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Daily Results from Monday, September 18
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 Highlights and Lowlights
- New sports! Too bad NBC massacred them. I ended up classifying both judo and the equestrian events as more fluff than event due to the fact that they showed almost no competition. Here's a hint: if you never see a score or a time, that's fluff.
- I continue to be impressed with the swimming coverage. Let me put it to you this way: NBC's coverage of the Olympic swimming events is so amazing that it even makes shunned-comentator Jim Gray look good. I'll be sad to see these end.
- Over 15 minutes of rowing coverage and no fluff devoted to rowing. Good job, NBC! Now if they could only transfer that skill over to the other sports, they'd have something to crow about.
- "GM Presents Olympic Moments, hosted by Jimmy Roberts." Again GM, this was another 330 seconds I shopped for a Dodge. At least today's "Moments" were about an athlete, but I fail to see what makes the segment about swimmer Lenny Krayzelburg any different from any of the other puff-pieces throughout the broadcast. Everyone say it with me... "I hate GM....I hate GM..." get the message?
- A minute and a half devoted to the 1984 U.S. men's gymnastics team. Again, 16 years ago. Not relevant. An aside here. I know NBC is trying to market this as "history" I should know, but have you noticed how all of these "history" spots focus on Olympics that your average 25-34 year old woman could remember? If NBC is serious about history, where are the stories about the Olympians from the '50s? Oh, that's right. That demographic doesn't buy diapers and dish soap.
- Over five minutes of fluff on the bitter life of a training Chinese gymnast instead of over five minutes of those same Chinese gymnasts competing. Which would the average targeted-demographic-woman prefer to watch?
- Another three-and-a-half minutes taken out of the men's gymnastics competition to hype the women's gymnastics competition on Tuesday. Watching the Olympics on NBC is like watching "Entertainment Tonight." A good chunk of each broadcast is devoted not to news, but to what's on the next show. Do you think NBC executives envisioned their $700 million broadcast as a really big version of a show hosted by Mary Hart?
- Finally, I want to praise NBC for one thing. I know after ripping them for a whole page that seems odd, but this is worth noting. Of the 50 minutes of fluff they broadcast, 37:30 of it came in the first three hours. The last two hours of their broadcast only had four "fluff" pieces: the above mentioned women's gymnastics promotion, another small segment on the men, a victory montage for the gold-medal Chinese team, and an interview with swimmer Megan Quann. Coincidentally, I enjoyed these two hours more than any of NBC's previous coverage. If more of the Olympics was like those two hours, there would be no need for this page.
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