Olympic Viewers Have a New Reason to Complain, and the Means to Do It

NBC might have believed that streaming all the sports live from the London Games would have inoculated it from criticism of its Olympic broadcasting policy. The past animosity rested on tape-delaying certain marquee sports into prime time. But now Twitter has turned into a fiery digital soapbox against NBC, as its users have merged their resentment over tape delay with problems viewing the live streams.

The outrage has been distilled, simply, into #nbcfail. It is difficult for now to determine if #nbcfail represents a tiny minority or is a sampling of a widespread problem. NBC believes it is the former. Tape delay has been an effective tool for all Olympic networks, which have rationalized its use with this mantra: we hold the marquee sports until prime time to harvest the highest rating and optimize our advertising so we can afford our ever-increasing rights fees. But fans long upset with tape delay have reason to keep complaining. Major sports are always televised live. Why not the Olympics? And with the tools available to NBC — multiple networks and the Internet — an all-live Olympics is possible.