NBC: “No Broadcast Channel”

NBC already has long proven it cannot do the Olympics without forgetting it is a sports event and not a soap opera.  But at least that’s not every year.  However, now, even its Wimbledon coverage is heading downhill rapidly.

Or perhaps it has been sinking for longer than this writer realizes? Yours truly hasn’t seen NBC Wimbledon coverage in years.  And thank goodness.

Commentators seemingly were given various pronunciation versions of Elena Dementieva.  How many times was she called “Dementia?”  And if NBC wasn’t showing us reruns of matches while live others were in progress, it was having trouble getting from the endless barrage of commercials back into matches we were told it was covering live.

Is it a tennis tournament with commercials now and then?  Or commercials interrupted by tennis on the odd occasion?  Any sports body that gives NBC exclusive U.S. rights should have its corporate head examined.

Then there is the “licensing” issue.  Little is more dated in this twittering day and age than watching ESPN announcers during its partnership coverage suppress a smile while informing viewers a certain other match cannot be mentioned.  Why?  Because it is the property of NBC.

That when anyone may change a channel and get a result, or turn from the TV, click over to web information sites and discover the result at a web page load instant.  Which the Wife did accidentally, when she discovered to her surprise (and horror) that Andy Murray had lost to Andy Roddick in a match we had thought was to be shown live on NBC.  Silly us, NBC broadcast it recorded.

Delayed sports on American TV in 2009?  When did we suddenly wake up and find ourselves in 1956 again?  ESPN was marginally better in its partnership coverage, but that’s faint praise given that NBC is an easy act to follow.  For if we all know NBC is losing it anyway, one would think ESPN as ostensibly sports-centered — no pun intended — could at least manage to well cover a simple tennis tournament?

If so, evidently we were expecting way too much.  There, she was Serena.  In turn, her semi-final opponent didn’t seem to have a first name.  She was, inexplicably, almost always “Dementieva.”

Perhaps the ESPN people were trying to impress us with their ability to pronounce it properly?  For rather than covering live sports, when we aren’t getting overrun with commercials, talking seems to be what is done best on that channel of late.  Or, more to the point, screaming.

Somehow, with at least three separate channels at its disposal, it apparently couldn’t manage full live coverage of a Williams sisters’ doubles match which was played alongside Federer/Haas.  Maybe it was the property of NBC?  After a while, one loses the ability to care.

ESPN can, however, while American women are playing for a Wimbledon championship, clutter our screens with “Sports Center” highlights of the likes of last night’s Orioles game (Baltimore readers, do not take offense please) and what the NBA draft will mean for the Nets.  (New Jersey fans, ditto.)  Or never fail to provide us with simulcasts of “Mike and Mike.”  To say nothing of insightful, countless programs composed of yelling sports scribblers who otherwise labor for various soon to be bankrupt newspapers.

One never craved the BBC so much.  The Beeb’s news coverage may be biased and at times awful.  And while they may have blown the post-match to last year’s men’s final, to be perfectly honest overall its sports coverage is light years better than that of any American TV network.

[Posted 6:40 PM NY time.]