Figure Skating Rules NBC Decisions

Sports fans who love their televised games presented live and free from extraneous drama have met the enemy in these Olympics and it is figure skating.

It's the presence of figure skating -- the one Winter Olympics activity that draws in the non-sports viewer -- that gives NBC leave to present the Games not as athletic competition but as entertainment.

Absent the spectacle of garish costumes, overwrought commentary and music and inexplicable subjectivity in judging that skating brings to the party, the Olympic telecasts seen here in the United States would resemble the kind of sporting broadcasts we're used to.

In other words, all of the country would see all of a competition, rather than fragments or in fits and starts. The nation would see all the competitors perform, unlike Thursday's prime time, for instance, when only a fraction of the skiers in the women's super combined, specifically the ones NBC wanted us to see, were shown.

The viewer would know whether the commentary that accompanied the action was contemporaneous or tacked on later. And, most importantly, the competition would air live in all time zones.

To be sure, the Olympics, and particularly the Winter Games are an amalgam of sports and activities that most Americans never imagine, much less watch, save for the two weeks they come along every four years (hello, curling and biathlon). Singling out one of them may, on the surface, seem unfair.

But figure skating's near singular appeal to female viewers, who provide the bonus audience in any Olympics, means that it will always dominate coverage of the Winter Games, in much the same way that gymnastics are a critical part of the Summer Olympics.

For many female viewers, the competitive portion of figure skating takes a backseat to artistry and story, which plays right into the hands of the kinds of Olympic telecasts that NBC, under the leadership of Dick Ebersol, has provided over the past two decades.

In addition, the fact that televised figure skating events can have a long shelf life, meaning they can be shown on tape and can be shown multiple times, makes them unique among televised competitive events. Unless there's a compelling reason, say multiple overtimes or a remarkable individual performance, most games get one airing and one airing only on American television. Not figure skating, where an exhibition from months ago can draw nearly as large an audience as when it first aired.

The irony of these Winter Olympics is that, because the Games take place in Vancouver, in the Western Hemisphere, figure skating is airing live in prime time. That is, everywhere except the Pacific and Mountain time zones, but that's another rant from another day.

To be fair to Ebersol and to NBC, the network's coverage reflects a sound business model: Give the people what they want and they'll keep coming back. Take Wednesday night, for instance, when Olympics coverage beat FOX's American Idol, the first time in nearly six years that show has lost a nightly ratings race in either overall viewers or viewers in the 18-49 year old demographic.

Of course, Wednesday just happened to be a night when there was no figure skating.

Hole in One

Normally, there are few things as galling as product placement in a show, but when it is used in a clever fashion, the payoff can be worth it.

On Wednesday's First Take, ESPN2's mid-morning talk show, anchor Dana Jacobson "interviewed" the Geico pothole from the commercial on the premise that she was a relative of the pothole that opened during Sunday's Daytona 500.

Handled any other way, the piece could have been junk, and it surely won't win an Emmy. But Jacobson and the actress who voices the pothole handled it with the proper sense of whimsy, making the segment cute, but not barf-inducing.

Weekend Watch

You've gotta hand it to the International Olympic Committee. They've brought just about every conceivable activity under their auspices for either the Summer or Winter Games, from rhythmic gymnastics to the aforementioned curling.

But the IOC missed one, competitive fishing, but ESPN2 has it covered this weekend. The channel will carry the 40th annual Bassmaster Classic, the Olympics of rod and reel, from Birmingham, starting Saturday at 10 a.m. ET and continuing through Sunday's weigh-in at 10 p.m. ET. Let the bass begin!