How the U-S is handling TV coverage of these Olympic Games

Transcript

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

Go Minna. Well, while Minna and other skateboarders compete with the glorious Eiffel Tower in the background, NPR's Stephen Thompson is following along from his glorious couch outside Washington, D.C. Stephen hosts NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast. He's here to talk about TV coverage of these Olympic Games. Hello to you - and to your sofa, Stephen.

STEPHEN THOMPSON, BYLINE: (Laughter) Hi, Mary Louise.

KELLY: So there are lots of ways for you, for all of us not lucky enough to be in Paris, but lucky enough maybe to have our feet up on our sofas, to take in these Olympics. We've got NBC. We've got Peacock. We've got memes. The Games are all over social media. Tell me how you're keeping up.

THOMPSON: Well, you just listed a pretty good cross section of how I've been keeping up. I would add to that Peacock, which is NBC's streaming service, has the Gold Zone, which is kind of offering real-time highlights. It's jumping around to wherever the action is. If you know the NFL Redzone channel, it's a lot like that, right up to the fact that they employ the same great host, among others.

And I've really used Gold Zone as a way to kind of direct my attention where I want it to go. Sometimes they'll focus on one event happening. Sometimes they'll show a bunch of screens with a bunch of things happening at once. And the host kind of guides you through. I'll sometimes use that to kind of choose from among events and be, like, I don't want to watch the bicycle race, I want to watch the canoe slalom - and kind of use that as my way in to get into sports that I'm not as familiar with.

KELLY: OK. Put your TV critic cap on and tell me what NBC, what Peacock could be doing better.

THOMPSON: Well, I think some of the flaws in the coverage are pretty much always there. They focus too heavily on superstars in the U.S., familiar sports, especially as you get into the nightly NBC broadcasts. Those wind up with a little too much fluff that can crowd out some of the actual performances.

KELLY: I think you just nodded there to how American the coverage can be. How U.S. centric would you describe the coverage of these Games as being?

THOMPSON: I think it's been fairly U.S.-centric, especially when you're talking about the NBC primetime broadcast. It can be frustrating when you're watching to have all the focus beyond who wins the bronze medal, with barely a mention of who wins gold.

KELLY: Right. You're like, hold on. Who actually won? Yes.

THOMPSON: Yeah. That's a recurring issue. I think that's true of any country's Olympic coverage. And so it's a flaw. I think streaming helps mitigate it, where you can kind of go and watch these events unfold in real time and get a feel for the other athletes.

KELLY: Last thing, and it's one of the reasons that I and I suspect many are tuning in either live or to the highlights in the evening when we can see everything and who won on social media is the commentary.

THOMPSON: Yeah.

KELLY: Like, what a huge difference that makes in the experience, particularly of watching a sport that I don't understand.

THOMPSON: Yeah.

KELLY: I've never played. I have no idea how it works. What are you noticing in terms of commentary for these Games?

THOMPSON: Well, the best thing that a commentator can do is provide context. What am I seeing? Give me all the whys. Sometimes it's nice to back up and show what goes into learning how to do the sport. I find that really useful, especially when you're talking about something like, say, dressage. A good commentator lets the action breathe a little bit. It provides color and detail and information and essentially sets the tone without pulling too much focus.

Laurie Hernandez has been one of the breakout announcers this year. She was an Olympic gymnast for the U.S. in 2016. She's still only 24. And she's done a really nice job contextualizing everything, kind of humanizing the athletes providing useful perspective. No pun intended - she is the gold standard for new voices.

KELLY: Some gold-standard commentary there from Stephen Thompson. Thanks so much.

THOMPSON: Thank you, Mary Louise.

KELLY: He is co-host of NPR's podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.