On Friday, July 26, 2024, during the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, an artistic performance intended to be a part of the planned program was not broadcast in the United States.
At approximately two hours into the broadcast, shortly after the introduction of France’s athletes (the last group to be introduced), the program moved to a series of music and dance performances, including a floating disco and a Dionysian feast.
During this, the US broadcast cut away to advertising breaks and exclusive interviews with US-based athletes while audiences outside the US remained with the main program.
This video features a side-by-side comparison of this portion of the live broadcasts into Australia (via the broadcaster Stan.) and the United States (via the broadcaster NBC) to illustrate the differences between what was presented to each audience.
Audio for each broadcast has been isolated onto opposing audio channels (US on the left, Australia on the right), allowing viewers to use headphones to selectively listen to either channel alone, or both at the same time.
I really don’t understand why the white house hasn’t publicly talked about how bad NBC is butchering coverage of the Olympics. This is supposed to be a big event that promotes unity and you can’t even watch most of it without a streaming paywall. Not to mention the terrible announcers and general coverage.
IMO the Olympics should be broadcasted by public television.
Probably because NBC knows what gets the most viewers, and if most US viewers want to watch bullshit, that’s on them.