NBC and William Faulkner: More Similar Than You Think

The 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver B.C. needs a reenactment of the 1980 Miracle on Ice, or it will go down as one of the most tragic Winter Olympic Games in the modern era. Nobody needs that miracle to occur more than NBC who has the exclusive broadcasting rights to the games. NBC has been in the news for all the wrong reasons as of late, and that will continue for the next two weeks and well into the spring. They are slowly digging their own grave.

NBC and El Nino are ruining the 2010 Winter Olympics. (Lets be honest for a second, we watch the winter games because they are only on every four years.) The weather is a well known and over broadcasted problem, but NBC is making an absolute joke out of the situation. All their correspondents are dressed in their 700 goose down jackets paired with their beanie and Gore-Tex® snow gloves, and for what reason? (Rhetorical questions are used to achieve a greater expressive force, and not to illicit feedback.)

NBC producers are making their correspondents wear all this attire to emulate to everyone watching at home that it is in fact freezing cold in Vancouver, British Columbia. The truth is that it’s 55 and sunny up there, with an occasional rain shower. Send them out there in a windbreaker, and save the down jackets for the 2014 games in Russia. I can live with the framing of the picture, and the heavily edited programming we get to see on tape delay, but I cannot live with the advertising for NBC’s programming following the Olympics.

NBC has been digging their grave for quite some time now, reminding me of William Faulkner’s classic, As I Lay Dying, when Cash is preparing Addie’s coffin right in front of her window. I have learned through the advertisements that I will NOT be watching NBC once the torch has been extinguished on the 28^th. This will be a symbolic moment as it will represent NBC turning out the lights on their giant conglomerate. They took the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) and turned into the Nothing But Compost Corporation. (I now understand why The University of Notre Dame football games air on this network!)

Here’s what NBC has in store for us after the games; don’t get too excited.

1. Celebrity Apprentice-Starring Donald Trump. Will Donald Trump and Jeffery Zucker file for bankruptcy together? (It’s another rhetorical question; we all know the answer is YES!)

2. The Marriage Ref- In a country that has the highest divorce rate in the world, NBC brings in celebrities to dissect and help decide who is correct in real-life disputes between spouses. Hollywood doesn’t have a high divorce rate or anything does it? (You should recognize this as a rhetorical question by now.)

3. Who Do You Think You Are? (Usually a rhetorical question, but the title of a soon-to-fail program)- All I can say is think X-files meets E! True Hollywood Story…No Thanks!

4. Parenthood- See ABC and Supper Nanny (already been done. Thanks for playing!)

President and CEO Jeffery Zucker, is digging NBC’s grave for everyone to see, just as Cash was digging Addie’s grave in front of her window in Faulkner’s classic. As February 28^th draws closer, the Nothing But Compost Corporation will slowly pluck the peacock’s feathers one color at a time, resembling the slow and miserable death of a once dominate conglomerate. (Now that's programming worth tunning in for!)