NBC’s coverage of the 2008 Olympic opening ceremonies from Beijing suffered audio and high-definition outages in Denver, which KUSA-Channel 9 attributed to the rain.
“It’s regrettable. We’re at the mercy of Mother Nature,” KUSA general manager Mark Cornetta said. “We had a very strong storm cell right over the station . . . we switched to a backup feed, lost audio and are pretty sure we sustained a lightening hit.”
The station’s phone system went dead. The broadcast lost audio for 11 minutes and didn’t return to HD for 64 minutes.
KUSA was bombarded by calls from angry viewers. Cornetta received 150 e-mails, many of them “nasty,” and was answering each individually.
KUSA planned to rebroadcast the ceremonies from 1:39 a.m.-6 a.m. Saturday.
The local interruption occurred in the midst of spectacular, massive performances marking the entry of modern China on the global stage. Even worse, just as the Chinese national anthem began, the telecast fell silent.
“It’s the last thing you’d want to do,” Cornetta said.
The local technological glitch followed a day of techno-police work by NBC, as it attempted to stop Internet users from peeking at the opening ceremonies through other sources. NBC Universal paid $894 million to be sole U.S. rights holder. Video from other international broadcasters was easy to find on the web. Throughout Friday, numerous sites posted clips — some grainier than others — of the opening ceremonies, which occurred 14 hours earlier than broadcast locally. Unauthorized videos popped up on the Internet and were quickly shut down by the network in an effort to maintain exclusivity.
The vast, cleverly choreographed extravaganza overseen by filmmaker Zhang Yimou treated the theme of the one and the many, the individual and the state, in several breathtaking performances. The more overt message was a wish for harmony, as if to calm any nervousness about the emergence of this giant power on the world stage.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
