Maybe it’s the baby boomer in me. With narrowcasting having taken firm hold, a part of me still missed the mass shared experience that used to rule the days when there were but three major television networks.
Nonetheless, there are those increasingly rare events that bring us back to an almost single audience orientation–the Super Bowl, of course, and most recently the Summer Olympics. These television events represent precious gold for the right advertisers. The Super Bowl and the Olympics carry ever-escalating price tags for ad time but it’s a premium which many are glad to pay in order to sponsor a mega-TV event during an era when audience fragmentation is the norm.
Indeed the Olympics and the Super Bowl seem to bring us closer together whether it be feelings of patriotism relative to our country’s performance in the former or plain, good old-fashioned water cooler talk the day after about the happenings at either event.
Yet rather than a warm glow, NBC’s coverage of the Games left me cold. Yes, we still reveled in the performance of the world’s athletes and the emotions they stirred in us. But it was what we didn’t see or hear much about–and the time during which we got to see the events themselves–which proved troubling. Indeed look what NBC did (particularly to those of us on the West Coast) when it regained the Nielsen-dominating power of yesteryear.
For one, there was no Michael Phelps live on air which would have been around 7 to 8 p.m. Los Angeles time. Instead broadcast of the swimming events was delayed three-plus hours. And while Phelps’ dominating performance may have killed much of the drama relative to the outcome of events in which he competed, any last vestige of suspense succumbed to NBC’s decision to tape delay in order to keep us watching well into the night. Even the Saturday evening when Phelps won his eighth Gold Medal was tape delayed out West. We thus lost the precious chance to witness history as it was being made because it was counter to NBC’s audience-building strategy.
And relative to what we didn’t see or hear much of, I find myself fondly reminiscing about Jim McKay, the great ABC sportscaster who became synonymous with the Olympics. We sadly lost McKay earlier this year and in Beijing we lost his journalistic spirit, one which would have put in more consistent, intelligent, poignant context the Tiananmen Square revolt without undermining the athletes and the spirit of the Games.
Last year the International Olympics Committee predicted that the Olympics in Beijing would be a force for good and spur on progress in human rights. Instead to keep a tight rein on its country’s image, the Chinese government on many reported occasions stepped up human rights abuse during the Games.
I think McKay would have shed more light on this. Instead NBC seemed content for the most part to play host to a celebratory coming out party for China.
Indeed we should be grateful that media has changed so that we’re no longer so dependent on but three major TV networks. NBC’s work at Beijing has stopped my waxing nostalgic about those good old days.
Oscar Nominees Delve Into The Art Of Editing At ACE Session
You couldn’t miss Sean Baker at this past Sunday’s Oscar ceremony where he won for Best Picture, Directing, Original Screenplay and Editing on the strength of Anora. However, earlier that weekend he was in transit from the Cesar Awards in Paris and thus couldn’t attend the American Cinema Editors (ACE) 25th annual panel of Academy Award-nominated film editors held at the Regal LA Live Auditorium on Saturday (3/1) in Los Angeles. While the eventual Oscar winner in the editing category was missed by those who turned out for the ACE “Invisible Art, Visible Artists” session, three of Baker’s fellow nominees were on hand--Dávid Jancsó, HSE for The Brutalist; Nick Emerson for Conclave; and Myron Kerstein, ACE for Wicked. Additionally, Juliette Welfling, who couldn’t appear in person due to the Cesar Awards, was present via an earlier recorded video interview to discuss her work on Emilia Pérez. The interview was conducted by ACE president and editor Sabrina Plisco, ACE who also moderated the live panel discussion. Kerstein said that he was the beneficiary of brilliant and generous collaborators, citing, among others, director Jon M. Chu, cinematographer Alice Brooks, and visual effects supervisor Pablo Helman. The editor added it always helps to have stellar acting performances, noting that hearing Cynthia Erivo, for example, sing live was a revelation. Kerstein recalled meeting Chu some eight years ago on a “blind Skype date” and it was an instant “bromance”--which began on Crazy Rich Asians, and then continued on such projects as the streaming series Home Before Dark and the feature In The Heights. Kerstein observed that Chu is expert in providing collaborators with... Read More