Despite a 15-to-18-hour time difference, NBC Sports
Chair Dick Ebersol "actually sees an advantage" for the
network in covering the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, according
to Joe Flint of the WALL STREET JOURNAL, who examines the
network's Olympic strategy. Ebersol: "Everybody in the
newspaper business, with the exception of the West Coast
papers, are in the same boat we're in, because they won't be
able to report what happened at the Olympics until a full
day later." Meanwhile, Pilson Communications President Neal
Pilson feels the NBC will find it tough to make the Games
interesting to viewers: "It isn't just the time difference,
it is the sense of distance and difficulty of the American
public to get personally involved in events taking place
15,000 miles away" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 8/24). CBC Olympic
Exec Producer Joel Darling notes his network is televising
events live: "Get it on and get it live. That's always been
our philosophy." Darling, on NBC not airing live coverage:
"That kind of surprises us in this age of information and
Internet. I think people are past time changes. If they
want to see something, they want to see it" (CP, 8/24).
THE WEB THREAT: In a sidebar, the WALL STREET JOURNAL's
Andrea Petersen writes that with the time difference
impacting NBC, all the "big" Web sites such as
SportsLine.com, ESPN.com, CNNSI.com and FOXSports.com, "will
publish real-time medal results." SportsLine.com
VP/Programming Joe Ferreira: "I think this is going to be
the first true Internet Olympics. Not only is the TV
broadcast delayed significantly, but newspapers won't have
the results until the next day, either. We have an
incredible advantage" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 8/24). The
INDUSTRY STANDARD's Bernhard Warner notes that the 2000
Games are the third straight Olympics that "major" sites
such as ESPN.com and SportsLine.com "have been barred from."
Warner: "Just as MP3 and Napster are turning the music
industry on its head, Olympic pirates may provide the
opening wedge that eventually pries open the events to
Internet coverage" (INDUSTRY STANDARD, 8/21).
SportsLine.com's Ferreira said the IOC "basically said in
advance that they're not going to credential any Internet
companies. ... Our response to that is that it's your job as
a media organization to figure out who's legitimate and
who's not. I think that's the bridge they are going to
eventually have to cross." In Hartford, Mary Feeney wrote
that ESPN.com "is among the major" Internet companies whose
online journalists "won't be in Sydney, but it will use
free-lancers and a staff writer to report on the games" for
the site. ESPN.com Exec Editor John Marvel said the site
will present results "as close to real time as you can get
without being in the stadium." SportsLine.com has since
made "arrangements" with the AP, Reuters, stringers and
writers for magazines such as Swim Info "to provide
information" for their site (HARTFORD COURANT, 8/23).
