Agreed "this seems about as far from HN as you can actually get.", but nbc's implementation of silverlight pisses me off too, plus this was a funny read.
I live in Canada, where the Olympics are broadcast by the CBC, which is a government-owned networks. I too was frustrated by there being commercials every two minutes. However, I got a stopwatch and timed how many commercials there were in an hour: there were 13 minutes, which is actually slightly less than "normal" television. My guess is that they have very frequent but short commercial breaks to better fit in between races, events, or whatever. Also, this makes sure that people who are just taking a few minutes to check in see atleast one commercial. Has anybody made any observations about NBC- do they really have more commercials than other TV?
Now I just wish Canada would win a medal: frankly, it is embarrassing that tiny little Georgia which is in the middle of a freaking war is currently beating us.
But, you know, people keep watching the crappy coverage, and Olympic officials are raking in the exclusive-contract bucks, and the athletes seem happy to perform for cheap, so it's hard to see how the Olympics will change.
Its times like this I am glad we have a tax paid network of channels in the UK - the BBC. No commercials, and they have very little reason to keep you watching for their own gain, so you just end up with quality journalism (Olympic coverage is journalism...isn't it?) with no over the top graphics.
Whats BBC America like? Does that have any Olympic stuff?
I'm most pissed that some of the earlier events are still linked on the site, but have no video attached to them. I'm trying to get the qualifing day of women's gymnastics to show someone a routine with very little significance other than the song in the background.
Therefore, I'm gonna point out that this is !HN.
Some guy whining aggressively about sports on TV -- this seems about as far from HN as you can actually get.