21st February 2010, 9:48 PM
I just meant that I hadn't even heard about this game before today, and I have watched many hours of Olympics. NBC wasn't exactly going out of their way to promote it. Today they mentioned it as the "event of the games", but were kind of saying that that's only because the Canadians thought so... and given that they hadn't mentioned it much at all before, on NBC at least... (I'm sure it was mentioned plenty on the cable channel carrying most of their hockey coverage, though. But I don't really have cable anymore.)
NBC did actually play a hockey game in the afternoon, but it was Russia v. Czech Republic; it was the only hockey game they've broadcast on NBC so far, I believe. I'm sure that they'd never use primetime for a hockey game on their broadcast network during the Olympics, maybe unless it was a medal game, I think. They take up a lot of time, you can't play much advertising during them, and most Americans don't care THAT much about hockey... this area does, because New England likes hockey, but most of the rest of the country, not so much.
Remember, NBC uses the 8-11 or 12pm block for the highlight events of the day, mostly running on tape delay. They don't play many things live. It's frustrating, but it's how they've always worked at the Olympics and they aren't about to change now.
Their other main things on the broadcast channel are a 1-6pm on weekends/3-5pm weekdays block, and 12-1 or 2 am latenight one. All vary depending on what they're covering of course. It's a lot less hours than a summer games, I think, but that's probably because there are fewer events to cover...
I imagine the game was broadcast on one of their cable channels, but I don't get those so I'm not sure.
I've watched some Canadian TV olympic coverage before, though not this year, and I think it's almost certainly better than NBC's... NBC's always has issues, between the tape delays and how much they love those "heartwarming achievement stories", "sad stories of the athletes' backgrounds", etc. NBC always focuses very heavily on American athletes, of course. From what I remember, Canadian TV just does better...
NBC did actually play a hockey game in the afternoon, but it was Russia v. Czech Republic; it was the only hockey game they've broadcast on NBC so far, I believe. I'm sure that they'd never use primetime for a hockey game on their broadcast network during the Olympics, maybe unless it was a medal game, I think. They take up a lot of time, you can't play much advertising during them, and most Americans don't care THAT much about hockey... this area does, because New England likes hockey, but most of the rest of the country, not so much.
Remember, NBC uses the 8-11 or 12pm block for the highlight events of the day, mostly running on tape delay. They don't play many things live. It's frustrating, but it's how they've always worked at the Olympics and they aren't about to change now.
Their other main things on the broadcast channel are a 1-6pm on weekends/3-5pm weekdays block, and 12-1 or 2 am latenight one. All vary depending on what they're covering of course. It's a lot less hours than a summer games, I think, but that's probably because there are fewer events to cover...
I imagine the game was broadcast on one of their cable channels, but I don't get those so I'm not sure.
I've watched some Canadian TV olympic coverage before, though not this year, and I think it's almost certainly better than NBC's... NBC's always has issues, between the tape delays and how much they love those "heartwarming achievement stories", "sad stories of the athletes' backgrounds", etc. NBC always focuses very heavily on American athletes, of course. From what I remember, Canadian TV just does better...