IOC defends NBC's tape-delayed Olympics coverage

Jamaica's Usain Bolt celebrates after winning the gold medal in the men's 100m final at London 2012 Olympic Games on August 5, 2012, in London.

/ Getty

(CBS/AP) The International Olympic Committee has defended NBC for not showing the men's 100-meter final live on its main network.

Usain Bolt dashed to victory in the signature event of the London Olympics on Sunday at 4:50 p.m ET. NBC broadcast the race on tape-delay, hours, later in prime time.

Complete Coverage: 2012 London Olympics

IOC spokesman Mark Adams says, "it's certainly not for us to tell them how to reach their audience.'' Adams says NBC live-streamed the race for online viewers, so "if you wanted live, you could get it live.''

NBC has exclusive U.S. rights for the London Games. It struck a $2.2 billion deal with the IOC in 2003, which included rights to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

NBC has broadcast every Summer Olympics since 1988.

With the growth of Twitter, Facebook and other social media, it's been difficult to escape Olympic news this year, especially in light of tape-delay in the U.S. It's forced viewers to make some tough decisions when it comes to watching their favorites sports.

Tell us: Have you been watching the Olympics in prime time, or streaming the London Games live?

[ObamanationSucks]

Did the IOC's Mark Adams actually try to see if the live stream of Usain Bolt's 100m run worked? If he had the same experience as me the stream failed to deliver any of the run. I have a 30Mb/sec Internet connection that typically works great, so that is not the issue. NBC has totally failed in their Summer Olympic Games coverage.

Besides the inexcusable taped delays, the coverage is amateur at best. NBC commentators repeatedly ignore important points that should be made. Both commentators and directors repeatedly omit important items from the coverage, like the final score in some events, and the next step in that events progression. Watching water polo was so frustrating as NBC NEVER showed the 30-second shot clock, an important element; it was always just off the TV screen. NBC almost never shows the ladder leading up to or coming after the current match; this is true for water polo and other team sports. The egregious omission in the Olympic coverage was in regards to one of the most important of the Olympic sports, the Decathlon, which NBC reduced to showing ONLY the USA competitors in some events, such as the javelin, discus, and pole vault. This is inexcusable. There were many other things that I found missing, which don't come to mind at this time. Overall, I would give them a "D", and the only reason for that is the great pictures we are getting in HD, otherwise the grade would be a definitive fail.

One other suggestion I would give to NBC is they should provide a web page with the results "As Televised", so we could look at the standings "as we understand them" with the delayed coverage. Given their serious omissions in the coverage I find the need to look up relevant information on the web, but am afraid to do so lest I see the results BEFORE they are televised. So showing the ladders, and results as televised by NBC would be a useful feature.

[ssporleder]

I love equestrian sports, but the times have been so out of whack that I just record for almost all day and hope I get something.

I also want the games to go back in time and have real amateurs in all events and no more pro tennis players or pro basketball teams participating - they have their own venues in which to compete and the playing board needs to become even again.

Which means fair.