Has the NBC #LondonOlympics been an #NBCFAIL?

The talk all over social media and the news has been that #NBC has not even medalled in the 30 Olympic games in London. The HASHTAG going around is #NBCFAIL!

NBC has been receiving a ton of flack for their coverage of the 2012 Olympics. Some of it has been justified, some blown out of proportion, Maybe. Lets take a look so far at all the particulars!

1. NBC’s decision not to air the opening ceremonies live/cutting the London terror attack memorial from segment: 
Every other country aired it LIVE. Also NBC blocked all live streams on the Internet, and only showing the opening hours later. It would have aired at 4pm edt, now I know that would have been 1pm pdt, but sometimes you have do whats right. Let's face it, though, NBC payed $1.1 billion fee they paid to license the Games, plus another $200 million for production costs. Brian Roberts, chief of NBC parent Comcast, said that NBC had sold just over $1 billion of ad time as of Monday July 30, 2012.
But NOT showing the solemn dance honoring the victims of London’s 7/7 attacks. As an additional slap in the face, NBC explained that the memorial was cut not because it reminded viewers of the horrors of global attacks, but because the whole issue wouldn’t be of interest to American viewers.#NBCFAIL

2. Today show producers fails to recognize Evander Holyfield:
The show did a "Person on the Street"  talking about the Queen’s performance at the opening ceremonies. Along comes the former Heavyweight Champ and NOBODY in studio or the interviewer recognized him! Doesn't look good for a network covering the PREMIER sporting event, the #OLYMPICS, not to know who he was! #NBCFAIL

3. Spoiler Social Media:

Now NBC has made deals with Social Media and Twitter calling it "Olympics Hub", a page on the site that will aggregate tweets from Olympic athletes, their families, fans and NBC personalities, as part of a partnership with the network to hype the Games. 
The Twitter feed will be promoted on TV with on-air ads directing viewers to the site. Likewise, messages that appear on Twitter will direct users to NBC's TV coverage.
Now both the IOC and NBC have complained that people are "SPOILING" results and in fact blocking events like the Cycling road race with so much #SM sharing. CAN'T HAVE IT BOTH WAYS! #NBCFAIL

4. Spoiler promo ruins the surprise of Missy Franklin’s gold medal win:

This was the MOST comical one of all. After #NBC cries that people are "SPOILING" there "TAPE DELAYED" prime-time broadcast I could not believe when I tuned in to watch  Missy Franklin, the 17 year old Team #USA Swimmer who I already knew, unless you stayed away from life all day, won the Gold medal in the 100-meter backstroke. We watched her compete and qualify in another swimming heat and the was told she had 10 minutes to get ready for her final.
NBC breaks for commercial but shows a "Today" teaser that included this photograph of the teen sensation standing on the medal stand with the gold draped around her neck. The short clip then cut to a video of Franklin hugging her parents outside London's Aquatics Centre, presumably after the race that she had won seven hours before NBC showed it on the East Coast.#NBCFAIL
WATCH -

5. Trying to ban critical journalist from Twitter:
This will come down to how you feel about privacy issues: NBC convinced Twitter, the same company they made a deal with, to ban The Independent‘s Guy Adams from the site  after he made disparaging remarks about the way they were showing the games. He also tweeted out the personal email of NBC’s Olympics President Gary Zenkel, which does actually violate Twitter’s privacy policy. The ban has since been lifted. #NBCFAIL

6. The NBC Apps:
NBC has two Apps they developed for the #LondonOlympics. One is a News / RESULTS, yes I said LIVE updated results, TV schedule, Video's Photos and Much more. When the games began, this App was NOT working. I first thought it was me, but on #SM everyone was having issues. It since, after several update, has been working GREAT and gives you everything it promised!

The second App is LIVE EXTRA! This is supoosed to give you access to NBC live stream of numerous events which you can watch "LIVE" on your smart phone or tablet. After, again, a VERY shackey start of NOT working it has lived up to it's billing as I have been able to watch Boxing, Soccer even the Finals of the Team womens Gymnastics final, although it is delayed by about a minute or so.

Again for a network worried about there "PRIME TIME TAPE DELAYED broadcast they have made it easy to watch events LIVE elsewhere.

Now so far NBC telecast of the London Olympics is toppling ratings records.Over the weekend, Olympic programming averaged 35.8 million total viewers in prime time, according to Nielsen — the best first weekend for any Olympics in history. Theopening ceremony alone drew more than 40 million viewers, even outpacing the start of the Atlanta Games in 1996. These are the kinds of numbers broadcast networks almost never see in an era of media fragmentation.

I think this whole #NBCFAIL - Social Media #SM controversy is helping the Peacock network. But, in my opinion, should have better embraced it, SHOW more LIVE events on regular TV and NOT hold ALL the big ones for prime-time Tape-Delayed.


But I'm watching on and off-line! HOW ABOUT YOU!