NBC blasted for ad-filled Opening Ceremony coverage
NBC has been criticised for its coverage of the Olympics Opening Ceremony in Rio, with viewers complaining that the network was delayed and cut to too many ad breaks.
NBC
Bosses at NBC – which had paid $1.2bn for the digital and broadcast rights – decided to broadcast on a one-hour tape delay in the Eastern time zone, and a four-hour delay in the Pacific time zone.
Confusion ensued as some of the estimated three billion people tuning in live took to Twitter to talk about the highlights, like supermodel Giselle Bundchen sashaying across the stage or the biplane circling iconic Christ the Redeemer statue.
America, meanwhile, was met with ad breaks.
Here are just some of the damming tweets.
I love how @NBCOlympics is live tweeting the event they're not live broadcasting #morons
— Andrew Sims|SCORBUS (@sims) July 27, 2012
NBC tape-delayed the Olympics so they could add "context" in gems like "Britain's lions will be under zoo lens...."
— Heidi N Moore (@moorehn) July 27, 2012
In effort to realize record profits from Rio 2016, NBC to become first network to air more than 60 minutes of commercials in a single hour.
— Norman Chad (@NormanChad) August 6, 2016
It's so nice of NBC to show some of the #OpeningCeremony in-between their commercial marathon.
— Tom Krieglstein (@tomkrieglstein) August 6, 2016
"We hate to take a break but we have to..." No, no you don't. #OpeningCeremony #nbcfail pic.twitter.com/DvwnCpU0L2
— Ranchium&Co (@summerofsoaps) August 6, 2016
NBC keeps interrupting these commercials with some random opening ceremony #nbcfail
— Chad High (@chad__high) August 6, 2016