NBC halts Olympics for "Animal Practice," angers viewers

Joanna Garcia Swisher as Dorothy Crane, left, and Justin Kirk portraying George Coleman in a scene from the pilot episode of "Animal Practice."

/ AP Photo/NBC,Neil Jacobs

(CBS/AP) Many viewers were upset after NBC decided to cut away from its Olympics closing ceremony coverage to squeeze in a commercial-free preview of its new show "Animal Practice" before returning to The Who's performance at the closing ceremony.

Pictures: London Olympics Closing Ceremony
Read More: "Animal Practice" gets boost from Olympics on NBC

NBC Olympics host Bob Costas told viewers, "We'll be back from Olympic Stadium in about an hour for the London closing party featuring The Who. But stay tuned now for a full episode of 'Animal Practice,' the new NBC comedy presented commercial free."

"Animal Practice" aired at 11 p.m. Sunday night, followed by local news. Then Costas  returned at midnight to finish with an eight-minute medley by The Who.

Twitter lit up with complaints. Disgruntled viewers used the trending topic #NBCfail on Twitter to express their anger.

Here's what some viewers had to say:

Wow, NBC cut Muse, Kate Bush and freaking Ray Davies out of their broadcast. Oh, and The Who? In an hour after Animal Practice. #NBCfail

-- Francois Marchand (@FMarchandVS) August 13, 2012

"Gee, I can't wait for the #ClosingCeremonies to be over so I can watch Animal Practice" - No One Ever. #NBCFail

-- Stacey (@BookSavvy) August 13, 2012

I think NBC has managed to become even less popular than Congress. #NBCfail

-- Nina L. Diamond (@ninatypewriter) August 13, 2012

[marzxyz]

Another so-called comedy for targeting the feeble-minded. Will wonders ever cease?

[forumcomments]

Overall, I thought this was the best NBC olympic coverage yet.

[Dontbeslow]

NBC's coverage & production was the worst sports broadcast I have ever seen. We're watching 16 yr old girls competing in gymnastics & they're showing the girls with lighting & technique as though they were auditioning for a Victoria Secret ad.
While close-ups, on occasion, give the feel of being personally involved, NBC's "nasal cam" was analogous to someone asking you to look at a magazine & holding it against your nose. It was over used & extremely annoying; especially while a competitor was running & out of focus.
After the third time watching the Olympics, frustration out weighed the enjoyment, so I shut it off.
Even the promos gave information about the winners BEFORE they actually broacast the event.
TERRIBLE BROADCAST, TERRIBLE NETWORK!

[Dontbeslow]

NBC's coverage & production was the worst sports broadcast I have ever seen. We're watching 16 yr old girls competing in gymnastics & they're showing the girls with lighting & technique as though they were auditioning for a Victoria Secret ad.
While close-ups, on occasion, give the feel of being personally involved, NBC's "nasal cam" was analogous to someone asking you to look at a magazine & holding it against your nose. It was over used & extremely annoying; especially while a competitor was running & out of focus.
After the third time watching the Olympics, frustration out weighed the enjoyment, so I shut it off.
Even the promos gave information about the winners BEFORE they actually broacast the event.
TERRIBLE BROADCAST, TERRIBLE NETWORK!

[ohillary-2009]

Thanks a lot nbc. we stayed with you thru the games and sat down to watch the closing ceremonies to find you truncated them to push your lame pet show, then news, then, at midnight (pt) you'd resume with the closing ceremonies. Some of us work you know. Would you do that with the Oscars?
So I tried to catch up today on your web site but, insult to injury, your "streaming" requires that I pay extra money to Comcast to watch the end of the games, the broadcasting of which you royally screwed up the night before. Brilliant.

[radishes10]

NBC offered the WORST event commentary last night that I've ever seen. Evidently the commentators lost their program, since they couldn't identify most of the performers. They made no attempt to identify the various groups of athletes on camera. The camera work was sub-par - for instance, during the performance of 'Imagine", the cameras were on the ground, so that you had no idea that the large white thing being assembled was actually a giant bust of John Lennon. And the decision to cut out some of the most famous performers for what turned out to be a banal, boring 'comedy' will go down in TV annals under the 'really stupid programming' category, along with the Superbowl/Heidi decision. Other than 'Saving Hope", "Meet the Press" and Jimmy Kimmel, there's no reason to watch NBC these days.

[gbreadmann]

They also cut coverage of 66kg wrestling rather quickly on Saturday when the Cuban wrestler won bronze and started ripping his suit off.

[rtavis]

Why is everyone upset? Because they couldn't watch yet another couple million dollars squandered on this over blown sporting event? You have to hand it to the Brits - they've got an unemployment rate around 25% in parts of their country, yet have no problem dropping all this money to stroke the overblown egos of a bunch of athletes and to sell more advertising for it's corporate advertisers.

Dumping it for Animal Practice makes perfect sense.

[twmat311]

What a bungle. Premiere a new show at 11PM instead of at a peak viewing time (and lose the 1st part of your audience) then pre-empt a once-in-4-years event, and anger a few more. Bet the planning meeting room at NBC was steaming hot today.