Monday, February 22, 2010

Olympics

The Winter Olympic games began in Vancouver . (www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/11/) It is hard to remember an Olympics with less buzz going in. Perhaps it was the lateness of the Super Bowl this year, perhaps it is just that Americans have never warmed up to many of the winter sports. Other than figure skating and hockey, NBC scrambles to create interest in many of the other cold weather sports.

I heard an interesting theory as to why the Olympics don’t capture the imagination as they once did. It was said that the Olympic broadcasts, unless the viewer is an aficionado of a particular sport, are in effect, reality TV, a collection of unscripted, human interest stories; “up close and personal” in the words of the late Howard Cosell. And the one thing Americans do not need more of is reality TV.

By Sam DelPresto