"Shut up, Al!": Announcing Voices We Love and Hate

[MaKaM]

Nastia has mentioned that her commentary has been essentially neutered by the network. She is given notes on what points to hit and told not to clutter up the broadcast with details. Same with Daggett. NBC thinks that Nancy Housewife just wants to see the pretty girls "fly high and stick the landing" and doesn't want to know about the work, requirements, or history that goes into any of the moves (aside from hearing for the 15th time that Aly's beam dismount is named for US OGM Carly Patterson). Daggett is very informative and insightful when live tweeting an event. So he does know his stuff. Nastia is told not to tell us that Aly is really awful on bars and has to choke out "that was a really good routine!" when she knows that it will be a low scorer. She also has to play along with the manufactured drama of "The Russian is winning, Simone could lose the medal!" when anyone who follows the sport even a little knows that Simone's BB and FX advantages meant she could have sat on the beam and had a cup of tea and still won. My only complaint about the daytime guys was that someone needed to give them results in a bigger font or something because Jim kept reading things that were 14s as 15s and that is a pretty big difference in gymnastics.

Track, well, Hammond and Ato were getting a little awful toward the end. Hammond: The men's 5,000 prelims where the top two get automatic qualifying spots to the final with American Someone attempting to get one of those two automatic transfer spots in the men's 5,000 prelims. Yes, Tom, we got it. Men. 5,000. Prelims. 2 spots. No need for 3 repeats. Ato too was getting a little fatigued it seemed and started getting repetitive and inane. Or the notes he was given to mention were inane. It could be that my threshold for Hammond is lower than most because of how awful he is at figure skating announcing.

Seacrest was useless during the closing ceremonies but at least we had Mary Carillo and Mike Tirico to see us through. Would have loved to see their expressions every time Seacrest opened his mouth and stupid fell out.

[Daisy]

If that's the case - if Nastia and Tim are neutered - my sincerest apologises to Tim for all the SHUT UPs i gave you.  and quiet frankly - if NBC is that deluded to believe that why bother having two former gymnasts there? just pull two of us off the street, and I can play booboo the fool (and because I don't really know EVERY move, and I suck at math, I could be more realistic at it than Nastia just being quiet and Tim going ooohoo boy). I could provide the GASSSSSSSPPPPPPPPP.  Easy!

[Brattinella]

I blame all of this COMPLETELY on NBC.  (All networks, actually. ABCCNNNBCCBS. SS, diff day.)

[galaxygirl76]

Granted I never had the sound on while watching NBC because I had the Dutch radio on to get info on Dutch athletes, but the whole point of having commentators in my opinion is that they are more knowledgeable than I am and tell me technical things about the sport I'm watching. For example if I'm watching figure skating I'm expecting a commentator who can tell me all about the jumps and other moves. I don't understand why NothingButCrap thinks it needs to be dumbed down.

[Princess Sparkle]

38 minutes ago, MaKaM said:

Nastia has mentioned that her commentary has been essentially neutered by the network. She is given notes on what points to hit and told not to clutter up the broadcast with details. Same with Daggett. NBC thinks that Nancy Housewife just wants to see the pretty girls "fly high and stick the landing" and doesn't want to know about the work, requirements, or history that goes into any of the moves (aside from hearing for the 15th time that Aly's beam dismount is named for US OGM Carly Patterson). Daggett is very informative and insightful when live tweeting an event. So he does know his stuff. Nastia is told not to tell us that Aly is really awful on bars and has to choke out "that was a really good routine!" when she knows that it will be a low scorer. She also has to play along with the manufactured drama of "The Russian is winning, Simone could lose the medal!" when anyone who follows the sport even a little knows that Simone's BB and FX advantages meant she could have sat on the beam and had a cup of tea and still won. My only complaint about the daytime guys was that someone needed to give them results in a bigger font or something because Jim kept reading things that were 14s as 15s and that is a pretty big difference in gymnastics.

 

Ugh, that sucks for them.  One thing I really liked about the Courtney Koupets/Jon Horton combo was that they were so honest in their assessments of how everyone was doing.  I laughed for a solid 5 minutes during the men's vault finals when one of the finalists was trying a vault he'd never stuck before, and Jon Horton said "I've never seen him land it, I don't know why he's doing it, but I guess we're going to see what happens."  He and Courtney also had a really frank discussion during the women's floor finals, with Jon admitting that while he knew Simone's floor exercise was amazing, he liked Aly's better and Courtney explaining what she thought the differences were between the two routines were (her assessment - Simone's runs were more difficult, but Aly landed her runs better).  I can't imagine that Nastia, Tim, and Al got anywhere close to discussing anything like that.

[galaxygirl76]

13 minutes ago, Princess Sparkle said:

  I can't imagine that Nastia, Tim, and Al got anywhere close to discussing anything like that.

Al was too busy deciding who someone get to call her parents and what girls write in their diaries.

[Princess Sparkle]

1 minute ago, galaxygirl76 said:

Al was too busy deciding who someone get to call her parents and what girls write in their diaries.

BWAH!  I saw Al said that and rolled my eyes.  Somehow [end sarcasm], everyone on the live stream was able to figure out what she was doing, and Courtney and Jon both commended her for doing it, saying that it was a smart idea.  Much as I'd rather have those two as the primetime commentators, if they'd have the same restrictions as Nastia & Tim, I'd prefer they stay on the live stream only.  

[MaKaM]

It is similar to how Johnny and Tara with Terry Gannon were superior during the daytime coverage of Figure Skating at the Sochi Olympics. Well, as soon as they are moved to primetime, they have to push the party line and a lot of the fun and off-the-cuff stuff is lost. Johnny is still managing to be unique and have some flavor in his announcing, but it is a lot flatter than it was before they had to hit their expected talking points.

[evilmindatwork]

But WHY do they think most people don't want to know technical details of the sports? Quite honestly, I didn't want  warm to gymnastics until this year when I finally started figuring out the scoring system and technical assessments because of Jon and Courtney's commentary, which provided detail while explaining the basics. 

Edited August 22, 2016 by evilmindatwork

[Brattinella]

They only tell you what they WANT YOU TO KNOW.  They will tell you what to see, when to see it, and how long it lasts.  I think the only fix for this is to award these contracts for announcers to alternative news sources that have scruples.

[MaKaM]

16 minutes ago, evilmindatwork said:

But WHY do they think most people don't want to know technical details of the sports? Quite honestly, I didn't want  warm to gymnastics until this year when I finally started figuring out the scoring system and technical assessments because of Jon and Courtney's commentary, which provided detail while explaining the basics. 

NBC believes that Nancy Housewife likes the story and drama and doesn't know how to watch sports. She wants reality TV. So they don't clutter her little mind up with facts and statistics and instead use an asinine red-yellow-green stoplight system to tell you if the score is good--and they need to re-explain it every broadcast. No explanation why diving doesn't need this system, but Gymnastics viewers are apparently too simple to figure out that difficulty is one number, execution is another number and the final score is the simple addition of the two. Even the execution deductions are fairly logical once you know what to look for (.1 step, .1 leg separation, .3 hop, etc) and anyone can understand that getting an 8.8 out of 10 is not bad at all, they don't need to be told 1.2 deductions is a green score! It is also why you get cameras following Aly's parents in the stand and endless chalking up instead of showing actual routines and why during US Trials, the camera was on Gabby's back for three minutes, waiting for her to turn around so the NBC voyeurs could get a glimpse of tears to broadcast. It is why Nastia has to play along like everyone has a chance to make the team when anyone who follows the sport knew the team was 99% set and Nastia knew it too. So we can get the high school drama of catching the tears and anguish of those who didn't make the cut.

[Brattinella]

Well, NBC paid 12 Billion Dollars for the exclusive rights to the Olympics and the advertising.  They will get every cents' worth.  They call the shots.

[MaKaM]

6 hours ago, Brattinella said:

Well, NBC paid 12 Billion Dollars for the exclusive rights to the Olympics and the advertising.  They will get every cents' worth.  They call the shots.

Yeah and until the old guard of sexist jerks dies off or retires, expect it to be business as usual. They are in too deep to deviate from the formula and risk a ratings slide that affects their advertising and until the hire someone with vision, it will be the same announcers saying the same tired lines and pushing the same storylines. They *could* try new things in non-Olympic years (like firing Trautwig) but the best they can come up with is an asinine stoplight system.

[Brattinella]

7 minutes ago, MaKaM said:

Yeah and until the old guard of sexist jerks dies off or retires, expect it to be business as usual. They are in too deep to deviate from the formula and risk a ratings slide that affects their advertising and until the hire someone with vision, it will be the same announcers saying the same tired lines and pushing the same storylines. They *could* try new things in non-Olympic years (like firing Trautwig) but the best they can come up with is an asinine stoplight system.

Hubby just informed me that they purchased the Olympic rights until 2032.  Yikes. :(

[MaKaM]

Well, Al is 60, maybe he will take early retirement. Fingers crossed.

[azshadowwalker]

9 hours ago, Daisy said:

If that's the case - if Nastia and Tim are neutered - my sincerest apologises to Tim for all the SHUT UPs i gave you.  and quiet frankly - if NBC is that deluded to believe that why bother having two former gymnasts there? 

No one is making them do it. They want to be on TV, and are willing to give in to the bullshit in order to do it. So, I think their commentary is entirely insipid and it's their decision to take part, even though they know what the limitations are. 

[Bill1978]

I know it's been over a week since they've ended but I just realised this is the perfect thread for my thoughts that I had the whole time the Olympics were airing on Australian TV. For me it is not the Olympics unless I hear the following voices during certain sports. Whether I like them or not, for me they have become the voice of their respective sports:

Bruce McAveney: Track & Field

Phil Liggett: Cycling

Liz Chetkovich: Gymnastics

I remember the London Olympics had a different commentator for Track & Field (cause it was a different broadcaster) and it didn't feel right without Bruce. I don't know what I am going to do when these 3 retire, because it's not an Olympcs without those 3. The funny thing is, I don't need there to be a Swimming voice. Anyone could commentate that and it wouldn't bother me.

[Quilt Fairy]

On ‎8‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 5:53 AM, Bill1978 said:

because it's not an Olympcs without those 3

I still feel it's not an Olympics without Jim McKay.

[rcc]

12 hours ago, Quilt Fairy said:

I still feel it's not an Olympics without Jim McKay.

He was the best. Always was, always will be. Nobody can take his place.