CTV’s alpine coverage went downhill, fast
February 15, 2010 · 68 Comments
The men’s downhill is one of the glamour events of the Winter Olympics.
Therefore, a network needs to pay attention when it airs the competition live. And, remember, in the field of 64 for Monday’s men’s downhill at the Vancouver Games, only four Canadians were competing.
So, what did CTV do for its live coverage? Despite the many opportunities it had to insert a commercial, it decided to air one immediately before Canadian Robbie Dixon was scheduled to ski. A better decision would have been to stay with the telecast to set up his run.
But that wasn’t the worst of it. The commercial break went late, forcing CTV to rush back to the live coverage, but not in time. It had to wind back the tape to catch Dixon’s start. You might have seen a black screen on your TV for a moment and heard the tape rewind. It was a mess, and it would have been easily avoidable by not airing the commercial directly before a Canadian run.
Less problematic, but still irritating, was the analysis of Brian Stemmle and Cary Mullen. One of Canada’s competitors, Manny Osborne-Paradis, matched the time of the leader after the top half of his run, but then he fell well behind.
What happened? Neither Stemmle nor Mullen adequately explained why or how the time was lost. One of them said there had been “too many mistakes at the bottom,” but didn’t tell us precisely what they were.
In the months leading up to CTV’s Olympic coverage, it was suggested that the alpine ski broadcasters would need experience calling races at the venue. CTV-Rogers did very little live on-site coverage of ski competitions, but suggested it wouldn’t be problem, because the play by play broadcasters merely park themselves at the bottom of the hill and call the races from inside a TV booth.
CTV’s downhill coverage was generally sloppy. In prime time, host Brian Williams failed to identify the men’s downhill play by play team, Gerry Dobson plus Stemmle and Mullen. At Whistler, host Jennifer Hedger referred to Osborne-Paradis as Manny Osborne. And then there was a technical glitch that sent the telecast back to the studio. Later, Williams confused an interview with Canadian snowboarder Robert Fagan for one with Canadian silver medal winner Mike Robertson.
What is Campbell trying to do?
Jamie Campbell’s work calling the freestyle and snowboard events has been surprisingly poor and also a little strange.
When referring to Canada, he’s making the habit of calling it “this great country.” He did it on Sunday night when Alexandre Bilodeau won his gold medal. He used the words again Monday during a men’s snowboard cross semi-final, identifying Fagan and Robertson as “two from this great country.” Yes, we know Canada is a great country, Jamie. You don’t need to wrap yourself in the flag and keep announcing it.
And then there was his excessively supportive call on the men’s snowboard cross final. This was the race in which Robertson blew a big lead to finish second to American Seth Wescott. To listen to Campbell, you would have thought Robertson had made a huge comeback to win a gold medal.
“What a performance by Mike Robertson, who has captured the silver medal!” Campbell enthused. Then he said, “Stand up and clap your hands.”
Clap our hands? He blew a big lead. It was a disappointment.
Readers have also pointed that analyst Tara Teigen never explained how Robertson’s huge lead disappeared (probably because it would have required Teigen to criticize Robertson for playing it safe). She told us that Wescott had been “a little bit speedier.” And, in a pathetic post-race interview, reporter Mark Torlay couldn’t even ask the obvious, “How did you lose your lead?” The best he could do was, “Take us through these moments.” Robertson said he missed a jump, but what does that mean? He stayed on his board.
NOTE: During the Games, I’m also writing for Yahoo! Canada. Here’s my first column from Monday.
CTV averaged 5.3 million viewers for prime time on Monday night, 4.5 million for the afternoon coverage, and 1.3 million in the morning.
Filed under Article Posts · · 
Email This Article
Wow you guys are terrible at this.
First up, silver for Mike Robertson is not a disappointment. He wasn't supposed to be a medalist. He got beat by the defending Olympic champion. Do you really need to be hand fed every detail. It was pretty damn obvious why he lost.
Let's face it, most of us Canadians are all just a bunch of whining complainers. If they had asked the question "Why did you lose", 90% of you would be criticizing the announcers for asking such a stupid, obvious question.
I'm not sure if you noticed, but this is the CANADIAN coverage, hence the focus on CANADIAN athletes. If you think it is too over the top, head on over to NBC and see how bad it can really get. Oh wait, you'll have to wait for primetime, because they aren't showing any Olympic coverage during the day.
I personally like Bob Costas, but if ever there was an announcer with over the top hyperbole when talking about sports, he is the biggest culprit.
So quit your whining. Oh wait that's just what you do.
Seeing as you enjoy the coverage, check out the new olympics viewing drinking games that are spreading on a few sites like facebook. take one swig for every "gutsy" canadian speed skating performance (that means we finished way out of the medals). Take five quick gulps every time brian williams blames someone for something going wrong in the studio. Take 3 for lack of audio (you'll be through a six pack at this point). To finish your drink on the spot – just wait for a "Great country" call from campbell at cypress. after about a half hour you'll be tanked and the coverage will look fantastic!
….and just when you think you're really tanked, here comes Dutchyshen with a bottle of champagne!
The consortium's Olympic coverage has demonstrated the absolute dearth of sports broadcasting talent in this country. Flipping over to NBC and watching old pros like Costas and Michaels only serves to further highlight this deficiency. The only saving grace is that CTV hasn't managed to shoehorn Ben Mulroney onto my TV (yet).
I watched agan tonight and the flow of the ctv coverage is maddening. also, did you notice that in their "magic moment" replay of the sno cross silver they completely edited out campbell's call – as it clearly missed the mark.
Great to see a comment above from Jim Van Horne. Jim, we miss high calibre broadcasters such as yourself. I like most was under the impression that nothing could top the ineptitude of the ctv broadcast until I went to their horrid website ctvolympics.ca; I will give you ten bucks if you can find a video link that works properly. Pathetic, just pathetic.
The other funny thing is the fact that they post the results before the video catches up so make sure to play in full screen mode if you don't want to know what will happen.
To some it up…The consortium is way out over their skiis.
Hi, I have been looking for a place to give some feedback and I guess this is it. I am just a little shocked at how arrogant the presenters on CTV are. I am not saying CBC is great, but I ask Mr. Houston to probe a bit more on this topic. It seems Williams thinks he's the whole show. Also the other hosts seem to think they are above the viewer, like they are just so happy to be part of team Canada. It seems they haven't really stopped saying how great Canada is, and instead are forgetting to cover news and live events as they happen. I thought this whole Rogers and CTV /Bell alliance was supposed to be great but it seems like they are really trying hard to make themselves look great instead of the athletes. Any how Mr. Houston, keep up the good work and hope you respond.
Generally speaking, the interviews have been terrible and awkward. What is with the delay between the host ending the interview and the camera going away? Brian Williams seems extra full of himself this time around, like this is his show, and given the amount of face time they are giving him and not to athletes/events, I guess that could be true.
It is amazing to think that years and years of planning went into this effort. I guess you can't teach old dogs new tricks though (Williams, Campbell, Hedger, Dutchyshen etc)
Rod Smith is excellent on the speed skating, I would nominate him to be the next studio guy for 2012. Le May Doan is just an awful colour commentator, lots of hyperbole and cliche, not much substance, I find myself wishing that they would cut her mic. Bump up Susan Auch from the short-track, she has been quite good.
in the robertson race my overwhelming impression was campbell was determined to steal the show with his overwrought call, especially down the stretch…
just guessing but he probably received false praise from his colleagues all day for his (hackneyed is the perfect word) call on the gold medal run and actually started to believe he was a good broadcaster with proper inflection etc……instead it was senseless yelling that was really unbearable to listen to
he has no talent…………but its his total lack of preparation that has turned this opportunity into a dead end for his drifting career
Jamie Campbell did a poor job on the play by play of the Robertson run. Only thing in his defence is I think the camera angles didn't really catch the key moment where Robertson lost speed and that left Campbell dumbfounded when the pass occurred. Of course, he failed to redeem himself in the post race analysis. He wasn't the only one clueless, Robertson himself didn't even seem to know what had happened.
ITA – the camera work didn't properly show what was happening… its too bad they didn't have another angle or even an overhead to properly show how Wescott got ahead of Robertson.
The only good thing that's come out of the Games coverage so far is this: Jamie Campbell has proved himself the country's most inept broadcaster (and that's saying something, when the "icon" Brian Williams is part of the collection of talking heads).
I thought my impression of Campbell was jaded because of my dislike for the Toronto Blue Jays (seriously, the dude doesn't know which end of the bat a baseball player is supposed to hold). But his maudlin, hackneyed, groan-inducing work on the Olympic snowboarding and moguls broadcasts ranks as an all-time low.
Glad our tax dollars didn't go toward this.
That a bit strong, don't you think? I mean the young man is doing his best, just like he did on baseball.
Campbell could well be drunk when calling these so called Olympic sports … he has a well documented history of being a boozehound.
Ya, I bumped into him and the bachelor Jesse Palmer at the Super Bowl a few years back and that red-headed boy was seriously juiced.
I seem to disagree with most – I think Campbell has done a pretty good job. Technically, CTV has been sloppy. During the biathlon they didn't even show the Canadian finish. Very poor – RJ Broadhead did a good job of explaining it but you could almost hear his frustration with CTV. Technical wise the coverage has been horrible. The messed up tapes with Fagan and Robertson wasn't as funny as Williams thought it was…I hope they sell the rights for the next games to CBC
Campbell is out of his element. Just watching the Women's Snowboarding right now, he's stumbling & bumbling, mispronouncing competitors names, and generally unaware of the sport. There's no excuse for not boning up on the rules of the event, and for heaven's sake, learn who the competitors ARE!! Check out tape from previous years X-Games, or listen to how other broadcasts are done — read a book about the topic, talk to some of the riders, or, heaven forbid, actually strap on a board and try running the course slowly.
Just because the guy is a "broadcaster" (and I use that term loosely) doesn't mean he should be broadcasting. It's embarrassing to watch.
i agree with everything you say about campbell
but i think he erred in not honing up rather than "boning up" – though i suspect he may have boned up when our "GREAT COUNTRY" won gold the other day
As Stu Scott would say, "Booyah!"
all of these "X" game events have live announcers at the event who know the sport and are there week in week out…. a couple of contract positions would have made sense….
i was at blue mountain for the recent FIS ski cross and stood behind the two announcers who were working with two lap tops and a big screen too far away… and they were fantastic…
as someone who was new to watching the sport i took the time to tell them after that they really helped me enjoy the day….
too bad someone didnt think of getting announcers with sport experience
Hilarious. Lisa LaFlamme announced on main CTV channel: We are now going to the USA Switzerland hockey game. And where do we go: Immediately to Jamie Campbell and Tara Teigan at the woman's snowboard event. The ineptitude continues.
And the snowboard event is in a fog delay. It's the Olympics, there should be other sports we can go to instead of waiting. I thought the main network would take us everywhere; a little bit of this sport, a taste of that. This is horrible. This is the amazing coverage that CTV hyped prior to the Olympic games? I certainly hope that heads will roll at CTV headquarters. This is unacceptable.
The sad thing is the ratings have been phenomenol, due to it being a home country hosted Olympics and being such a strong country going in. I don't think they (CTV) really care about the product being delivered as long as the eyeballs are there, which they are.
Sad but true. CTV will continue to pump out mediocre material and the public will lap it up, simply because there are no other real opportunities (aside from NBC and their tape-delay package at night).
But this is also true, to a certain extent, for most of what CTV does.
The only saving grace to the games so far is the lack of promos voiced by that guy who (infuriatingly) says "Ccc – Tee – Vaaaayyyyy".
This coverage is the worst I have ever seen and have switched over to NBC for better coverage. That in itself will tell you bad this CTV/TSN effort has been.
Jamie Campbell is an embarrassment, while many other of the announcers seems lost and quick frankly the athletes seem better prepared them their professional counterparts.
The FAN 590 coverage has been horrible. Like others have said, all they do is pat each other on the back telling each other how great they are.
Overall the coverage is pathetic, a real, real poor effort.
I agree with you about Jamie Campbell. I'm just glad he's off Jays games.
Overall I definitely miss the CBC's coverage, that's for sure.
I disagree about The Fan though. Prime Time has been interesting, and they're giving Olympic updates all day.
The link I find most lacking in CTV's coverage is stories about athletes other than Canada's. That combined with the over-hyping of Canada's athletes makes for poor viewing. A case in point is the Jeremy Wotherspoon story. He is having an off year, realistically would not have expected to earn a podium position, and the story was all about him and not about his teammate who is higher ranked. There have been several sports where multiple Canadians have competed and only the "name" person is mentioned. My final issue is with what CTV chooses to show on the main network. I feel that the so-called glamour sports, like figure skating, should be shown on the main network. Not everyone has cable and not everyone has TSN (particularly those with Rogers cable which makes its subscribers pay a premium for TSN) . On a positive note, how refreshing to sit down and watch Vic Rauter, Ray Turnbull and Linda Moore calling curling this morning. No cheerleading, fair commentary offered to both sides. Guess it comes from years of practice…
I agree Catherine the curling team I was excited to hear this morning finally a team of broadcasters that are making their event more special.
I guess the talent pool in Canada is only so deep. If Jamie Campbell was the best the CTV consortium could come up with for the snowboard events, God help us. Saying it was amateur would be kind. The coverage would have been the exact same if you'd simply grabbed somebody off the street. I've been so disappointed with what I've seen so far, I really have no desire to watch any more.
Add me to the people who really appreciate Rod Smith on the speedskating… love the no-BS style. I can't tell you the relief I have when I tune into SportsDesk/Centre and he's going solo rather than the combination of Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee.
The worst part of the "Consortium" coverage is that each station is operating like they are independent of each other. You have no idea where to find the event you want to see among the 6 or so channels, they don't say anything, In this day and age you would think they could make use of some sort of ticker. It is almost geared for some people to watch TSN, some to watch Sportsnet and some CTV, not to flip back and forth. I've seen Heil and Bilodeau's runs about 4000 times. There is such a lack of live content. Right in the middle of primetime they are showing replay after replay, shouldn't this be the peak time for live events? There have also been times where 3 channels have the exact same event on. Wasn't the point of the "Consortium" to have everything covered. I haven't seen any of the biathlon or cross-country skiing on the big three channels.
I'm happy to see I wasn't the only one shaking my head in disbelief when Robertson's theft of defeat from the hands of victory was described as a triumph.I have nothing but respect for our athletes, but a little reality would be nice.
So a guy barely makes it onto the Olympic team at the last possible moment, ends up winning a silver medal-and he's a failure?
It’s easy to pick on the “glitches” the consortium has faced in the first week of the games. And there have been some biggies, to say the least. But there have been a few exceptional performances. Rod Smith and his long track calls have been outstanding. He has always been a solid commentator and his voice is like the voice of God. Lemay Doan should be more analytical instead of team member. Maybe the longer she’s away from the sport the more she’ll be able to offer “objective” pinion. Think of baseball and hockey analysts, the best ones are the former players who have been separated from the game for a while and can have some perspective.
I think Katherine Dolans interviews of both Jenn Heil and Alex Bilodeau were excellent. Better than the usual “how do you feel” first question. She has worked hard to understand what a reporter has to do, it’s pretty obvious.
And from a selfish point of view, I am especially happy with the work of the Aboriginal Commentators on APTN. Most of them have absolutely no broadcast experience but have been doing great work. Afterall, I trained them… lol
It’s only the Olympics, enjoy the games……
Tell it like it is, JVH!
Let's look at this in a bigger picture. CTV/TSN/Sportsnet are using broadcasters that outside of Brian Williams and Chris Cuthbert, have little or no Games experience, The same can be said for their technical and support crews. Struggling out of the gate was inevitable, as anyone who watches their day to day sports news shows can atest. We're only four days in, but if the broadcasts don't improve considerably over the next week and a half, then the people who made the decisions re: crewing have to be asked some tough and pointed questions.
I guarantee the underlying problem to all this has been money. Way too much spent on acquiring the games, and then trying to hire people on a shoestring budget. Run a google search on 'you get what you pay for' and guaranteed there will be a crew photo of CTV's Vancouver workers with 'see them' as the caption.
Is this finally the last we'll see of Jamie Campbell? First he kicks around baseball for five years and now he's been equally horrible calling the 'X-games' events. My favourite so far has not been his butchering of the events but his description of the weather at Cypress Mountain yesterday as "delicious". Say what? Did somebody get a thesaurus for Christmas?
He must have some pictures. There is no other explanation.
Loved when Campbell said one of the female snowcross skiers was from "Denver…er, Denmark…(pause)…I'm sure she's been to Denver". Absolutely brilliant. Maybe when he done his Olympic assignment he can hook up with Conan and conquer comedy as well.
Yeah, I couldn't believe the snowboard cross commentary. All I could think was – how the hell did that guy (the American) come back to win? No explanation, it was so frustrating! Then CTV had to keep on replaying the silver medal performance without explaning it! The only clues I got were from the interview with Robertson who admitted he "missed a jump" – note that this did not come from the interviewer asking him directly why he lost. The second clue was a comment from Westcott (don't recall the network) that he knew Robertson was a good starter and might be able to build up speed to beat him at the bottom.
Completely atrocious commentary!
I could have saved the CTV mafia a whole lot of money. Namely reduce the coverage by about 75%. Way too much time is spent on the studio hosts yapping about some event that’s coming up – usually not for 4 hours or more. Why is there coverage at 9am Toronto time? Its 6 frickin am in Vancouver – obviously nothing is happening!!!
And of course Houston is right; many of the broadcasters are sub par and annoying.
Since the men’s downhill is over the only thing left to watch is men’s hockey. Hopefully the announcers don’t ruin it for us.
Two words; pierre magwire.
If you're only going to use two words, try spelling them both right, moeman.
Spellingcop, just having fun.
Although Campbell is clearly a homer he never declared a gold medal for Canada during the snow cross final; just a sure medal, with one of the four contestants having fallen it would seem obvious.
Wolfgang if your daily wicca is to criticize CTV, you should be sure of you facts before hand. Perhaps a running total on your mistakes is in order. Yesterday along with the Campbell call, it was confusing Darren Dutchyshen with Darren Dreger. What will today bring?
I also PVR'd it as well to hear the commentary again, and Ziggy, you are right that he did say medal, not gold medal. Still a horrible call. Tara Teigan did a horrible job with her comments on that call and after, as she had no explanation for how Mike Robertson was passed, as SaGa alluded to below. I never felt this way before watching past CBC Olympics, meaning being left out in the dark like that.
Contrast this to Rod Smith and Catriona Le May Doen. Both handled the extreme difficulties this event had in Richmond with knowledgeable commentary that did not pull any punches. Smith's calls are first-rate as well.
The figure skating coverage has also been excellent, and David Pelletier is incredible. He is knowledgeable, funny, knows how to let the performances play out without too much talking, and a sheer joy to listen to.
What it really comes down to is that the snowboarding and aerial coverage in contrast has been so bad that both of them had no right being put in that position. Since these events kickstarted the Olympics it has left a very bad taste in a lot of viewers mouths.
i had to repeatedly rewind the PVR during the snowboard cross because i couldn't believe some of the stuff said by Campbell.
first admitting that he was new to the snowboard cross, then immediately referring to it as 'totally rad'! also he introduced one French boarder as a 'villain'!
i was convinced this guy must have smoked a joint with before the event or something.
completely inappropriate and unprofessional.
I am finding that when I am watching the Canadian commentaries on TV that they are essentially drooling over the Canadian atheltes. Okay, I know they are going to obviously cheer on the Canadians more than the other countries, but its getting tiring hearing them talk about how amazing they are when sometimes they aren't that amazing, in my opinion. Were in 5th place right now with medals – they don't ever mention that……
Overall, I hate how the media is covering the Olympics. What some may be calling great patriotism by the constant hammering by media about how Canada is the greatest place on the world. I'm not saying it isn't, but
when did Canadians start to have the egos the size of Americans?
It's the same complaints every Olympics. Perhaps if these networks covered these sports in between Olympics there wouldn't be so many gaffes.
Just listened to the FAN590 radio where Mike Hogan just had an hour of over-the top praise for the "outstanding TV coverage" to date. In particular, Hogan described Campbell's calls as "unbelievably great and memorable". Seems even those not deemed worthy enough to go to Vancouver to work the games (Hogan) have drunk the CTV-Rogers kool-aide flavoured with a blend of self-promotion, hubris and clichéd schtick. Professionalism is certainly a much needed missing ingredient.
I have until the start of this Olympics always decried my tax dollars going to the publicly funded CBC and how it has been wasted. My views have changed in this regard, at least in terms of Olympic coverage, or whatever you can call the product we are being subjected to in Vancouver.
The sooner that Jamie Campbell's events are finished the better. I can't imagine a worse butchering job on so many levels, be it lack of knowledge of the events/participants, homer boosterism to epic proportions, jumping the gun on calls where he ends up being proven wrong, and just basically a nerd covering cool sports which was likely the biggest faux pas in terms of him being selected. I watched the clip on RDS to hear what proper announcers sound like, and growing up in Quebec, do speak French. I recommend everyone to go to RDS and watch some clips and even if you don't speak French you will enjoy them immensely. True professionals at their jobs. Unfortuantely, I do not get RDS so am shut out from watching them.
Double check all through your channels for RDS, Brian. I can't say for sure when it ends, but it was on Free Preview on Bell (ExpressVu) as recently as last week.
Thanks for the tip David. I am on Rogers, and had a free HDTV preview of RDS, currently on Channel 508, but that is long gone. I checked now to see if RDS is available on a regular channel, but unfortunately, it is not. I can either pay extra for RDS on HD, which I may do, but I already pay Rogers enough as it is, so am reluctant to do so. Possibly adding it on for the rest of the Olympics and then removing it could work.
Try channel 616 on Rogers. It's the standard def version of RDS. HD is on 617 and it's not available with a digital box, but 616 works for me.
Thanks Hack. Tried it but got the dreaded "Not Authorized" message, to order please call (888)764-3771. I will call Rogers to find out if I can get it within a package somehow without having to pay extra for it.
Seems like Campbell, and a many other of the talking heads, did little more than try to learn the names of the top competitors for the events he is covering. Clearly he has NO clue about what he is calling and the absolutely shameful way he described the Canadian Robertson's silver medal win was nothing less than bush. Campbell declared "another gold for this great country" long before the race was over … homerism at its best (worse).
But the way I look at it is that all great, or poor businesses are a direct reflection of the management from the top down. It is becoming abundantly clear that the whole coverage is under prepared and walks and talks with a swagger of arrogant pomposity. That describes Ivan Fecan and his little right hand man Keith Pelley to a tee. With poor leadership, you get poor results no matter how much money is spent, or in this case wasted…
No doubt we will see more and more gaffes, fumbles, over-the -top self praise and verbal nonsense from the broadcast until the end. No doubt Scott Moore and his CBC Sports management team must be quietly giggling to themselves right about now.
Absolutely right on all accounts — it's like many of the CTV hosts just walked onto the various sets and started talking, with no time spent learning important things about the sport they're covering, like the competitors, rules and relevant history. Do they really think that by just flapping their gums and making various sounds that they're doing a great job?
And Wolfgang, you hit it right on the head in regards to where the problems originate from, it's a top-down issue that can only be fixed with some serious housecleaning of the corner offices.
i have to say in follow up that lemay-doan was much better yesterday. didnt hear gutsy skate once… and did hear some critical thinking… while everyone else was talking about how easy it would be to move the skate to another day… she pointed out how this would effect skaters and the way they had prepared for each event…..
although she did get a little repetitive with the kick thing… partly rod's fault because he kept taking her back there….
but overall a noticeable improvement from day one…
it sounds like CTV has taken the NBC approach to presenting the games: focusing on Canadian stories at the expense of letting the competition unfold, cramming commercials in prior to start times, fluffy announcing, etc.
the games need to be on another network next time around. NBC is admitting to losing 200 million on these games (who knows how high the real number is). hopefully "the consortium's" losses are sufficiently high so as to dissuade them from doing this again.
Mike, you hit the nail on the head regarding the tone of the CTV coverage. I used to greatly enjoy watching the Canadian coverage of the Olympics to get away from the cringe-inducing homerism of the American coverage. Our coverage was a little bland, perhaps, but at least we played it straight. Now we do it just like the Americans, focusing endlessly on the Canadian who finished 16th instead of the international competitors who, you know, actually won. Combine that with the incessant flag waving Bill Houston accurately describes, and I'm not sure how Galen Weston manages not to break out laughing when doing a commercial about alleged Canadian reticence.
Overall, so far, I have been a bit shocked at the poor quality of both the telecasts and the on air announcers. Campbell has been downright embarassing and has actually made me feel sorry for him.
But, the worst Olympic media coverage I heard yesterday was on the The FAN 590 Toronto. I was in the car for a 3 hour drive home yesterday, looking for updates and news. Doug Farraway and Roger Lajoie were on talking about what a wonderful job all the Fan employees were doing and going beyond the call of duty in there work assignments.
I don't know, maybe I am getting old, but I do not remember a sporting event coverage or Olympic Games coverage where the presentation has been so poor and somewhat bush league.
Maybe Jamie needs to sit down with the rest of the Olympic crew and learn when the atheletes of "this great nation" are going to be up, instead of showing us a commercial of them trying to chow down on McDonalds.
Brian Williams is the worst sports commentator/journalist/broadcaster EVER PERIOD. And not too far behind him is Rod Black. Both of these dopes have say the same thing each and every single time. Unfortunately we are forced to listen to these guys. Why do you guys consistently pronounce people names incorrectly? Example: remember Jacques Villeneuve… VILLE-NEUVE = Two Syllables NOT THREE!
I've been fortunate enough to see only a couple of Brian Williams segments so far — is he still doing that idiotic time-zone thing each hour?? ("It's noon in Vancouver, 3pm in Toronto, 4 o'clock for those of you watching on the East Coast, 8pm in Helsinki and 2am tomorrow in Ulaanbaatar).
Do we want commentary, analysis or both? The snowboard cross fellow(Robertson) was obviously "playing it safe" and one only has to go back to Turin to see the American female cross snowboard competitor wiping out metres from the finish line after a '''hot dog " move, robbing herself of a medal. What I really wanted to know is how Robertsonb had the "kahunies" to go elbow to elbow with the others at the beginning knowing that he could have wiped out at that point. I am not sure that was answered by the commentary/analysis.
The commentary /coverage has been above average in my opinion. We have been fortunate to come out to Whistler from Ontario and are grateful for all the stuff we can see after a day of skiing. To those naysayers, try coming out here with all of the distractions/time delays of various events. Walk one day of the shoes of others including you Sir William(Houston) and [perhaps you will have a different take on things. If you don't like the Canadian coverage go over to the US coverage and enjoy!.