Sunday 29 July 2012

Is It Just Me: Who Thinks NBC Suck?

Ah, the Olympics. Such a great chance for us to show off the excellent sportsmen and women of around the globe. (Notice I don't say "of the UK there? Cos we suck).


Did you watch the Opening Ceremony? I did, and, apparently, so did 27 million other people round the world. It's nice to know that whether you were drinking a cuppa in the UK in your jim jams, or waking up in Oz and considering a swim, you could watch it in it's entirety.


Except, of course, if you happened to be watching the coverage on NBC in America.


You see, NBC have made a monumental and quite frankly disgraceful error in judgement when it came to its decision of what to cut from the show. I know it was 4 hours long, but if the rest of us could deal with it (even the slower bits like the Industrial Revolution bit where Kenneth Branagh just grinned a lot and did the Shakespeare thing), then why on earth couldn't they?


It's not just the fact they cut a segment out though. Its what segment they decided to cut.


There were any other number of bits this channel could have omitted. Like the ironic love in to the NHS. I did fall about laughing on behalf of NHS staff everywhere when they put that bit in to a show which has cost shed loads, seen as that's money most folk would be right in thinking would have been better spent on the NHS itself.


Or the bit with the flags of the nations competing. Seriously, could they not just mix any teams with less than 15 members into one handy team? I saw tweets from people asking whether certain countries had been made up.


No, the bit NBC cut from was a moving tribute to the victims of the July 7th Bombings in London, which as everyone knows took place the day after we were awarded the Olympics.


How dare they!


They cut to an interview with Master of cheese Ryan bloody Seacrest! 


Again, the bloody cheek!


Can you imagine the collective anger that would rightly be unleashed by Americans should, say, the BBC decide to cut from a tribute to the 9/11 attacks to interview Cheryl Cole? They'd go batshit crazy. You wouldn't expect them not to.


I'm no big fan of Emeli Sande, or her musical stylings, but performing Abide with Me to those who lost their lives (due to us being in a war the American Government, specifically Bush started on his Daddies behalf and which we should never have joined in with as it was all a load of tosh in the first place  part of the Afghanistan war on Terror) was something which, in a high tempo and otherwise happy celebration, a brave but fitting tribute.


According to one of their mouthpieces, it was simply because "the tribute wasn't tailored to a US audience". 


Pardon me? That's your excuse?


You may as well have said "if its not people from the US involved in epic horror, pain and death, we couldn't give a flying feck". 


In the UK, we watched your ceremonies to the 9/11 attacks, as every single name was read out during the years, right up until last years dedication ceremony. We Brits could have said "that's not about us, its not tailored to us", but we didn't. We cried with those who had lost a loved one.


NBC- shame on you! 


I'd love to hear what they have to say by way of apology, not just to the UK in general but to those who lost members of their family in 7/7 and those who were caught up in the blasts too.


What do you think?

4 comments:

  1. Couldn't have put it better - tweeted xx

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  2. Completely agree! Think it's disgraceful to be honest

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  3. I was on a train stuck between Liverpool Street and Kings Cross that day. When I got evacuated at Kings Cross it was after 30 minutes of sitting in the tube, on the platform, with no explanation other than the driver's radio was not working. I left the station in eeerie empty corridors NOT knowing what had taken place. I jumped on a bus - not the best decision given what happened next - lucky me.

    I agree with you on this.

    Liska x

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