NBC missing point at Olympics: Lose the script, see the new faces

The song that NBC chose for its Winter Olympics promotion is proving apt these days: "Someday."

In a video meant to summarize the spirit of Turin, NBC marketers used skaters Michelle Kwan and Apolo Anton Ohno to help transform a gritty Flipsyde tune about overcoming life's dark challenges into a shiny aspirational melody.

But week 1 has been rough. "American Idol" drew 11 million more viewers than Turin on Tuesday, making it the lowest-rated Olympics night since 1988, according to Nielsen Media Research. With Kwan out and favorites like Ohno and Bode Miller faltering, NBC is scrambling to adjust its star-centered focus.

It isn't easy. Some nights, you just can't pry the cold, dead script from the commentator's hand.

Surprise victories this week by speed skater Joey Cheek and skier Ted Ligety were greeted with the kind of insubstantial, overenthusiastic response that signals a failure to do backup homework or grasp that viewers might really be interested in these less-famous athletes.

Ligety's win of the Men's Combined was overshadowed by the obsession with Miller, who was disqualified. Cheek's victory seemed to be a case of reporters catching up to the fact that this "unknown" had won the world sprint title a few weeks earlier.

The irony is that 21-year-old Ligety — along with America's champion snowboarders — represent the under-30 demographic that NBC has been fiercely courting.

Instead of reminding us every other commercial break that the average age of an assistant district attorney in New York is 28 (oh, how I've come to loathe that "Conviction" promo), maybe the network should pay attention to the average age of the U.S. winners at the Olympics.

For all the devotion to younger viewers, the approach toward hip young competitors such as 19-year-old snowboard gold-medalist Shaun White is akin to treatment of exotic zoo creatures. Someone actually joked about White cutting his long locks. Is it 1965 at NBC Sports?

So it was sort of pleasurable to watch anchor Bob Costas' interview with White on Sunday. Costas attempted to rib White about his publicized intent to date up figure-skater Sasha Cohen, and White promptly played along with conversational riffs that left Costas flat-footed.

NBC's use of technology has been very fine, particularly the camera work. The snowboard photography was downright amazing. And some commentators, including the venerable Dick Button, have sharp analytical skills that don't let them down when the unexpected happens.

Nonetheless, the Winter Olympics have registered merely solid ratings: 22.9 million TV households for the first three days versus 35.5 million for Salt Lake City in 2002. Last week, the Olympics ranked fifth overall in prime time, according to Nielsen Media Research.

The demographic that NBC has built itself around — viewers 18 to 49 — also favored shows such as "Grey's Anatomy" and "American Idol" over Turin. "House," which followed "American Idol" Tuesday night, easily outdrew the Olympics among young viewers. Wednesday night's edition of "American Idol" also was expected to triumph. Although a dip was predicted, it's worth considering what NBC might do to improve numbers.

A couple of oft-repeated statements tend to accompany Olympic ratings. One, we watch less when the event is not in the United States. Two, we watch less when Americans aren't doing well.

But there are a couple other reasons why viewers may be tuning out this time: the overemphasis on certain stars to the exclusion of fresh faces and NBC's nonspecific schedule that forces us to choose between watching the whole thing every night or not at all.

Readers have weighed in on the latter score, expressing frustration that NBC has packaged evening events so that the action repeatedly jumps from one sport to another.

There's no sustained buildup of drama from watching a competition start to finish — which NBC certainly could do since Turin isn't live.

The rotation also ignores specific viewers. One caller noted that the vast figure-skating fan base of little girls can't stay up past 10 p.m. to see the winners. Yet I'm pretty sure NBC would love to build brand recognition among kids.

Turin's not in the United States, but that doesn't explain a ratings decline from Nagano, which drew 26.4 million households in 1998, or from Lillehammer, which set a record in 1994 partly thanks to the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding drama.

KING-TV also has fallen off from past Winter Olympics, though it again is outpacing NBC.

For the first five nights through Tuesday, KING has averaged a 17.2 rating and 28.9 share. Nationally, the average was a 14.5 rating and a 22.3 share.

That means over 17 percent of the Seattle-Tacoma region's 1.2 million television households were tuned to Turin. Of all TV sets turned on here, almost 29 percent chose the Olympics. (The highest-rated market in the country was Salt Lake City, with a 22.4 rating and a 36.8 share.)

Despite the juggernaut that is "American Idol" and the power of "Dancing With the Stars" and "Survivor," NBC still could give a boost to the Olympics by ditching the rotational mix for sport-specific scheduling blocks: e.g., 8 p.m. slalom, 9 p.m. luge, and stop holding us hostage.

Finally, the network needs to treat the Olympics as a news event rather than as entertainment with prescribed story lines and characters.

To its credit, NBC has avoided maudlin profiles and attempts to wring melodrama from minor brouhahas. Now, it needs to sit back and share our pleasure at the new talent and unexpected twists that are far more exciting than any canned Olympic plot.

Kay McFadden: kmcfadden@seattletimes.com