A few points before Prime Time Peacock:
- Started the day watching the tail end of ski jumping qualification on NBCSN (streaming). That’s the “agony of defeat” event. NBCSN’s studio set sets up an expectation of Jor-El’s hologram. It seems that the Peacock has two options for their Winter QISE sets—ski lodge and Fortress of Solitude.
- I then switched over to the Today Show on the TiVo. The Peacock’s News division will have a major QISE push. The morning show’s team (minus lightning rod Megyn Kelly) will be reporting from Pyeongchang throughout, and even the Nightly News will report from South Korea
- Later, I checked back in at nbcqise.com to see more streamed coverage. The schedule said that figure skating training sessions were underway, but this time I got a “coverage has concluded” message. Seems like you just have to hang out at the site and see what happens.
- You would think the choosing of the US Flag Bearer wouldn’t be controversial—it’s the equivalent of “Miss Congeniality"—but you would be wrong. Luger Erin Hamlin was chosen over speed skater Shani Davis via coin flip—and Davis is complaining online that it was a racial call. How can a coin flip be biased?
- With the time difference at Pyeongchang (14 hours ahead of the US East Coast), the Peacock has a quadrennial problem--how to keep all the juicy events in prime time when social media will spoil things the moment they occur? Previously, Kabletown's response was "we're showing it in prime time--just don't look at your phones if you don't want to be spoiled".
- Now, the plan is to show a plethora of live events via various streaming platforms for those who want to see it live, convince Pyeongchang to hold events at what are strange hours there to match up with US prime time (which they have apparently done), and "Curate" (aka edit out the "boring" and "non-US" parts) and show the rest on tape in prime time.
And speaking of prime time…
- Tirico kicks it off from the Fortress of Solitude, then throws it to Lipinski, Weir, and The Generic White Male Commentator (already forgot his name) for men’s figure skating—short program.
- Something new—figure skating gets instant technical scoring with a box at the top left of the screen. As they do their elements, a green pops up as good, yellow is under discussion, and red is bad—along with a “so far" score.
- There’s also an “enhanced mode” available for the prime time coverage if you watch it via steaming—all based on the OBS coverage—it looks like more graphics with dual cameras shown (like the competition’s performance vs. the coach watching him).
- A rather nihilistic music selection from Canada’s Patrick Chan—"Dust in the Wind” by Kansas? Ouch.
- We have our first example of Peacock “curation” (aka US bias). An Israeli athlete is competing on the stream live, so a taped segment (actually a rerun from Monday) on America’s Nathan Chen is airing on TV. Chen then proceeded to blow his performance.
- Due to all the political ramifications of the game’s location, the Peacock brought in a “Sports Asia Analyst”, Joshua Cooper Ramo (he was also at Beijing).
- I will be calling it early tonight in order to see the opening ceremony live online at 6a, so I can compare the live and “curated” coverage. I’ll wrap up tonight’s late coverage tomorrow.