some ads there. But enough is enough. That and with all the
stuff that is coming out that China faked, I think people are going to
not watch any more. I feel bad for the Athleats (sp?). They worked
hard to get there and people aren't watching for whatever reason. The
only reason I am watching is because there is nothing else on. But I
think I will put on a DVD tonight.

The Olympics are exclusive to NBC this year and NBC paid $894 for the
braodcasting rights. Although they have sold over a billion dollars
in advertising, they need to recoup their costs and make some profit.
They also have lots of other olympic cost as well, like the hotel room
for Bob Costa.

Commericals are a neccesary evil.

I watched the opening ceremony and got very frustrated with all the
commerical breaks during that. I would have thought that since they
delayed it 12 hours by NBC that they would have at least shown the
opening without commericals.

I have watched only snippets of the actual games, so i can not comment
to the amount during the games. I do know that during the opening
they could have done with out about half of them.

There are way too many commercials on tv period.

I agree--I think this Olympics is the worst yet. You can't even watch
the whole competition. They cut out a lot of programming to make room
for increased commericals. It's a lot worse than it was a couple of
Olympics ago. As soon as I get into something, they cut away.

It's kind of getting counterproductive. More people are DVRing so they
increase the commericals which will just cause people (like me) to get
pissed off and get a TiVo machine of my own to record and skip
commericals.

I understand they have "bills" to pay, but c'mon--it's just too much
and too annoying.

Without the support of the people putting those commercials up, there
would be no Olympics.

Commercials need to be more entertaining so people might actually sit
through them. Now the news online puts a commercial before each clip
you watch too.

Just noticed. This was written to CBS. Are they showing the
Olympics? Or is it exclusive to NBC?

The Olympics are not exclusive to NBC> In scrolling thru my bazillion
cable channels, at least 5 of them are showing Olympics
everyday/night.

I do not recall any network other than NBC showing them, tho. CBS and
ABC seem to be running their regular stuff.

I'm annoyed that NBC is showing just the highlights -- a particular
competitor, or just the finals of an event. If I want to watch
gymnastics, I want to watch it all, not the top Americans and then one
or two nonAmericans.

I don't have cable -- and I strongly believe that Americans shouldn't
have to have cable in order to watch the Olympic games. I seem to
recall a time in the '70s when all three networks showed the Olympics.
We need to go back to that way, IMHO.

Well, I really have absolutely no interest in the Olympics, so I can't
comment on that angle. However, the thing that networks have been
doing the past few years that really makes me mad is the on-screen
self-promotions DURING the program. It was bad enough when they all
started superimposing their network logo in the corner at all times.
Then it really got bad when they started to advertise their shows on
screen during the program content. Then it just got ridiculous when
they added sound to it, muffling out the sound from the actual show
they were broadcasting.

As for these Olympics (and any other sporting event), I imagine with
the cost of new technology, salaries of cameramen and announcers
increasing, that the cost of advertising had to increase to offset
these costs, hence the need for more commercial interruptions.

This is how they pay their bills. How is that unacceptable?

Anyone remember the "NBC TripleCast" from (I think) the 80's? NBC
offered a pay service where you could choose which of three stations
to watch.

As I recall, it was considered a failure. In part because I think it
required you to rent or borrow hardware.

I wonder, now that most cable companies can support Pay-per-View, if
people would be willing to pay for ad-free Olympic coverage?

Julie, you do hit the nail on the head with the TiVO thing. These
days, people will just record and then skip the ads. True be told,
this is exactly what I'm doing. Not explicitly to skip ads, but so
that I can watch the events I want to watch, when it works for me.
Being able to skip ads is plus. But, alas, I know that is everyone
did this, NBC wouldn't be able to show them on free TV. I suspect
that some day, soon, this TiVO and ad-skipping will catch up with us.

Sorry but someone has to help pay to broadcast/air these games and NBC
sells space to do this.
I watch a few of the games here and there...but I have seen quite a
few new commercials/businesses which are generally not seen - kind of
like during the super bowl. Businesses are advertising during the
Olympics where they would not otherwise because they know they will
have the audience to view these.

So watch on ESPN or another cable station if you like. I either watch
the commercials or read a book.

This is the price we pay to be able to get coverage.
NBC gets money from the sponsors, so that NBC can have all the
commentators and camera angles for us.

I'm personally liking a lot of the technology that NBC is providing
for us. The ads also make it easy for me to get a drink or hit the
bathroom or surf the Net.

TiVo might be a good option for you.

I'm watching it on NBC and it's not too bad ~ but like you, I hate it
when stations drown their show with commercials.

Go Misty May & Kerri Walsh!

This sounds completely unreasonable. I don't watch a lot of tv, but I
am aware that if you are watching a HALF hour show, there are at least
4 commercial breaks. That would be 8 per hour plus two in between,
for a total of 10.

If you want uniterrupted coverage, you need to buy airline, hotel, and
olympic event tickets, quite an expensive proposition. Otherwise, you
have to put up with advertising.