On the Olympics and Ratings...

[acroyear]

Olympic Idols:

NBC, the network that has over time invested billions of dollars in Olympic coverage, has taken a beating in the TV ratings on nights when these Winter Games were up against several popular shows -- most notably the amateur entertainment contest "American Idol" and the offbeat series "Desperate Housewives." ("Idol," especially, has become a national phenomenon, an un-Olympian event in which just about anyone can compete and unfortunately often does, in the manner of a new skier tumbling head over heels the whole length of the downhill course and getting a unanimous verdict from the judges at the bottom: "zero.")

WTOP also addressed this in their "talkback" question yesterday - "Why are the olympics tanking in the ratings".  And I think this hits it: sports are no longer "reality" in the face of "reality tv".  Individual sports are increasingly not something the couch potato can relate to anymore.  America is a "team" country, and individual merit is no longer worth what the "team" (with strong individuals as its backbone) means (with the oddball exception being NASCAR, but that's as much for the worship of cars in this country as anything else).

When Survivor or Idol are on TV, people can watch that and think "I could be in there", and then are able engage with the program by guessing what they would do in such a situation.  That engagement is key to return viewers, and the Olympics (*either* season) can't get that engagement anymore.  Its not something someone can just get up and do.  I can't just go "hey, I wanna do skeleton" - the equipment, the kit, the insurance, and finally the commute to some place that actually supports it (meaning they have their own insurance, too) being potentially *days* away, means its just not something someone can say "hey, I can do that!".  So the disconnect is there.

Olympic athletes are perceived as the elite at a time when America is worshipping the (worst) examples of the "common man" (well, person).  Just as they can't deal with what they see as elitism in science, they can't deal with what they see as elitism in athletics anymore.

And in both cases, the "elitism" is only in their minds.  Its less on the minds of the athletes (Bode Miller not withstanding) than it is with America's real sports heroes in baseball, basketball, and football...

Comments

Re: OT

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

money. duh. ;-)

Actually, reality TV is eventually going to put the networks on to the "British" model soon. Instead of trying to fill out a 24-26 week season (with most episodes repeated once to fill out a 52 week year), they're going to go to the "8pm tuesday is reality night" - run 6-8 weeks of show 1, then 6-8 weeks of show 2, then 6-8 weeks of show 3, etc (with potential summer reruns of the best show). what's going to make that possible is the network that does it is going to fight to start to get rid of the "sweeps week" concept. we have realtime statistics for viewership, we don't need "sweeps" anymore to tell us what people are watching and/or want to see more of.

and you can bet that Fox will be the network to start to bring the end of "sweeps week".

Re: OT

[stori-lundi.livejournal.com]

Yay. I hate sweeps week. It's endless reruns until the new eps. Then again, I get bummed with only a 6-8 series. Just as I get into a show, it's over.