Leaps and bounds.
That’s not just what the Olympic athletes will be doing. It’s how much the broadcast technology covering the games has changed since the last Olympics.
The 2008 Summer Games in Beijing will feature dramatically improved digital technology, making this TV’s first truly high-definition Olympics.
How will the innovations show up on screen?
In special touches like this: Viewers will get a bull’s-eye view of the approaching arrow from a tiny camera embedded in the target at the archery competition. And it’s in high-definition.
“Four years ago in Athens, we presented only five sports plus the opening and closing ceremonies in HD,” NBC Olympics executive David Neal said in a satellite news conference. “They were truly boutique presentations. They had separate groups of announcers; they had limited cameras.”
This year, all 34 Olympic sports from all 37 Olympic venues throughout China will be 100 percent in HD, Neal said. The difference, in his view, is just as monumental as the switch from black and white to color. “The thing for me that’s so amazing is how quickly the technology has matured.”
The difference will be felt all the way down to your cellphone. Viewers who choose to watch this way will see the same clarity on their 1-inch screens that they see on a wall-sized plasma screen. According to Neal, the shift “benefits every delivery platform.”
Because of a loaded Internet site, the digital side evolves from companion coverage to full partner. Every sport will be offered on demand, with a huge volume of highlights clips, plus 2,200 hours of coverage at .
Expect fewer and shorter features, more emphasis on a handful of star players. Swimmer Michael Phelps is expected to be a big prime-time draw, so NBC will showcase him.
On-screen graphics will direct viewers to what’s coming up (on NBC and its sister networks MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen and Telemundo.
NBC promises going in that there will be less boosterism than in years past. “We will absolutely not manufacture or inflame patriotic moments at the Games,” according Neal. “You will never hear NBC announcers saying “we” and “our,” which is commonplace in other countries’ broadcast coverage of the Games. There will be no rooting.”
NBC paid $894 million for the rights to the Beijing Olympics. To ensure they get their money’s worth, they’ll juggle live and taped coverage to exploit prime-time advertising bucks. The strategy is to offer 2,900 hours of live coverage “while still addressing the needs of our advertisers, affiliates and NBC Universal’s significant investment,” NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel said.
“We have a billion dollars’ worth of revenue at stake here,” Zenkel said. He needs to satisfy the different needs of his three constituencies: affiliates, advertisers and audience. “To our affiliates and our advertisers, our responsibility is to aggregate the biggest audience that we can. And to our audience, that means putting it on when they say they want it, which is when they’re available to watch it — and that’s in prime time.”
If swimming will pull in the largest number of eyeballs, then swimming will rule prime time. You can look on your laptop for badminton, fencing and canoeing.
For East Coast viewers, NBC finally will abandon its “plausibly live” format, which drove viewers to distraction during the Atlanta games. The time difference from Beijing to New York is 12 hours.
For the Mountain and Pacific time zones, the coverage will be tape-delayed. (Beijing to Denver is 14 hours).
Dick Ebersol, chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics, said he started working on this problem early in the bidding process.
“Back in 2001,” Ebersol said, “I told (the new head of the IOC, Jacques Rogge) that it would be almost impossible for an American network bidding on the Games in the future, if you knew they were going to be in the Far East, not to have some way to have ‘live’ happen.”
Rogge agreed, with the stipulation that athletes’ bodies can’t perform before 10 a.m. “No new deal was made,” Ebersol said. “The IOC did this in hopes that it would help in the market that’s the most important to them,” that is, the U.S. which still generates considerably more than half of all the money the IOC makes.
Should news break out — a consideration taking up a sizeable chunk of the network’s planning — NBC News will be on hand, although the network will be loath to interrupt sports in prime time. MSNBC will have endless hours to devote to any breaking stories. Brian Williams, Tom Brokaw, the “Today” show team plus foreign correspondent Richard Engel will be on location. Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel (recently acquired by NBC Universal) will report weather stories pertinent to the Games, and Nancy Schneiderman will cover related health stories, notably China’s pollution.
Bob Costas, who claims not to be prone to overstatement, told critics he has it on good authority that the opening ceremonies will be “über-spectacular.” The stagecraft is expected to be stunning, under the direction of Zhang Yimou, China’s pre-eminent film director (“House of Flying Daggers”). With 15,000 people participating in the show, it should be, at the very least, busy.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
