I know that I am seeing this through the lens of my own bias. Still, it seems to me that when I was young
there were fewer commercials. Quality of
coverage aside there just seemed to be fewer breaks. I know that even in the days of my youth when
I liked the coverage the network was trying to make a profit, but honestly,
they just didn’t seem to have as many commercials.
Some time in the 80s it all seemed to change from wanting to
show the Olympics to wanting to produce an event. Personally I think when a different network
got to cover the Games they tried to show that they could do it better than ABC
and to them better meant flashier. Money
is also a problem. Of course the whole
point of a TV network is profit, just like any corporation. That’s fine.
I’m not complaining about that – except where it damages the product. Namely the TV show.
I’d also lay some of blame on the Olympic Committee as well
as the network. I have no evidence but
it seems to be less the Olympics these days and more The Olympics ™©®$$$$. And naturally when you have to bid outrageous
amounts to get the TV rights you have to make up the money to show a
profit. So there are more commercials
because you can only charge so much per minute.
But since there are only so many natural places for a
commercial break you have to manufacture them.
You edit and cut out parts of the events; show most of the US and only a
few of the other countries’ athletes; take a break in the middle of a match and
come back after a few goals have been scored; cut out the parts you think are
boring. After all, real or perceived,
you have to cater to the American short attention span and what better way than
to make it all one big highlight reel where more commercials can be squeezed
in.
Actually, to me it feels more like a lot of commercials with
a few sporting events squeezed in.
You can edit for time, cut and paste parts of events to fit
your artificial narrative and show things out of sequence and modified for
whatever reason. But you lose the
spontaneity and the progression of events that builds the tension and leads naturally
to the climax at the end. There is no
end because you have no idea what happened when because it’s all out of order. There’s more flash and less substance.
Rather than being compelling it’s disorienting.
Maybe I’m being too critical. It isn’t possible to show everything when so
much happens at the same time and watching the Olympics in real time can be
tedious and boring. It’s the nature of
an event like that where there is so much going on concurrently but there is
also so much down time and repetition.
I’ll relent. It’s an
overwhelming spectacle that needs to be managed to make it comprehensible. Maybe the experience can be improved with
judicious editing.
Except that isn’t what’s going on here. The editing is choppy. And it’s so obvious that someone who likes to
look at the women gymnasts – not competing, just look at them – produced this
thing it isn’t even funny. You get more
shots from the profiles than of competition.
They have a theme song for crying out loud.
So edit, but do it better.
What we’re getting now is crap.
No comments:
Post a Comment