NBC's Olympics Coverage: It's Not Sports, It's Reality TV.

Why did NBC bump Sunday's USA/Canada hockey game to cable? Because showing it would've required actual sports coverage. Which is not what NBC is broadcasting in primetime this Olympics. NBC is showing reality television.

Think about it: When you watch Survivor, they don't show the entirety of, say, each immunity challenge. No, you get a bunch of interviews building up the suspense of the event, and a few cherry-picked moments from a much longer competition. You get the same menu when you watch the Olympics on NBC.

What I think of as sports coverage--showing, you know, sports--does not fit into NBC's plans. The New York Times' Richard Sandomir explains why:

A hockey game cannot be sliced easily into a series of short events, like ski or luge runs, figure skating programs or speedskating races. If the network cannot chop a sport into two-to-five-minute elements framed with a lot of ads, it is not likely to be shown from 7 p.m. to midnight.

Of course, NBC doesn't show you the entire luge, figure skating, or speedskating competitions either. Typically you'll see only the performances by medal hopefuls and/or U.S. athletes. It would be like broadcasting a Mariners game, but only showing gameplay when Ichiro and Griffey came to bat.

Which, come to think of it, might not be a bad model for the future of network sports programming. As I've said before, you may hate what NBC's doing, but you can't argue with their success--they even beat American Idol last week, snapping a six-year Idol win streak. Talk about a Miracle on Ice.

Imagine a nightly primetime show presenting baseball the way the NBC presents the Olympics. An hour-long show kicking off with, say, a soft-focus feature on a 30-year-old rookie pitcher making his first major league start, followed by the first inning of the game. Johan Santana's starting against St. Louis, so you check in when he's facing Albert Pujols. The White Sox, who've had bullpen struggles all year, are trying to hold on to a lead against the Rangers. You show a feature about their recently-promoted closer (who hopefully has overcome some personal tragedy), then show him try to close out the ninth inning.

None of this would have to be captured live, because with reality-TV-style coverage you aren't appealing to the rabid sports fan who needs to see the game as it happens. You're capturing the silent majority. The people who don't check scores obsessively. The people for whom sports is simply entertainment, no more or less so than The Bachelor. That is, the people who are making this Olympics a ratings blockbuster.

We rabid sports fans are a pretty large audience, too. MSNBC's live coverage of Canada/USA was the second-most-watched program in that network's 14-year history. In Buffalo, hockey on MSNBC beat out NBC's ice dancing coverage. (I suspect that walking into a Buffalo bar and requesting the TV be changed from hockey to ice dancing would be as surefire method of committing suicide as you can find.)

NBC is forcing the rabid fan to co-exist with the casual one. Maybe that's the future. There are certainly no lack of channels, so as long as I can watch full interrupted games on cable, let the network package sports for the masses however they want. Everyone can choose, like Olympics fan Ken Griffey Jr. does. Asked by reporters what he does when figure skating comes on, Griffey replied: "Turn the channel."