I’ve chatted with a couple people who say they have Olympics fatigue: That after a week of watching the Olympics every night, they’ve tired of it. I can understand it. The first week was so extravagant with the opening ceremony, and so dramatic with Phelps’ chase, that this week has so far seemed a bit of a downer.
I thought it was odd that track & field had the 100m on the first weekend of the event. Maybe they always do that, I don’t remember. But having track’s biggest draw pass with seven days of competition left; I’m not sure that was a good idea for keeping interest.
There are still some great, exciting events ahead: The 200m finals, the Redeem Team looking for gold, more gymnastics. But with so much of NBC’s coverage and the rest of the media vested in Phelps, with his story complete, I can understand why some are feeling a bit of an Olympic downer this week.
By Cyd Zeigler jr.
4 responses so far ↓
1 Patricia Nell Warren // Aug 19, 2008 at 1:18 pm
Cyd, I agree. It’s counterproductive for NBC to continue pumping the Phelps thing, because I think a growing number of people are tired of hearing about it (however happy they may be at his pile of medals). NBC needs to do more pumping of other events and personalities (and it looks like they’re tried to do that to some degree with the ongoing women’s gymnastics), as well as the track and field. But somehow they’re failing to create the expection of something really big and suspenseful coming towards the end of the Games. If they expect the ratings to hold up through the whole Games, they have to keep people watching.
2 Jim Buzinski // Aug 19, 2008 at 2:10 pm
NBC’s ratings, while still huge compared to normal August programming, are down since Phelps stopped.
The fatigue seems normal since swimming and gymnastics are so high-profile. Also, in the US they were shown live. Track and field is virtually all on tape, heavily edited and lacking suspense.
3 canmark // Aug 19, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Due to the country’s slow start medals-wise, Canadian ratings are actually going up.Toronto Star: “The men’s 100 metres drew 1.2 million viewers on Saturday morning. The women’s triathlon on Sunday night, an event that did not include Canadian medal hopes, had a peak audience of 2.3 million.The biggest peak audience – 2.567 million – was for Ryan Cochrane’s bronze-medal swim Saturday night, even though few expected him to win anything.”Canadian Press: “CBC drew its biggest television audience of the Beijing Games on Monday night with coverage of Canadian Simon Whitfield winning a silver medal in the men’s triathlon.A peak audience of 2.57 million viewers tuned in at 11:49 p.m. ET…”The peak audience was 10 minutes before midnight in the East on a Monday night(!) And I was one of those people watching Simon Whitfield win silver in the triathalon. I don’t think people are fatigued of watching. They are fatigued from watching.
4 Leo // Aug 20, 2008 at 7:00 am
Yeah. NBC put so much focus on Micheal Phelps, it is not the Beijing Olympics, it is the Michael Phelps Olympics. Quite sad for all the other Olympians. However, after the gymnastics, which NBC as used to the fill their own created Phelps void, i wonder what NBC will use to keep people tied to the screen.
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