NBC promises plenty of live swimming coverage in prime time
Bob Costas began his 11th Olympics as NBC’s prime-time host Saturday evening with a touch of poetry.
“In Rio de Janeiro they opened the Olympic Games with a Brazilian signature, a massive party welcoming the globe,” Costas said. “Now, the samba gives way to the rhythm of competition.”
The Games are available on a menu of channels plus streaming, some 6,775 hours all told — but the heart of NBC’s coverage is the network’s prime-time coverage, where the nightly offerings are simplified, synthesized and teed up for a general audience keen to watch a form of reality TV that’s actual reality.
Bodies flew through the air at men’s gymnastics. Then NBC took viewers to the pool for what Costas promised is eight consecutive nights of live swimming. Viewers are in good hands there with Dan Hicks calling races, Rowdy Gaines offering giddily excited expert commentary and Michelle Tafoya asking questions of wet racers on the pool deck.
Underwater cameras allow Gaines to offer tutorials on the finer points of strokes and turns. And then there’s the star power of Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps. NBC is setting up this swim meet as the Katie and Michael Show. Ledecky anchored the USA’s silver-medal 4x100 freestyle relay Saturday night, and Phelps hits the water Sunday.
Also getting NBC’s star treatment was Kerri Walsh Jennings as she began her quest for a fourth consecutive gold medal in beach volleyball, this time with new partner April Ross. Walsh Jennings’ killer-quote in NBC’s setup piece: “I think I was born to have babies and play volleyball.”
NBC cut away from a fascinating Tom Brokaw piece on the Amazon rain forest when the Swiss got a reversal of a game-ending replay decision against China in women’s beach volleyball. “That’s what we used to call a do-over on the playground,” a bemused Costas said after the Chinese team won again. “And you know it’s important when they not only hear the dispute, but we interrupt Tom Brokaw. Now, where were we?” And NBC replayed the feature from the start — another do-over.
The network took a lot of guff online Friday night for its tape-delayed coverage of the opening ceremony and when the overnight ratings were released on Saturday they were the lowest for an opening since 1992. NBC showed some events live right away on Saturday morning parts of the swimming prelims among them. NBC lets you know with the word LIVE in the upper right-hand corner of the screen, next to the NBC logo with the Olympic rings underneath, which Jimmy Fallon says looks like the peacock laid some eggs.
Highlights of Saturday morning coverage included Jimmy Roberts’ moving piece on the refugee team of athletes who are competing under the Olympic flag. Mike Tirico was smooth as a daytime host in his first Olympics for his new network after a long run at ESPN.
Dan Patrick conducted an engaging interview with Virginia Thrasher, an ebullient sophomore at West Virginia University who won the Games’ first gold in women’s 10-meter air rifle. Thrasher told Patrick she’d originally wanted to be an Olympic figure skater. As for rifle, “I didn’t know it was a sport until I entered my first year of high school.”
Ledecky’s first appearance came in the afternoon in the relay heats, and she produced the fastest leg of the U.S. swimmers by a full second. Gaines could barely contain himself. “I’ve got to calm down,” he said, “but that was a spectacular split!”
When afternoon action moved from beach volleyball to the indoor variety, NBC oriented the fans at home as host Al Michaels said the indoor arena is 8 miles from the beach and cameras swooped viewers over the city from one site to the next.