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closeThursday, Feb. 04, 2010
What to expect with Olympics coverage
What to expect with Olympic coverage -- and what's playing elsewhere if you wish to avoid it
By ROBERT PHILPOT
dfw.com
When you hear that NBC Universal has 835 hours of Olympic coverage planned on broadcast and cable networks and Web sites, your reaction may be to try to figure out how you can accomplish the Olympian feat of watching it all, or avoiding most of it.
As Friday's opening ceremonies loom, we're keeping everyone in mind -- including NBC, which really needs the ratings boost the Games are bound to bring. So here are some quick survival guides, for those who want to watch and those who don't.
If you are an Olympic addict
On NBC (KXAS/Channel 5): After the opening ceremony at 6:30 p.m. Friday, NBC will immerse itself in Olympic coverage until Feb. 28, with events in the afternoon (2-4 p.m. most days), prime time (7-10:30 p.m.) and late night (11:35 p.m.-1 a.m., then repeated till 4 a.m.).
Figure skating (men's and women's) and alpine skiing will dominate prime time, but you'll also see snowboarding, freestyle skiing and speedskating. Watch for speedskater Apolo Anton Ohno, who's trying to surpass Bonnie Blair as the most decorated Winter Olympian from the U.S., which is cooler than his winning Dancing With the Stars. Skier Lindsey Vonn, speedskater Shani Davis and snowboarder Shaun White will also be heavily featured in prime time.
USA Network: The majority of Team USA's hockey matches will be on USA, which will also feature curling matches live. USA begins its coverage Feb. 14.
MSNBC: More hockey, including the USA vs. Canada match, although what we'd really like to see on MSNBC is a contest to see which is louder: Chris Matthews or Keith Olbermann. More curling, too. MSNBC will begin its coverage Saturday.
CNBC: Jim Cramer will participate in a luge race. Kidding! Still more hockey, and more curling, as well as biathlon. CNBC gets down to Olympic business beginning Saturday.
NBCOlympics.com: This is for the hard-core Olympic fanatics: 400 hours of live online coverage, plus access to full-event replays, recaps, montages, analysis and Shaun White's hairstylist. Just joking about that last one, but if you just want to follow White here, you can do that, too.
If you would rather ski jump -- without skis
A chronological list of some other programming.
Elevator Girl: As part of a 36-hour Valentine's weekend movie marathon (beginning at 10 a.m. Feb. 13), Hallmark Channel airs this premiere, starring Ryan Merriman and Lacey Chabert as a lawyer and a free-spirited woman who meet when they get stuck on an elevator. 8 p.m. Feb. 13, HALL
The Simpsons: Facing the Olympics head-on, the Simpsons go to Vancouver for the 2010 Winter Games, and Marge and Homer become part of a curling team. If things are timed just right, you might be able to hear NBC's Bob Costas on two networks simultaneously, as he does guest-voice work here. 7 p.m. Feb. 14, KDFW/Channel 4
The Amazing Race 16: Arlington couple Adrian and Dana Davis are among the people racing around the world, doing physically and mentally strenuous challenges you'll never see in the Olympics. 7 p.m. Feb. 14, KTVT/Channel 11 (season premiere)
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: Tyler Perry chips in as a celebrity volunteer in a two-hour episode helping a Maryland couple who do so much for neighborhood kids that their own house has fallen into disrepair. 8 p.m. Feb. 14, WFAA/Channel 8
A Traveler's Guide to the Planets: NBC gives you Vancouver, but National Geographic Channel gives you the solar system with this three-night, six-episode documentary series. 8 and 9 p.m. Feb. 14-16, NGC
24 : House might be taking a break with reruns at Olympics time, but the Winter Games are not going to stop Jack Bauer! 8 p.m. Feb 15 and 22, KDFW/Channel 4
Lost: Most of these people have been stuck on the weirdest island in the world for more than five seasons. They're not about to get forced into repeats by a little thing like the Olympics. 8 p.m. Feb. 16 and 23, WFAA/Channel 8
American Idol: During the first full week of the Olympics, Idol counters by revealing this season's top 24 contestants on the Wednesday episode. The next week, the top 12 women perform Tuesday, followed by the top 12 men Wednesday. And then there's a special Thursday episode, in which four singers are sent home. 7 p.m. Feb. 16, 8 p.m. Feb. 17; 7 p.m. Feb. 23, 24 and 25, KDFW/Channel 4
Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains: It's like the Olympics, only with weirder games, fewer clothes and more back-stabbing. 7 p.m. Thursdays, KTVT/Channel 11
The Bachelor: On the Wings of Love: The Women Tell All: A week before Dallas pilot Jake Pavelka picks his mate (or doesn't -- he has done some pretty unpredictable things this season), the "Bachelorettes" gather to talk about whether Michelle is really crazy, whether Jake doesn't get it when it comes to spoiled Vienna, and just how much Rozlyn messed up by having a fling with a crew member. 7 p.m. Feb. 22, WFAA/Channel 8
41st Annual NAACP Image Awards: See if Mo'Nique and Sandra Bullock, both of whom have Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild awards, can continue their awards rolls. 7 p.m. Feb. 26, WFAA/Channel 4
Blades of Glory: If you'd rather watch Will Ferrell skate than real ice skaters, catch an airing of this comedy in which he plays a macho man on ice. 7 p.m. Feb. 26, WFAA/Channel 8
What this means for NBC
An opportunity to reboot. After the Olympics, NBC will start looking something like it did a year ago, unless you count Conan O'Brien's absence. Scripted dramas at 9 p.m., The Tonight Show With Jay Leno at 10:35 p.m., beginning March 1.
Does this mean that NBC, which essentially had only two bits of good ratings news all fall -- Sunday Night Football, which is over, and The Biggest Loser -- will see an immediate end to its woes? It's doubtful.
The Winter Olympics give the network a big opportunity to promote midseason shows such as Parenthood and The Wedding Ref, and to tell you about Law & Order moving to 9 p.m. Mondays and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit having original episodes at 9 p.m. Wednesdays.
But that's well after other networks, CBS especially, have established momentum. As venerable as Law & Order is, can it stand up to lighter-weight, less preachy crime shows such as ABC's Castle and CBS' CSI: Miami? Does Parenthood have a prayer against CBS' award-winning freshman hit The Good Wife, which has been bulldozing the competition? Can the comic reality series The Marriage Ref, which looks pretty awful in promos, stay the course against ABC's Private Practice and CBS' The Mentalist on Thursdays?
During February, the Olympics will give NBC a much-needed ratings boost, but will still delay late local newscasts, many of which were struggling with the fallout from the failed Jay Leno Show. Come March 1, though, things will start shifting back toward their natural order.
But Leno isn't wholly to blame for NBC's ratings woes; the network was struggling well before that, and although the new 9 p.m. lineup will probably do better than Leno in the ratings, it'll also cost the network more. It's possible that it could eventually recover from the debacle and at least do well on current broadcast-network terms. But that won't happen this spring -- or probably for several more seasons either.
ROBERT PHILPOT, 817-390-7872
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