Differences between USA and AUS broadcasts of the Opening Ceremonies
August 1, 2024 4:20 PM Subscribe
On Friday, July 26, 2024, during the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, an artistic performance intended to be a part of the planned program was not broadcast in the United States. At approximately two hours into the broadcast, shortly after the introduction of France's athletes (the last group to be introduced), the program moved to a series of music and dance performances, including a floating disco and a Dionysian feast. During this, the US broadcast cut away to advertising breaks and exclusive interviews with US-based athletes while audiences outside the US remained with the main program. • See the differences in this segment, each broadcast side-by-side, via this fifteen-minute video hosted by the Internet Archive.
This video features a side-by-side comparison of this portion of the live broadcasts into Australia (via the broadcaster Stan.) and the United States (via the broadcaster NBC) to illustrate the differences between what was presented to each audience.
Audio for each broadcast has been isolated onto opposing audio channels (US on the left, Australia on the right), allowing viewers to use headphones to selectively listen to either channel alone, or both at the same time.
[via jessamyn]
This video features a side-by-side comparison of this portion of the live broadcasts into Australia (via the broadcaster Stan.) and the United States (via the broadcaster NBC) to illustrate the differences between what was presented to each audience.
Audio for each broadcast has been isolated onto opposing audio channels (US on the left, Australia on the right), allowing viewers to use headphones to selectively listen to either channel alone, or both at the same time.
[via jessamyn]
Kelly Clarkson was even wondering out loud why NBC wasn't cutting back to the fashion show runway feed. I'm guessing they thought it might, as Jack Nicholson says, "be a devastating blow to our antiquated system."
Also fuck NBC for having a shit streaming app that stutters whenever something moves fast.
posted by credulous at 5:37 PM on August 1 [3 favorites]
Also fuck NBC for having a shit streaming app that stutters whenever something moves fast.
posted by credulous at 5:37 PM on August 1 [3 favorites]
I want to know how the Olympic performance planner got a hold of my morning playlist.
posted by funkaspuck at 6:04 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
posted by funkaspuck at 6:04 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Thank you for posting this! I kept seeing references to various folks being all angry about a Bacchanal or maybe it was the Last Supper...and I couldn't figure out what they were upset about that I had missed --- I'd only seen the bits of the runway show that made it into the Peacock broadcast. (Yep, we signed up for a month of Peacock just to be able to watch the olympics!)
posted by leahwrenn at 6:07 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
posted by leahwrenn at 6:07 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
I was wondering how I possibly missed those things the conservative twitter was abuzz about all week. Now I'm annoyed they tried to get a bunch of people enraged about something that wasn't even broadcast here.
posted by thorny at 6:12 PM on August 1 [15 favorites]
posted by thorny at 6:12 PM on August 1 [15 favorites]
To be fair, the Australian recording was from Stan, a subscription service.
A better comparison would be the free to air coverage on Channel 9. I have no idea if they had ads, but I'd expect so.
It is also alot more focused on Australian athletes than Stan.
Through Stan you can even get the broadcast from multiple countries, which is cool and caters to the diversity of Australia.
posted by Bluepenguin05 at 6:38 PM on August 1 [4 favorites]
A better comparison would be the free to air coverage on Channel 9. I have no idea if they had ads, but I'd expect so.
It is also alot more focused on Australian athletes than Stan.
Through Stan you can even get the broadcast from multiple countries, which is cool and caters to the diversity of Australia.
posted by Bluepenguin05 at 6:38 PM on August 1 [4 favorites]
Gang, the third largest city in France was founded by Greek settlers in pre-Roman and pre-Christian times. Please honour the rich cultural tapestry by laughing at these clowns trying to spin up a "France has become anti-Christian, a nation of degenerates" narrative.
Thank you, and good luck.
posted by seraphine at 7:01 PM on August 1 [11 favorites]
Thank you, and good luck.
posted by seraphine at 7:01 PM on August 1 [11 favorites]
Well how about that...
I put this video together and shared it here and there. It kept getting taken off of YouTube due to copyrighted material detection, but credit goes to Lemmy user Scrollone@feddit.it for suggesting that I use the Internet Archive instead. I'd considered posting it here as well, but didn't want to self-promote.
It's nice to see that it's making it's way around the web and that American audiences are finally getting a good picture at how they're being under-served by NBC's Olympic coverage.
posted by neuracnu at 7:24 PM on August 1 [49 favorites]
I put this video together and shared it here and there. It kept getting taken off of YouTube due to copyrighted material detection, but credit goes to Lemmy user Scrollone@feddit.it for suggesting that I use the Internet Archive instead. I'd considered posting it here as well, but didn't want to self-promote.
It's nice to see that it's making it's way around the web and that American audiences are finally getting a good picture at how they're being under-served by NBC's Olympic coverage.
posted by neuracnu at 7:24 PM on August 1 [49 favorites]
Thank you for posting this! I kept seeing references to various folks being all angry about a Bacchanal or maybe it was the Last Supper...and I couldn't figure out what they were upset about that I had missed
Same here! I didn't bother getting up with the sparrows to watch the opening ceremony, so missed what all the fuss was about. Turns out it was much ado about nothing.
posted by dg at 9:00 PM on August 1
Same here! I didn't bother getting up with the sparrows to watch the opening ceremony, so missed what all the fuss was about. Turns out it was much ado about nothing.
posted by dg at 9:00 PM on August 1
We sailed the seven seas, so to speak, and downloaded what turned out to be the BBC coverage. It was 5 hours of unedited footage with no commercial breaks. The commentators were knowledgeable and on topic, had no vapid chit chat, were able to explain all the cultural references, and even translated the speeches that were in French. It was great! So, you know, it's out there if you have a VPN and a favorite site.
posted by mrphancy at 10:20 PM on August 1 [15 favorites]
posted by mrphancy at 10:20 PM on August 1 [15 favorites]
> . . . downloaded what turned out to be the BBC coverage. It was 5 hours of unedited footage with no commercial breaks.
Thanks, mrphancy—I didn't even think of that! So I checked my usenet browser and boom, there it all is. And there's even still some BBC Beijing Olympics coverage available via my provider, too.
Cause US coverage is so vapid, and I have many beefs with it. Though I love peeking in to see how high Kenan and Kev are on their late night show.
GOLD MEDAL FOR SURFING THE CHOPPY MKV SEAS MRPHANCY! Thanks for the comment.
posted by not_on_display at 10:54 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
Thanks, mrphancy—I didn't even think of that! So I checked my usenet browser and boom, there it all is. And there's even still some BBC Beijing Olympics coverage available via my provider, too.
Cause US coverage is so vapid, and I have many beefs with it. Though I love peeking in to see how high Kenan and Kev are on their late night show.
GOLD MEDAL FOR SURFING THE CHOPPY MKV SEAS MRPHANCY! Thanks for the comment.
posted by not_on_display at 10:54 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
The CBC broadcast the feast live and we got most of it. I don't know if this is geo-locked, but the full 4.5+ hours is on the CBC site with ASL interpretation. The feast starts around 2:21, they stick around for about 2 minutes, and they keep cutting back to it after: 2:50 with the masked assassin, then a stretch from 2:57-3:05 with some GREAT dancing and costumes and an ASL interpreter who is INTO it. Sadly, they cut away to an ad and a static shot of the Eiffel Tower at that point, when there was obviously still much going on at the feast (see the IA link ca. 10:50).
posted by maudlin at 11:02 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
posted by maudlin at 11:02 PM on August 1 [1 favorite]
Super cool that the ceremonies were outside of a stadium and on the Seine no less. It even offended Christian fundamentalists with innocuous depictions of ancient Greek religion! A+, bravo 👏
posted by tovarisch at 11:11 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
posted by tovarisch at 11:11 PM on August 1 [2 favorites]
I first heard of this when everyone on mastodon was going, “it’s a bacchanal, not a last supper eye roll”, so I went to YouTube to try to find a video, and I wasn’t logged in so every video was one conservative outlet after another in full moral panic mode all, “omg the blasphemy!… let’s watch some more..” as they do.
So thank you, mrphancy, I’m going to go check it out in the BBC because I would actually like to see the whole thing.
posted by antinomia at 12:28 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
So thank you, mrphancy, I’m going to go check it out in the BBC because I would actually like to see the whole thing.
posted by antinomia at 12:28 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
Side question - I notice the US tracksuit tops that every athlete has been given have the flag on the shoulder but reversed, i.e. starry section on the right
What gives?
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:41 AM on August 2
What gives?
posted by GallonOfAlan at 12:41 AM on August 2
. . . downloaded what turned out to be the BBC coverage. It was 5 hours of unedited footage with no commercial breaks.
Where might I be able to find this? I tried looking on the BBC site and only got their iPlayer, which doesn't work in the USA.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:12 AM on August 2
Where might I be able to find this? I tried looking on the BBC site and only got their iPlayer, which doesn't work in the USA.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:12 AM on August 2
Side question - I notice the US tracksuit tops that every athlete has been given have the flag on the shoulder but reversed, i.e. starry section on the right
What gives?
Here's Why The US Flag Sometimes Appears Backwards
posted by The Tensor at 2:10 AM on August 2 [8 favorites]
What gives?
Here's Why The US Flag Sometimes Appears Backwards
posted by The Tensor at 2:10 AM on August 2 [8 favorites]
Thank you for posting this! I kept seeing references to various folks being all angry about a Bacchanal
In the Fanfare event thread, Eligito pointed out that La Cène, is the French name for Leondardo's Last Supper - hence an obvious connection to "La Seine" to locals.
The other figure worth mentioning in connection with the river is Sequana who was considered the Goddess of the Seine, by the Gauls. I am believe this was who the rider of the mechanical horse was supposed to represent- normally Sequana is depicted as topless, paddling a boat pulled by ducks with balls in their mouths and diadems - so maybe the artistic directors opted to self censor just a little bit.
posted by rongorongo at 2:21 AM on August 2 [3 favorites]
In the Fanfare event thread, Eligito pointed out that La Cène, is the French name for Leondardo's Last Supper - hence an obvious connection to "La Seine" to locals.
The other figure worth mentioning in connection with the river is Sequana who was considered the Goddess of the Seine, by the Gauls. I am believe this was who the rider of the mechanical horse was supposed to represent- normally Sequana is depicted as topless, paddling a boat pulled by ducks with balls in their mouths and diadems - so maybe the artistic directors opted to self censor just a little bit.
posted by rongorongo at 2:21 AM on August 2 [3 favorites]
I only caught the tail end of the ceremony on the night and later heard something about the Last Supper kerfuffle, so when I watched the whole thing on iPlayer a couple of nights ago I was keeping an eye out for it... and didn't even notice where it was supposed to be.
This is because I don't associate the Last Supper with half-naked blue-skinned guys reclining in the middle of the table surrounded by grapes. I know, so short-sighted of me... I was only two or three convoluted steps away from making myself unnecessarily annoyed. (Not that I personally would have cared if it was a Last Supper reference.)
Great ceremony. Shame about the weather, which made the pre-filmed segments glaringly obvious, but I did like the bold use of the city as stage instead of a purpose-built stadium; it celebrated Paris so well. And that light show on the Eiffel Tower, and the cauldron, were fantastic.
Olympic opening ceremonies are such great showcases for dance, too. We don't get many of those, relatively speaking.
I wonder how many viewers were happy to maintain their state of confusion about the appearance of the Minions rather than look into who animated them.
posted by rory at 3:03 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
This is because I don't associate the Last Supper with half-naked blue-skinned guys reclining in the middle of the table surrounded by grapes. I know, so short-sighted of me... I was only two or three convoluted steps away from making myself unnecessarily annoyed. (Not that I personally would have cared if it was a Last Supper reference.)
Great ceremony. Shame about the weather, which made the pre-filmed segments glaringly obvious, but I did like the bold use of the city as stage instead of a purpose-built stadium; it celebrated Paris so well. And that light show on the Eiffel Tower, and the cauldron, were fantastic.
Olympic opening ceremonies are such great showcases for dance, too. We don't get many of those, relatively speaking.
I wonder how many viewers were happy to maintain their state of confusion about the appearance of the Minions rather than look into who animated them.
posted by rory at 3:03 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
EmpressCallipygos: I torrented a copy, but you should be able to use a VPN to say you're in the UK and make the BBC iPlayer work.
posted by mrphancy at 6:54 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
posted by mrphancy at 6:54 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
I had success when I was in France with a VPN set to East London.
posted by ellieBOA at 7:22 AM on August 2
posted by ellieBOA at 7:22 AM on August 2
No VPN here either. Oh well.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:25 AM on August 2
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:25 AM on August 2
Mod note: This post is part of the Olympics roundup in the sidebar and Best Of blog!
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:45 AM on August 2 [3 favorites]
posted by Brandon Blatcher (staff) at 7:45 AM on August 2 [3 favorites]
Performative Christians freaking out about a slightly outré French performance is peak 'Murica.
NBC's coverage of the Olympics is awful, of course, and Youtube TV makes it worse with their shoveling VODs with spoilers in the titles at you.
I've been disappointed in the pirate scene Olympics. There's a couple of heroes posting 3-12 hour videos from the BBC but there's almost no individual sports broken out. In years past there was a pretty good ad-free VOD library of things labelled and nicely like "gymnastics". I take this all as a sign that no one under the age of 40 gives a shit about the Olympics anymore. Either that or the pirates have moved on to better systems.
What I really don't get is they've had 20 years to figure out how to package the Olympics for Internet viewing and NBC keeps being terrible at it. They need to hire a bunch of 17 year old esports kids who may not talk very coherently but are really good at packaging streaming sports. You know, for the audience that's too young to remember adjusting the rabbit ears to improve the static so they could see Mary Lou Retton beat the Ruskies.
posted by Nelson at 9:13 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
NBC's coverage of the Olympics is awful, of course, and Youtube TV makes it worse with their shoveling VODs with spoilers in the titles at you.
I've been disappointed in the pirate scene Olympics. There's a couple of heroes posting 3-12 hour videos from the BBC but there's almost no individual sports broken out. In years past there was a pretty good ad-free VOD library of things labelled and nicely like "gymnastics". I take this all as a sign that no one under the age of 40 gives a shit about the Olympics anymore. Either that or the pirates have moved on to better systems.
What I really don't get is they've had 20 years to figure out how to package the Olympics for Internet viewing and NBC keeps being terrible at it. They need to hire a bunch of 17 year old esports kids who may not talk very coherently but are really good at packaging streaming sports. You know, for the audience that's too young to remember adjusting the rabbit ears to improve the static so they could see Mary Lou Retton beat the Ruskies.
posted by Nelson at 9:13 AM on August 2 [1 favorite]
NBC's coverage of the Olympics is awful...
I can't agree hard enough with this. If I had a nickel for every time NBC's feed just lingers on Simone Biles sitting on the sides waiting for her next rotation while occasionally goes to a split screen of that and a goddamn commercial and I yelled, "GEEZ WHIZ, it's too bad there's not any WORLD CLASS GYMNASTICS happening anywhere else in the building right now!"
And if you're going to follow what a gymnast is doing in between rotations, that gymnast should be Jordan Chiles. I got to see them all live at the trials here in Minneapolis and let me tell you, that woman brings the best vibes to a meet.
BAH!
I used to have my TV hooked up to a PC so that I could, among other things, use the PC and my VPN to watch the BBC's feeds. I'm not sure if that's something I'm nerd enough to get setup on the Nvidia Shield device I use now.
posted by VTX at 9:44 AM on August 2
I can't agree hard enough with this. If I had a nickel for every time NBC's feed just lingers on Simone Biles sitting on the sides waiting for her next rotation while occasionally goes to a split screen of that and a goddamn commercial and I yelled, "GEEZ WHIZ, it's too bad there's not any WORLD CLASS GYMNASTICS happening anywhere else in the building right now!"
And if you're going to follow what a gymnast is doing in between rotations, that gymnast should be Jordan Chiles. I got to see them all live at the trials here in Minneapolis and let me tell you, that woman brings the best vibes to a meet.
BAH!
I used to have my TV hooked up to a PC so that I could, among other things, use the PC and my VPN to watch the BBC's feeds. I'm not sure if that's something I'm nerd enough to get setup on the Nvidia Shield device I use now.
posted by VTX at 9:44 AM on August 2
When I first heard about the outrage over the bacchanal / Last Supper, I wasn't surprised that people got it confused, as there is evidence that Dionysius rites made their way into early Christianity. They both turned water into wine, were resurrected. Also, the Eucharist.
posted by daHIFI at 10:56 AM on August 2
posted by daHIFI at 10:56 AM on August 2
NBC's coverage of the Olympics is awful...
I think it is because it is done by the same kind of producers who do those godawful morning shows on the broadcast networks because that is really all the live TV talent that networks have now that every sports event is siloed off into cable sports channels and such.
posted by srboisvert at 5:19 PM on August 2
I think it is because it is done by the same kind of producers who do those godawful morning shows on the broadcast networks because that is really all the live TV talent that networks have now that every sports event is siloed off into cable sports channels and such.
posted by srboisvert at 5:19 PM on August 2
Fortunately Peacock does give you access to the world feeds for many things (including “prime time” sports like gymnastics). The titles are just “trampoline, men’s qualification and finals”.
Of course right below that are a bunch of “highlights” videos, which spoil everything if you even accidentally glance at their titles.
And annoyingly, the world feeds are totally uncut, and have very few bookmarks in the middle (often none). This would be ok, except the peacock streaming app is shit, so every time you skip forward you have to wait 2 min for it to load again.
Also sometimes the sound mix is bad and you can’t hear the commentary (whether or not I care depends on how much I understand the sport). The world feeds generally have ok commentary, it’s not nbc’s.
posted by nat at 6:17 PM on August 2 [1 favorite]
Of course right below that are a bunch of “highlights” videos, which spoil everything if you even accidentally glance at their titles.
And annoyingly, the world feeds are totally uncut, and have very few bookmarks in the middle (often none). This would be ok, except the peacock streaming app is shit, so every time you skip forward you have to wait 2 min for it to load again.
Also sometimes the sound mix is bad and you can’t hear the commentary (whether or not I care depends on how much I understand the sport). The world feeds generally have ok commentary, it’s not nbc’s.
posted by nat at 6:17 PM on August 2 [1 favorite]
NBC is a broadcaster and the director decided an introduction to players no one heard of was more appealing than an avante guarde art performance that’d get people to change the channel. The number of Americans who would even get the reference is 1%. You could argue it ruined French performance but that gets into a bit of question of art, media and money which is interesting in itself. Does Paris “own” the opening games? Does anyone? Doesn’t matter half tjexsooonsors are American companies and Comcast subsidies the games right now. Keep in mind this is 2024, I saw a raw video from France and had no idea about the cutaway.
I know many broadcast directors who would be very angry if you questioned their artistic integrity and they did it solely for money. It appealed to their audience, like Bragnath’s hamlet or Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah things change for audiences.
Lot of tension in France and between the US today. Ask why French contractors couldn’t do business as normal: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/world/europe/paris-2024-olympics-corruption-raid-france.html
posted by geoff. at 8:08 PM on August 2
I know many broadcast directors who would be very angry if you questioned their artistic integrity and they did it solely for money. It appealed to their audience, like Bragnath’s hamlet or Last Temptation of Christ. Yeah things change for audiences.
Lot of tension in France and between the US today. Ask why French contractors couldn’t do business as normal: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/20/world/europe/paris-2024-olympics-corruption-raid-france.html
posted by geoff. at 8:08 PM on August 2
NBC's coverage of the Olympics is awful...
The BBC is good but they’ve only got 2 streams as Discovery have the contract in Europe, plus they have a hard cutoff at 10pm UK time for the news, so they miss a fair bit including all the surfing, I’ve been watching that on France TV with a VPN.
posted by ellieBOA at 3:54 AM on August 3
The BBC is good but they’ve only got 2 streams as Discovery have the contract in Europe, plus they have a hard cutoff at 10pm UK time for the news, so they miss a fair bit including all the surfing, I’ve been watching that on France TV with a VPN.
posted by ellieBOA at 3:54 AM on August 3
I've largely checked out of the last few Olympiads because NBC thinks what I want to watch is human interest stories about US athletes who compete in already popular sports interspersed with the occasional footage of those athletes actually competing, when what I really want to see is the weird shit.
posted by ckape at 4:23 AM on August 3 [5 favorites]
posted by ckape at 4:23 AM on August 3 [5 favorites]
Wow, so there was all this action going on while NBC just kept showing aerial shots of Paris, and mugging with the crowd and athletes? [forehead slap] Way to dumb it down completely, NBC. I did finally jump on the Peacock bandwagon, and I'm excited to learn that there are other events in the olympics besides gymnastics and swimming!
PS: the one-month subscription price was worth the cost of admission to see Kenan and Kevin Hart. Love the unfiltered rants they go on, and the way they crack each other up.
posted by hydra77 at 8:41 AM on August 3 [1 favorite]
PS: the one-month subscription price was worth the cost of admission to see Kenan and Kevin Hart. Love the unfiltered rants they go on, and the way they crack each other up.
posted by hydra77 at 8:41 AM on August 3 [1 favorite]
I figured out a personal way around the annoying Peacock broadcast of USAian chatter commentators and the lingering shots of the USAian athletes waiting their turn at the expense of watching others TAKING their turns:
- Find "All Sports"
- find something you'd like to watch, and tune into the live or recorded qualifying events.
- TURN THE SOUND OFF
- Play some fitting mustic in the background. Warpaint worked well for Dressage and Trampoline. Tortoise worked well for surfing. I flipped around my iTunes for some Archery soundtrack.
- Realize that these are all world-class athletes and that without the commentators, you can still get an idea of what's going on knowing that the athetes at least know what THEY're doing.
Anyway, that worked for me last night for a couple hours while winding down before bed. I've finally reconciled myself to the fact that I signed up for it in the first place. THE OLYMPICS ARE SAVED!
posted by not_on_display at 11:17 AM on August 4
- Find "All Sports"
- find something you'd like to watch, and tune into the live or recorded qualifying events.
- TURN THE SOUND OFF
- Play some fitting mustic in the background. Warpaint worked well for Dressage and Trampoline. Tortoise worked well for surfing. I flipped around my iTunes for some Archery soundtrack.
- Realize that these are all world-class athletes and that without the commentators, you can still get an idea of what's going on knowing that the athetes at least know what THEY're doing.
Anyway, that worked for me last night for a couple hours while winding down before bed. I've finally reconciled myself to the fact that I signed up for it in the first place. THE OLYMPICS ARE SAVED!
posted by not_on_display at 11:17 AM on August 4
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Now that I’ve seen it I’m a little confused. First off, what does NBC have against disco? And second, did they somehow have advance warning re: Dionysus and the last supper parody? Because I could totally imagine NBC skipping over those on purpose, but I thought there wasn’t a dress rehearsal.
(And I still don’t get what they had against the dance boat).
posted by nat at 5:13 PM on August 1