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London Event Is Most Watched Summer Games Opening Ceremony
Danny Boyle’s London Olympics Opener Scores 14-Year BBC Ratings High
UPDATED WITH MORE NBC CONTROVERSY: NBC once again is screwing with (and screwing up) American viewers’ Olympics. Which begs the question: why does the IOC keep handing the games on a platinum platter to the Numbskull Broadcasting Company? U.S. audiences weren’t able to watch any of Danny Boyle’s 2012 London opening ceremonies until primetime tonight, which was hours after it took place live. (On the West Coast, there was even a second tape-delayed broadcast 9 hours after the fact.) NBC’s 30th Olympics executive producer Jim Bell not only made that dumb decision but even prevented 
Americans from watching live on computers and portable devices. (And silly me, I thought the coverage would improve without destestable Dick Ebersol at the helm of his 9th Olympics… Didn’t he invent NBC’s lack of live coverage?) As if Comcast didn’t have enough places to show or stream it live other than NBC primetime – from NBC Sports Network, Bravo, MSNBC, CNBC and Telemundo, to all of nbcolympics.com. A sampling of tweets echoes my annoyance: “NBC showing complete contempt for its audience by not showing or streaming Olympics opening ceremony live”… “NBC making an incredible bid for gold medal for Stupidest Network Ever. No livestreaming, no broadcast, just pretending it doesn’t exist”… “Why didn’t NBC show the Opening Ceremonies LIVE and show them again on tape delay in prime time?”
NBC pathetically defended itself thusly: ”We are live streaming every sporting event, all 32 sports and all 302 medals… The opening and closing ceremonies, however, are entertainment spectacles. Our award-winning production team will present them on a medium that best demonstrates their grandeur and majesty, and at a time when friends and family are able to gather together to watch, which is in prime time.”
As if that weren’t enough of an outrage, NBC also insensitively edited out the Olympics Opening Ceremonies’ tribute to 7/7 London bombing victims. Britons are fuming that cut from the NBC coverage was Scottish singer Emeli Sande performance of a moving rendition of “Abide With Me” in their memory. Instead, the Numbskull Broadcasting Company replaced it with that Viscount of Vapidity Ryan Seacrest’s bland interview with already overexposed-in-the-media American swimmer Michael Phelps. (The tribute, according to British press accounts, included big screen shots of Boyle’s late father, and that of London 2012 chief Lord Coe, and dancers dressed in red, representing the struggle between life and death, picked out by a spotlight in the darkness of Olympic Stadium.)
I say send Jim Bell back to The Today Show pronto and don’t let him near any more of this games or the next four more Olympics through 2020. Hard to believe that Bell built his reputation at NBC as a sports producer. Then again, isn’t he losing Today‘s long and legendary lead over his morning show rival Good Morning America after 7 years? So why make him NBC Olympics czar when he can’t even attract breakfast viewers anymore?
That said, Oscar-winning British director Danny Boyle won major round-the-world kudos for a cheeky Opening Ceremonies that turned Olympic Stadium into a giant juke box. Who didn’t enjoy the nonstop rock and pop homage to the birthplace of The Rolling Stones and The Beatles and everything else most cool about Britain? Naturally Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger were on hand as well as James Bond (Daniel Craig) and The Queen (for real and a stunt double too), Also Rowan Atkinson (Mr. Bean), Kenneth Branagh, David Bowie, and many others including David Beckham (a consolation prize since he didn’t make the UK soccer team’s cut). And let’s not forget those animals: 70 sheep, 12 horses, 10 chickens, 10 ducks, 9 geese, 3 cows, 3 sheep dogs, and 2 goats. There was even a moving Muhammad Ali appearance. How Boyle kept almost everything secret is miraculous. What did you think of the show?
Related: London 2012 Olympics: Secrecy & Sheep For Danny Boyle’s Opening Ceremony
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Worse still is that NBC cut tribute to 7/7 bombing victims from their broadcast!
If it’s not 9/11 it doesn’t matter to American networks.
But it does matter to the American people who most often lock arms with the British people.
Amen!
Danny Boyle’s vision was genius, it celebrated the best of Great Britain and the United Kingdon and did something that Brits don’t do very well, shout about itself to the world and didn’t change its vision for the sake of the global audience, it was undeniably British and if some of the audience didn’t understand it then so be it.
Ony downside, IMHO, was Sir Paul McCartney who really should consider hanging up his microphone, that said though the whole night was breathtaking and I for one am one very proud Brit.
I was completely puzzled by Sir Paul’s choice of HEY JUDE. While I realize it allows people from all over the world to sing together — “Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Hey Jude” — not sure a song written to console Julian Lennon when John left Cynthia had any place at the Olympics. I would have far preferred to hear him adapt LET IT BE or ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE for the event (especially since he started the performance with “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”).
One more day until the Olympics is over. Whoever thought we would be subjected to diving night after night when there was so much more to see? The amount of diving coverage was ridiculous, and it’s still going on the last night. Too much. This was poorly done.
This started by giving me several “WTF??!!” moments and then became progressively more and more awesome. I could mention a few gripes, but they’re personal, in that, for me, Paul McCartney is the equivalent of turning the music off and the lights up: everybody go home now! But the sheer fun of the whole thing, as opposed to, say, a certain one-party Communist dictatorship wanting to stamp its and its country’s presence on everyone’s consciousness, was irresistible.
I was fortunate to be able to watch the coverage live. NBC should stand for Numbskull Broadcasting Corporation.
They also deliberately cut away from the tribute to those killed in the 7/7 bombings to show a useless & worthless interview of Michael Phelps by that ubiquitous fool Seacrest.
The commentary by Costas, Viera & Lauer was as inane as could be.
The opening itself was a ridiculous mess with the added bonus of Olympic pomposity with the overblown carrying of the Olympic flag, the so-called queen having to read her 12 words from a card & the absurd first lines out of Coe & Rogge: Your majesty, your majesties, your royal highnesses, etc!
The IOC is an international joke, run by Eurotrash.
It had it’s moments but mostly it seemed like an incoherent mess of British cultural contributions and cliches.
How about Matt and Meredith telling us what we should think and describing some of the most obvious things? It started to get incredibly obnoxious!
Also the tribute…maybe that was another thing we wouldn’t have had the capacity to figure out if we saw it (like the live streaming).
Have to disagree Nikki – I thought the opening ceremony looked like a cheesy skit from Colonial Williamsburg on bad crack, especially the ludicrous digital age part. The finale was an old man sitting at a computer.
That ‘old man’ invented the internet – and gave it to the world for free.
He invented the World Wide Web. There was an internet long before Sir Berners-Lee invented the Web.
Al Gore was in it?!?!?
Imagine the fuss if, say, the BBC cut away from a 9/11 tribute had the games been held in NYC. And NBC wonders why in languishes in the ratings cellar.
YES. If it was our tribute and it was neglected by another country, we’d raise hell.
A stunning production marred by the idiotic chatter of Viera and Lauer. They should have shut the fuck up and just let it play out. As a Rowan Atkinson fan I was irritated that they had to identify him as Mr. Bean as if that was the character he was playing at the moment, which he wasn’t. Yeah, a minor complaint perhaps, but it was the burr under my saddle at the moment.
Yes! The commentary….OMG. I can’t decide which I hated more, the enormous number of commercial breaks or the commentary. The blather was so unnecessary. Granted, small bits of it were helpful….like the reminder that JM Barrie, author of Peter Pan, left the rights to that story to the Great Ormond Street Hospital, which explained why a literary salute and hospitals were presented together. I had forgotten that. But most of it was embarrassing statements of confusion and declarations that we should go google something. Then to discover that NBC cut out the 7/7 tribute. I was just disgusted.
Whoever uses the word “genius” to describe that socialist claptrap/feelgood.third world piece of
incoherent garbage Boyle foisted on the Olympics needs a new dictionary or more likely a sanity
check. It was an utter putrid, self-indulgent miasma of the socialist crapola that has placed
Britain into the craphouse. The so-called celebration of its National Health is a joke. Celebrating
a health care system where those few that can afford it run like hell to the US to fix a problem
rather than waiting ten months for a cancer operation. If the panoply of pop culture is all this
once great nation is all they have to be proud of, say bye bye to England.
Watching that last night it is well to remember: America, forewarned is forearmed. Give
incompententempty suit in the White House another four years and you will be looking at a
Superbowl Halftime show celebrating Obamacare, union strangleholds on the economy
and the same left wing a gendering that Boyle vomited out last night. When they showed
Churchill statue coming alive to wave and smile, they got it wrong. What Churchill was
really saying was OY VEY, is this what I spit blood, sweat, toil and tears to save?
No one in the UK has ever gone bankrupt or lost their house to pay for medical bills! Some people may go to the US for treatment, but everyone in the UK is offered the same treatment regardless of personal wealth!
Yep. Same crappy treatment from third world educated doctors for everyone. No thanks.
Then you, as an anonymous basement dwelling message board champ, don’t have to get socialized medical care. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t mind that opportunity, but then I’m not as brilliant as you, Anonymous.
Funny are the people who have never had socialized medicine claiming that it is some subquality overbearing junk. Enough.
Your ignorance is staggering. I ended up getting a blood infection on a business trip (in China) and found myself in such terrible shape (chest pain, labored breathing) I had to go to the emergency room at King’s College, an NHS hospital, while on business in London. I waited for about 45 minutes before a cardiologist had me on a bed and was performing an ultrasound on my heart. (Based on my symptoms, the admitting nurse understood I was in serious trouble and got me back ASAP — they didn’t just leave me out in the ER waiting area.) Turns out the infection latched on to my artificial heart valve and bacterial growth was shredding my aorta. I was days from the valve coming free and dying on the spot.
I was immediately admitted, stabilized, and four days later, I was on an operating table getting a heart valve replacement and rebuilt aorta. I had a world-class surgeon that specialized in valve replacements. World-class cardiologists monitored every step of the way. World-class nurses. Amazing care, both in application of medicine as well as bedside manner. A little over two weeks later, I walked out the front door of that hospital.
Your snide comment is disgusting and wrong. You know zero about the NHS. Imagine having the worst experience of your life (away from home, too), and then waking up without somebody asking for insurance or payment. No financial stress. The focus is on healing. (Counter that with, and I counted, being asked for money within 90 minutes of checking into a US hospital upon returning the the states for monitoring and making sure the atmospheric changes on the flight home didn’t disturb anything.) Yeah, there were some bills afterward because I wasn’t a citizen, but a fraction of what we pay here.
The NHS is a treasure and they have every reason to celebrate it. I owe it my life. And I was on the edge of my couch, smiling wide at seeing it honored in the Olympics.
Hi Robert
Glad you had a good experience with the NHS on your visit to the UK.
It’s great to hear from an American with actual experience of the system, rather than some voices which seem to regurgitate misinformation/disinformation/slanted opinion from politicians and media who are promoting their own political agenda in the US.
As a Brit and a staunch defender of the NHS, I am the first person to admit it is NOT perfect and it does need improvements, but…… thank god we have it.
I really feel for people who work hard (are who are unable to work) and cannot afford essential medication or treatment.
I understand different people in different countries will want to run things in different ways, but this ceremony was how showing who us Brits are as a nation.
Anyway, the NHS thing was only a small part of the whole ceremony, which itself is only a small part of the olympics, so maybe we should move away from the politics and embrace the fun… it is all meant to be fun isn’t it?
I look forward to visiting the US one day and I hope many Americans are inspired by the olympics to visit the UK.
Things here are a really odd mix of brilliance and crapness – that’s what makes us so peculiar and we kinda like it
I have to respond to a few of H.Klein’s points.
I am writing this from a perspective of a Brit who works in the PRIVATE healthcare sector.
Yes, we have a choice – NHS or private!
But guess what, we Brits love L.O.V.E. the NHS (imperfections and all) and wouldn’t want to live in a Britain without it.
H.Klein makes comment about people going outside the UK to get healthcare (relatively few specialist/urgent cases), but ignores the fact the we also have people come INTO the UK for our superb medical care.
Regarding the artistic merit of the inclusion of the NHS bit, I had some major reservations before the show about its relevance.
However, it fit in well with the theme of British social development and of things we are proud of in our history and society… the free healthcare thing is a cultural difference with the USA perhaps, but please bear in mind this show was about Britain, not the US. I thought it worked well.
Generally the pre-show sentiment in the UK was one of doubt, worry and apprehension… but the post-show feeling over here was that (generally) WE LOVED IT.
I”m sorry that not everyone feels, the same, but you can’t please all the people all the time – not on the internet anyway
I’m sorry that it appears NBC butchered the show with its editing and commentary and hopefully our American brothers will get an opportunity to see an unedited (and a well/minimalist commentated) version somewhere… try and get access to the BBC version of the show if you can.
We love the BBC too
I hope the US enjoys the rest of the games coverage – good luck to your athletes and I hope American viewers and visitors have a great time (we love you guys really)… Mitt Romney can bugger off home though
boohoo everyone should go broke if they get sick.
Besides, Brits have a way more cost effective place to get health care than flying to the US to get ripped off – it’s called Asia. Maybe you’ve heard of it.
Thank you for describing the Opening Mess of the Olympics in the way it really was.
How much have you donated to the guy who got shot in the eye at Dark Knight Rising? or is it beneath you to give to a guy who’s only good eye will get to see a $2 million medical bill?
Under you belief, he should just be killed by the doctors since there’s no way a guy like him can ever earn $2 million to pay back the hospital. And no insurance company would cover it. Even if he had insurance, they’d stick him with at least $200,000 uncovered. So if you can’t afford to pay your hospital bill, you deserve to die.
Your bile is not only unattractive, it is woefully ignorant. With it, you have perfectly illustrated the American character that dooms us, while you think you’re illustrating something else. Ill informed, filled with complete confidence in your misinformation, irate with misplaced anger. To address only one small slice, the only difference between European healthcare and the US is that citizens have the option of using a free, tax supported system if they need, or choose, to. Just like in the US, anyone can pay to see any doctor they please, as promptly as that doctor’s schedule allows (the joke is, here in the US you can wait months to see your exalted private specialists, too).
But I don’t think you care to learn or acknowledge any of that. You just don’t like the way things, as they are now, make you feeeeeel, and so you throw a tantrum.
Always good to hear Americans criticising the NHS without any grounding in how it functions.
In the UK we have private healthcare for anyone who can afford it and the NHS not only provides a safety net for those that can’t, but also serves as an extraordinary resource of leading edge technology, teaching and human resources that just couldn’t be subsidised in any meaningful commercial environment.
Is that Socialist or Civilised ? Once you’ve solved the US gun control laws you might let me know.
After months of build-up and speculation, it failed to live up to the hype. Sadly, the Opening Ceremony was, in a word, rubbish. Boyle is such a brilliant and imaginative filmmaker. I expected much, much more.
Overall, not good.. My tv exploded from too much content(!)= all tape delayed. Shots of the two princes looked like they’d give anything to sneak out for a brew or several.
NBC making money with too many commercial interruptions and Boyle’s over the top show nearly spoils the joy of the world’s top athletes coming together in competition.
I really enjoyed the show for the most part. I certainly would have enjoyed it more if the incredibly annoying commentators hadn’t talked over the entire thing. NBC should be ashamed of themselves.
That said, the other thing I found to be annoying was the fact that the opening ceremony had nothing to do with the Olympics or the Olympians. It had only to do with British culture and their self obsessive tendencies. It was an incredible spectacle, but by the time the athletes started walking in (The whole point of the opening ceremonies unless I am mistaken) the show had gone on too long for my taste.
The Opening ceremony is about introducing the world to the host country, its history, its culture and its ethos.
We thought the OC were a thorough bore, a nice nod to British form, I guess? Hobbittown, Dickensian soot and grime, the Spanish Flu and then the Westside Story with Lisa Bonet and Michael Jackson- make it French and call it ennui, me oui!
The musical mashup teed up with The Who (?), left out Pink Floyd, the Cure. Where was Rod Stewart?
Beijing proved that a few hundred million slaves make a real difference when it comes to making spectacle and splash.
OK, but worse yet was the narration (we all know that’s a sure sign of premature but certain story DEATH) by Lauer and Viera was horrible. When Matt started to sing along I had a moment of longing for Marlee Matlin.
Shame on NBC for packaging it into American “pieces.” I guess they have to make $$$ but am sure that the Prime Time package would have survived WITH live streaming earlier in the day.
Pink Floyd’s Eclipse was played at one stage. I bet Rod is not a happy chappy. And Elton – or did I miss him as all the songs were moshed together? Maybe he’s going to be part of the closing ceremony’s pomp & ceremony? Heard Liam’s Beady Eye will be playing Oasis – dunno if true or not.
Erm, ‘Hobbiton’ was the british countryside. Its got less thatch these days but its based on the actual British landscape which was abandoned for the cities and industrialisation.
Not sure where you got the spanish flu stuff from.
Lauer and Costas were a total embarrassment. Obnoxious is a kind way to describe their commentary.
Totally agree. The Opening was rubbish but made worse by their inane comments.
I never miss an Olympic opening ceremony or closing for that matter, I even called my mother crying at one point (I’m nearly 40) I thought it was awesome, although I missed the first hour of it because someone forgot to set the DVfreakinR! Just that it kicks off one of the greatest testaments to the human spirit, it affected me so strongly! I’m glad they rebroadcast because of how much I missed!
Boring–dark, depressing, nothing about the Olympics, –no wonder the UK is going down the tube.
The opening ceremony is about introducing people to the host country/city and showing people what their nation is about. The only country that really used the olympics as part of it was Greece because it is their history and culture. The most vivid in my mind is Sydney which showcased the Aboriginal history and the arrival of the colonists coming together as modern australia.
Not nice of NBC to do that. Imagine if any other nation were insensitive to 9/11. It’s just wrong.
Sir Paul was very good. I enjoyed him as did most spectators who aren’t nit pickers. Fave moment was HRH & James Bond – HRH knows how to keep her brand relevant. Shame she got caught out looking bored when the Brit team entered. But she is an elderly lady who needs to be in bed at a decent time. Did Phil escape early?
I liked the music side, but could take or leave the rest of it. And the NHS? It might be necessary, but…..please, you have other more interesting things going on in your realm.
I never realized we were living in a police state until I tried to get online livestreaming of the opening and got shut out of every attempt. Shame on NBC for spoiling the world’s biggest come together event. The event was spectacular and it is shocking that NBC could even conceive of cutting the 7/7 tribute. Imagine if the BBC cut out a 9/11 tribute. Where’s the respect?
I think it’s fair to say this would not have happened if the Olympics had been held in the U.S.
I could have done without the “rock and pop homage” in the middle section– it was hard to follow and must have sucked for the live audience (lacking in large-scale elements with just a bunch of teens dancing on the field). I believe a few of the Stones are still alive– couldn’t they have booked them to play live?
The Seacrest interview with Phelps was terrible– it looked like Phelps actually started to laugh at Ryan’s initial (insipid) question.
Michael Phelps’ first gold medal race (the 400M individual medley) is at 19:30 BST (2:30 eastern, 11:30 pacific)– at 2 pm, I’m going to start surfing NBC, NBCSN, MSNBC, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo & then nbcolympics.com– and if that race is not shown/streamed live, then I am writing off the London Olympics altogether.
I’m feeling grateful that here in Canada, we had the choice of watching the opening ceremonies live on two different channels (both owned by CTV).
Beckham didn’t make the UK soccer team because you have to be UNDER 23. Christ, and you blast others for getting their facts wrong. The best Spanish goalkeeper in the world Iker Casillas isn’t playing either.
@Football Fab, You are incorrect. Three overage players are allowed, and Beckham wasn’t picked.
Can we also talk about their paranoid, selfish, dusional, and self-harming practice of c*ckblocking online posting of content? Anyone who’s posting clips online is getting copyright violations and removals. NBCUni does not understand the power or positive impact of viral content. Never has, and apparently never will. I’ve been saying it for the last 5+ years… NBC Uni is the most clueless media company in town. They’re so disconnected from their own audience, from modern technology, and from effective marketing…it’s just plain sad. You’d think the fact that most their scripted shows get canned and most their major films tank would tell them something…how much more audience backlash and loss of revenue do they need to finally just do a complete overhaul of the top dogs and of company policy?!
Let me just ask a question instead of comment:
Would it be better (and more exciting) to watch the opening ceremony live in the afternoon or tape delayed in primetime?
And don’t add anything about NBC or about Lauer or Viera or any other snarky shit about the coverage.
Quite obviously live. How fun is it when the rest of the world and the people you follow on Twitter are all live-tweeting reactions to what’s unfolding, while you’re left in the dark?
Might as well ask “what’s more fun… getting to see the Super Bowl live, or waiting another 3 hours on the West Coast so you can enjoy it in true primetime?”
I was kind of bored, but I think it had more to do with the extremely bad live direction of the live event. Every shot was flat, with no sense of pace in the cutting. You couldnt tell what was happening. The film bits were great, but the tv cutting was horrendous. Come on, they couldnt afford a few skycam shots or something? The halftime show at the superbowl was much more dynamic than this cutting. I always love sir Paul, always a treat. So interesting that the camera crew couldnt even make the singing of Hey Jude interesting when they cut to the athletes. There were the same three cameras with the same three shots of athletes NOT singing throughout. Hmmmmmm
Oh yes! You are right. I’ll never understand why the Olympics always use so many close-ups especially when an event like the opening ceremony is created to be veiwed at a distance by those in a huge arena. Not a single camera shot high above when they were lighting the torch so you could see the overall view of it coming together. Only from the floor and the side of the cauldron and a close-up of the overhead pattern of the flames when the torch came together.
And throughout the opening ceremony it was the same thing so you didn’t always get a sense of the whole but just bits and pieces and there really wasn’t a flow to the performance.
The last time I really enjoyed an opening ceremony was the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and I watched it on TV. It just felt magical and even though I’m not Canadian I was able to appreciate and understand something about the culture and history.