RESTON, VA, Aug. 6 (DPI) — NBC is enjoying a successful Olympic Games, with television viewership exceeding expectations. There’s even talk of a small profit from its Olympic programming.
But the story over the last week has been steady stream of public criticism of NBC for its primetime — and of course tape-delayed — broadcast.
“You are hearing more complaints than usual because everybody now has a podium via social media to register those complaints,” an executive with Horizon Media told The Daily Beast last week. “You have a bully pulpit to express thoughts and opinions and, depending on who you are, tens of thousands of people can hear your thoughts and you can hashtag #NBCFail.
“But social media can also drive people to the TV and that appears to be happening in record numbers. If you balance it out, I think it’s balancing in NBC’s favor. They say no news is good news, but I don’t think that’s the case with social media.”
Many readers on The Daily Beast/Newsweek site complained — but several of them also agreed:
(Steve Stephens, DailyBeast.com) “Yeah, NBC’s had a few technical bumps and idiotic editing decisions, but at the end of the day, People just have to bitch about something.”