What's the delay on the Olympics?

Play that Olympic Fanfare once again. Yes, we are at the halfway point of the sport events of all sport events, the Olympics in Beijing. Ah, the thrill of all victory and making your country proud. So what's the delay, hmmm?

Well, this gripe is designed for our fans on the West Coast. First, a little math for you. Beijing is 15 hours ahead of California, so if this was 9 PM California time, it would now be noon tomorrow in Beijing. So go figure that NBC had the Olympic committee schedule the best events for prime time, so thus Saturday's gold medal victory by Michael Phelps took place at about 11:05 AM Bejing time, 11:05 PM Eastern time. While it aired live on the East and Central time zones, the Pacific and most Mountain time zones had to wait to see a delayed version of the critical match. You see, that's what the peacock network is doing with all its Olympics coverage...airing the games at times that are convenient for the audience, instead of showing it live to the entire U.S. So watching the Opening Ceremonies on the first day seemed like eating day-old stale bread. The actual ceremonies would have aired live in the early morning U.S. time had NBC played its cards right. I'm sure that when the Closing Ceremonies take place next week, we'll get the same delayed treatment as well.

So that brings us to another typo...the word "LIVE" superimposed on the screen for certain events. While it probably won't matter for East Coast viewers, it darn well matters for the West Coast. You probably have figured out that there's supposed to be a disclaimer that reads "pre-recorded for this time zone". That way, we won't have to be tricked into seeing an important event live when in fact it has already taken place. I do admit, I did know in advance about Phelps' victory before NBC aired it in California.

While NBC gets the gold medal for airing crucial parts of this year's Olympics live for the East Coast, it gets the bronze for cheating the rest of the U.S. out of our full enjoyment of a great sports spectacle.

Of course, we can't give NBC Universal all the blame since they took the liberty of using the Internet and its sister networks to broadcast a great deal of the games live. That is an achievement in itself.

If by chance NBC does decide to air the Closing Ceremony live to all the U.S., this won't be the first time I've been wrong. By the way, for those who care, the ceremony would have to air at 4:30 AM Pacific time (that translates to 7:30 PM Beijing time). All the better to use your DVRs. Unless, of course, one finds a way to break the boundaries of the Internet and finds a site where they do air live.

The competition and controversy continues. Dum-dum-da-dum-dum-DUMB!!!