US fans angered by Olympics TV blackout

Agence France-Presse
Saturday, August 09, 2008, (New York)

The rest of the world might have been dazzled by the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony but angry US viewers clamoring for a glimpse of the spectacle on Friday were made to wait after a media blackout.US network NBC, which owns exclusive rights to Olympics coverage in the United States, refrained from showing the opening ceremony live, preferring instead to delay coverage by 12 hours for a prime-time evening slot.A spokesman for NBC, which paid nearly 900 million dollars for Olympics broadcast rights, said the decision was taken to maximize viewing figures."It's a business decision," the spokesman said."It protects our affiliates, our advertisers, and shows it to the largest number of viewers possible," he added.Bizarrely, the co-hosts of NBC's breakfast television show barely mentioned the ongoing ceremony during their broadcast, which was reportedly pre-taped.Meanwhile rival networks used correspondents in Beijing to describe details of the ceremony, but no footage of the extravaganza was available.Major newspapers carried extensive reports of the ceremony in their online editions, with the story dominating The New York Times homepage. The Times illustrated their coverage with a selection of photographs.The opening ceremony blackout dismayed dozens of readers who posted messages on a New York Times message board."What a joke. I got up this morning to watch the ceremony assuming that it would be on," said one poster, Andrew, who wrote that he had found a live stream of the event on the Internet.Another contributor, Leo, said attempting to impose a blackout in the age of the Internet was impossible.

Posted By anand-Saturday, August 09, 2008
it shows that American media has ethics and is not anti-national like Indian media

On the contrary, it shows that the American media cannot think of anything except commercial interests. Not to worry, the Indian media will catch up with the Americans.