it is producted by the French, and NBC is one of many many broadcasters present there who add a bit of their own flavour to that coverage and use it
I meant "produced" in the sense that they contract for the feed then do with it what they will -- add commentary, decide when to cut to commercials, whatever -- the stuff I talked about in the post. The "producer" of a movie does not operate the camera. You sound like a grammar-Nazi kind of person.
No, sorry, you instead just sound ignorant. Movies and TV are very different and some of the terms, while sounding similar, mean very different things. Before writing a blog post about your analysis and submitting it to slashdot, it would do you well to learn a bit about what you're discussing.
Along those lines, in the blog post you wrote:
and the Internatinal (sic) Olympic Committee might decide that it can do a better job than NBC or another production company.
Your position might be strengthened by learning about how Olympic coverage actually works. I'd start by learning about the OBS, the host broadcaster for all Olympic games. In fact, for many large sports events there exists a host broadcaster and other feeds coordinate with or purchase outright from the host broadcaster.
Indeed, learning about how broadcasting works in this setting may enhance your understanding of your third point. I'm not saying the point is invalid, actually the opposite, but understanding the revenue stream and where the feed comes from might have changed your analysis a bit.
and the commentators often had English accents, suggesting that they may have been picked up locally at the last minute.
Again with not understanding the purpose of the host broadcaster and thinking that something as huge as Olympic coverage is thrown together at the last minute.
As to his idea that they have 'deleted their archive', that is somewhat laughable - removing it from public access
is very very different from deleting it, something I can assure him has not happened.
Duh.
First, that's not what you said in the posting. You wrote "NBC -- how many early TV video tapes and kinescope recordings have you lost? Don't keep repeat (sic) your past mistakes." -- sounds to me like you believe they're gone forever.
You should say what you mean. You're discussing a technical field which has a lot of precise terminology (TV production) with an audience that feels the same and probably has even more need for precise terminology (I believe it was either Care and Feeding of Your Hacker or The Jargon File that devoted a relatively large amount of space to discussing the need for precise language within the hacker/nerd/geek culture). Aside from that, I'm not sure why you feel NBC has an obligation to make the content available for posterity. They have an archive department which is responsible for, well, archiving shows and footage. Two years from now, if NBC News wants footage of judo or the rugby finals, they'll be able to get it. Likewise, in four years when they're revisiting who won the whatever in 2012, I anticipate them being able to find that video as well.
You also wrote: "NBC did a much better job on the Tour de France than the Olympics, but it was an easier event to cover, they had experience covering it in past years and they did not have to deal with the presentation of ads. " ...you are aware that NBC has carried the Olympics before, right? And the logistics are pretty overwhelming for both events.
And again you confuse the NBC with the IOC: "NBC did their best to control leaks of Olympic material. For example, WiFi hotspots were not allowed in the stands and they did their best to stop social media leaks. "
The internet streaming is a very very small part of the whole process
Let's revisit that statement in 2020.
The majority of your analysis is about the current state of internet streaming rather than looking ahead, so it's fair to also look at how small the internet streaming is in comparison to the worldwide broadcast market. Sure, that percentage is shifting more towards the internet, but if you write an article about the current state of internet streaming, a comment like the GP made is a fair response and "Let's revisit that statement in 2020" just sounds like a knee-jerk, defensive response. The GP is correct and, I'll connect the dots for you, the small percentage of viewers and revenue from the internet side of things means there are less resources committed to it compared to the broadcast side. This in turn explains (although perhaps doesn't justify) some of your criticisms.
In your blog post CIS 471 The Olympics -- NBC's production and direction, you wrote
I don't mean to beat up on NBC -- covering 302 events in 32 sports is a huge task, and I am sure they learned a lot about how to produce live events during the Olympics.
which again shows your lack of knowledge about the situation. Not only that NBC did not have crews on hand to cover every Olympic event, but also the air of haughtiness that surrounds your statement. NBC (as well as each of the other American broadcasters) has been producing large scale events for a long time, now admittedly the Super Bowl or Stanley Cup Final aren't as big as the Olympics, but producing live events isn't anything new here.
Thanks, I've actually had a fair bit of fun reading some of the discussion here, which is kind of rare these days (I feel like the slashdot community's changed a lot since I first joined and HEY, GIVE OFF MY LAWN!)