The #NBCFail Olympics: Access, liveness and the public interest

Abstract

This article explores the deeper meanings within social media criticism of NBC’s coverage of the London 2012 Olympic Games, focusing on the divide between those social media users and what NBC perceives as their audience for primetime, tape-delayed broadcasts. While viewer frustration has been dismissed as a selfish desire for instant gratification in an era of conspicuous consumption, it also demonstrates the complicated relationship between NBC’s broadcasting strategies and liveness, which creates concerns over access. Similarly, although viewer frustration has been positioned in opposition to the economic imperative of commercial broadcasting, it seems necessary to engage with the notion of the public interest in the light of NBC’s broadcast history and the nationalized appeal of the Olympic Games. In their rush to characterize #NBCFail as evidence of Twitter’s mob mentality, analysts fail to ask what this backlash might mean for the Olympics’ place within the larger spectrum of broadcast programming in the post-network era, and for NBC’s responsibility to viewers when it comes to this global event (and broadcasting in general).