#NBCfail and what you didn't see of the Olympic ceremony if you live in the US

On Friday night all over the world, people were settling down to watch the opening of the 2012 London Olympics. Being British myself it was something I had a natural invested interest in seeing. I was excited about how they'd blow open the ceremony and show off all that is British. Being in America however it wasn't so easy.

While many countries globally regardless of their time zone were streaming coverage of the ceremony live, here in America we couldn't start watching it till 7:30PM [eastern time] a good three hours after they had started in London. Canada literally just over the boarder from sitting here in Detroit were showing it live. NBC, who have the coverage rights justified this with wanting to show it at a time when most people would be home [as they started at 9:30PM in the UK this equated to people still at work across the US]. They wanted a bigger audience.

It turns out perhaps there was another reason behind not streaming it live - NBC didn't want to broadcast the tribute to those who lost their lives during the 7/7 bombings in London - even though it was dedicated to all of those who had lost their lives due to terrorism. Watching the showing it did seem very stop start and I knew something wasn't right to the point I even tweeted about it;

 

But being far past many British tweeters bedtime nothing more came of my tweet but its interesting that my gut feeling was right. You see in the US the coverage went from the music flash back to an ad break then to an interview with an American swimmer to the athletes coming out. I knew it would never of ended at the music thing - it didn't seem right. They also cut out parts of the Artic Monkeys too, and I can't recall seeing the red arrows and there's probably other things cut out too.

The memorial to the dead tribute during the opening ceremony of London 2012. Source.

This development is something that broke over twitter more then anywhere else and it only came to my attention with NBC trending [also though the hashtag #nbcfail] - I thought it was more people taking the piss out of their poor Olympic commentating - apparently there was more to it. NBC have justified not showing this part of the ceremony because it wasn't geared for their American audience. I'm sorry but shouldn't the American audience of all people know the affects of terrorism? In the UK we constantly see broadcasts and hold minutes of silences and the like to those who died in 9/11, why isn't it two way? Aren't those innocent people who lost their lives in my home country of the UK worthy being noted, marked and remembered too? In fact I would have thought many Americans would have been able to relate to such an part of the ceremony.

I know this may or may not be a big deal to some people but as an expat it's made me very angry and it's shockingly disgusting that a media player can get away and justifying such actions. English lives and English tributes are worthy of being shown just as any one elses. 

Just saying.