On the Olympics and Ratings...
Feb. 23rd, 2006 10:24 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
acroyearOlympic Idols:
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...
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...
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Date: 2006-02-24 02:39 pm (UTC)Why am I not watching the Olympics? Because last several times I did, there were 6 minutes of commercials to 4 minutes of "Let us spin melodramatic tales about our athletes instead of showing you who's competing from around the world" followed by 6 more minutes of commercials followed by 3 minutes of actual competition during which the announcers would *NOT* STFU so that you could actually concentrate on the event! And then it was usually events I couldn't give a rat's ass about; aside from ice skating, the stuff I want to see gets short strift. Did you know that a few Olympics back the USA won the archery gold by a single point on the last arrow, as the stadium literally rocked from competing chants of "USA! USA!" and "Ko-re-a! Ko-re-a!" Of course not, because exciting as that was, the networks only showed a 5-second clip of a single release by our guy. Not even a picture of a target.
At least this time I've discovered that the curling on cable is both interesting, not punctuated by overlong commercial blocks, and not overlaid with yapping announcers. Huzzah for that!
Even Dancing with the Stars, overpadded as it is, gives you a little bit of background on everyone, discusses how the (bogus) rankings work, and does not interrupt routines with either commercials or chatter.