The east coast olympics

When the Olympic Games were held in Nagano in 1998, I stopped watching American Olympic coverage. Here in the Puget Sound region, we have been provided with an option thanks to cable providers carrying CBUT, a CBC affiliate out of Vancouver. I did not return to American Olympic coverage until CBC lost the rights for the 2010 games in my home nation of Cascadia. NBC gave me a terrific reminder of why I stopped watching.


There are numerous problems with American coverage such as propaganda (I have been known to root against Americans if I feel that the media will exploit success in order to push an agenda), but I'm going to point out the most undeniable. American television networks hate the West coast. When it comes to the Olympics, NBC tries to optimize coverage for what they think the east wants to see. Coverage here in the West is nothing more than a three-hour delay of the coverage they optimized for the east.

This was particularly noticeable in Vancouver. There were people attending the games who decided to find lodgings in Washington, but they had to suffer through delays. Events shown in prime time were based off of what was live in the east. When a local athlete raced for history in events that occurred during our prime time, NBC would push him out of prime time.

I don't think that any rational person can look at how NBC handles the Olympics and defend their obvious mistreatment of the West. I have repeatedly criticized the media for their east-coast bias. The Olympics do a wonderful job of proving my point.