re: the figure skating
I am really surprised that NBC does not put the entire skating on one of its sister stations. What is up with that?
Here CTV (that main station) had to show the US/Canada women's hockey final. But TSN had every single skater (not that most of the lower ranked people were that interesting). But still figure skating is very popular in the US. I wonder if people complained if they would do anything.
DR Jennifer - Simple: $$$ It's just not cost-effective for them to devote that sizable a chunk of prime-advertising and revenue time to an essentially "niche" sport and audience. They show who the people know, want to see. -Which, of course, is "controlled" by them in the first place more or less.
It's not cost effective to show it on one of their sister stations? Do those stations not show any olympics? I do get why NBC doesn't show it. They have lots of stuff to show.
I think NBC is still recovering from the special "All Olympics" package they offered during the Los Angeles Olympics. They had three channels covering ALL of the events, 24 hours a day. It was a special Cable/Pay deal. From what I recall, they didn't get as many subscribers as they thought they would.
-But I could be mis-remembering. Maybe DR MattH would know, remember how successful that was. In any case...
Women's Figure Skating is "popular". It's just not
that popular.