2004 Olympics: Barry Horn

08:54 PM CDT on Friday, August 27, 2004

Just TVenting:

It was inexcusable for NBC to broadcast on tape delay the women's soccer gold-medal game on Wednesday and the U.S.-Argentina men's basketball game Thursday.

The games were seen live only in the Eastern Time zone.

In Dallas and the rest of the Central time zone, the game was delayed one hour. In the Mountain time zone the game was seen two hours later. Out on the West Coast, viewers didn't get to watch the game until three hours later.

NBC didn't delay the start of both games outside of the East Coast for higher ratings in prime time. It was all about pre-packaging and lumping everyone outside the corridor of power in the same box. It did so because someone was asleep at the wheel.

The Mountain and Pacific time zones may have been a problem, but the timing in Dallas and the Central time zone was good enough to fall into the Olympic broadcast window for a live start.

NBC, like the losing U.S. men's basketball team, was not on top of its game both days.

At halftime of the U.S.-Argentina game, NBC's Jim Lampley reported on the still-brewing Paul Hamm gold-medal controversy. After reporting who was saying what among the alphabet organizations – the International Gymnastics Federation, (FIG), United States Olympic Committee (USOC) and International Olympic Committee (IOC) – Lampley launched "an editorial comment from our perspective."

Lampley used 157 words in defense of Hamm's right to hold on to the gold medal that FIG says he should return but the USOC and IOC say rightfully belongs to him.

The "our" in the editorial, by the way, referred to NBC Sports.

Whatever his stance, Lampley's sudden editorializing seemed out of place for a man who was also reporting the news for the network.

Lampley knows all about alphabet agencies and stupid judge tricks. He is HBO's boxing blow-by-blow man. Still, he chose the wrong place and wrong time to say the right thing.

Here's a better idea for NBC. Why allow newspaper columnists to have all the fun? To the next Olympics why not bring along a few wise, rational curmudgeons who could go head-to-head on the air when Hamm-like issues come up. At least try it on the cable side.

Yes, NBC's ratings are up. Yes, the numbers are soaring on USA, CNBC, MSNBC and USA. But at Telemundo, the ratings are down at the Spanish language network.

Seems NBC erred in feeding the Telemundo audience a diet heavy on boxing, baseball and soccer. Telemundo put some of its popular soap operas and dramatic series on the shelf in favor of the Olympics. Gone was the heavily female audience, which apparently tuned to rival Univision, which counter-programmed effectively.

TiVo junkies who forgot to program for a possible overtime in the U.S.-Brazil women's soccer game violated the first rule of watching sports. Always factor in overtime. The overtime, by the way, pulled a strong 6.3 rating for NBC, one the best afternoon marks.

E-mail bhorn@dallasnews.com