No one seems very happy with the way NBC handled the 2022 Winter Olympics. Even NBC admits it has work to do in order to get the audience it wants for Paris 2024.
The ratings were way down, but Mike Tirico says that doesn’t mean the network didn’t do good work in terms of bringing the games to fans. He was a guest this week on the Sports Media with Richard Deitsch podcast.
Amongst the hardships he and his colleagues had to overcome was the fact that there were no spectators. If there was any excitement in China for the games, Tirico said he had no way to experience it.
“To put it in one sentence: I would say that I feel like I went to the Olympics; I don’t feel like I went to China,” he told Deitsch. “And it’s because of the closed-loop system that they put in place. They were very stringent for zero COVID and the procedures and protocols that we all had to live with mirrored that desire for the country.”
Many viewers and media pundits in the United States were critical of the way NBC handled (or failed to handle) issues of human rights abuse by the Chinese government. Whether it was suspicion regarding the origin of the Covid-19 virus, the treatment of Uyghur Muslims, or critics of the government being silenced, some had an expectation that NBC should devote more time to it than the network did.
Mike Tirico says that when it comes to primetime coverage of the games, the events and athletes take top priority and decisions have to be made in terms of time.
“We are there to cover the Olympics. You have to make choices at some point. So do you show the live Olympics, or do you spend another 10 minutes on political affairs? Somebody might say, ‘Well, I think you should spend 10 more minutes on political affairs.’ Well, that person is not a snowboarding fan who’s watching the biggest moment in that sport for four years at that point.”
He also pushed back on the idea that NBC did not do enough. Mike Tirico pointed out that when it was appropriate, NBC did address some of the controversies surrounding the country and its government.
“I feel like we didn’t just do it in the opening ceremony and check a box. We spent a lengthy time the night before covering it, and as it happened during the opening ceremony, covered the moment of a member of the Uyghur population being one of the two to light the torch.
“I don’t think we ignored it after just checking the box, quote-unquote, at the start. At the end of the day, I feel like it was something that was present in our coverage at the most appropriate times during the 17-18 days.”
