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On the last night of his Olympic career, NBC announced today that it will broadcast Michael Phelps: America’s Golden Champion at 7 PM on Sunday. The one-hour special will be an “intimate look at 18-time gold medalist and 22-time overall Olympic medalist”. Tonight, NBC Olympics pointman Bob Costas interviewed Phelps who is the most decorated Olympian ever. The 27-year old announced his intention to retire from Olympic competition after this year’s games and had his last turn as an Olympian today on the American men’s 4×100 meter medley relay. NBC also will be airing Gymnastics, Beach Volleyball, Track and Field, and Diving during primetime Sunday as scheduled.
Deadline's Dominic Patten - tip him here.
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Apparently NBC is still clueless, thinking viewers care about Michael Phelps as a personality. He might be a great swimmer, but he’s totally dull and has nothing new or fascinating to say.
Why so angry? All we care about is continued high ratings and Phelps is a ratings winner. When you win 22 Olympic medals we’ll do a one hour special about you too.
And be sure to tune in to The Today Show after the Olympics are over we are replacing Savannah Guthrie with Gabby Douglas. Savannah has not improved our ratings at all she’s just as bad as Ann Curry was. Gabby Douglas is guaranteed to make us #1 again in the morning ratings.
Yes so clueless, despite the fact that it’ll probably net them record numbers. But you kno, they’re still fucking idiots
The hour will likely be a win for 60 Minutes. Nothing But Crap will show the Men’s 100m Final at 11:40 PM EDT/PDT following a 8-12 hour delay. This will be followed by an interview with the winner and Bob Costas that will last until 12:20 AM and cause Jacksonville’s Dan Hickson to go off the deep end.
Seriously though, NBC’s coverage has been horrific to say the least. In my life, I have never seen it this bad. As the people on Twitter have been putting it this past week, NBC’s coverage has been nothing but Americans in the Olympics or America in London, and the other athletes are there to provide nothing but token competition to victorious Americans. Granted Track & Field might have more of an international flavor, but NBC simply chops up the coverage and spoon feeds it to the masses saying, take this and love it because it is all you are getting.
NBC = Nothing But Crap
Amazing how they’re getting record numbers off of tape-delayed broadcasts and now milking this with the Phelps special. If NBC is smart, maybe rethink airing that awful “Animal Kingdom” during the closing ceremonies next week and do what’s right and that’s just air the damn thing…IN ITS ENTIRETY!
It’s Animal Practice so there is an #NBCfail for you. Seriously, just kidding on the #NBCfail. In any case, I believe the last time NBC broadcast a Closing Ceremony in its entirety was in Atlanta. For the record, Sydney’s was cut. I remember that it was supposed to last 5 hours, but the NBC telecast was five hours including the Men’s Marathon and fluff. Salt Lake City’s was cut for the local news, Athens was cut for commercials as was Torino’s and Beijing’s. Vancouver’s was cut for “The Marriage Ref” and local news. To make matters worse, NBC will air “GoOn” after the day’s action is done.
Dude, he’s going to talk about blunt force and its effectiveness in competition… Chill.
I can’t get enough of Michael Phelps.
As someone who has watched a significant amount of NBC’s coverage, if I ever again see Michael Phelps on my tv screen it will be too soon. How disrespectful have the commentators been to his US teammates, asking asinine questions like, “What was it like to swim with Phelps on his last Olympic swim?” As opposed to, “What was it like to help win a gold medal for your country?” A huge embarrassment.
Every time I watch the Olympics I am reminded just how brilliant Jim McKay was. I watched the wonderful piece on HBO about him and the hostage crisis unfolding in horror and him having to bounce back and forth from that insanity to the olympic coverage. No one around good enough to wipe his shoes now. Truly brilliant.
If I just became the most decorated Olympian of all time I would HOPE someone would want to do a story about it. So what if hes “dull” in person, hes not a chosen celebrity hes an Olympic athlete. I think his achievements are fascinating and admirable and NBC should not be torn to shreds for having a special that celebrates the accomplishments of an American athlete. What do you propose they air instead? More reality TV? Kudos to NBC for continuing to have the best progamming this summer, even if there are flaws in the broadcast (the delays are awful) if you can do it better, then buy the rights next time!
I”M LOVIN’ IT!