I kinda thought this was a joke when I saw it on the news, but apparently NBC is tape delaying the Winter Olympics for anyone on the west coast.

May NBC die in a big fucking wildfire. Bunch of clowns at NBC.
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LA Times article

latimes.com

DIANE PUCIN / ON SPORTS MEDIA

Winter Olympics coverage will be delayed on West Coast

NBC says viewers like events in prime time, even if they're not live.

By Diane Pucin

NBC released its Winter Olympics schedule Thursday and there's an innocuous little line under each night of prime-time coverage -- 7:30 ET/PT.

That line makes a lot of us PT viewers/Olympic addicts want to throw stuff or figure out how to take a three-week road trip to ET or hang out at the border and pull in the Canadian feed to see sports the way they're meant to be seen:

Live.

It was reported earlier this week that NBC expects to lose $200 million with its Olympics coverage. An initial reaction: That's too bad. We who love the Olympics want them to be a big television event. But maybe you deserve to lose money if you feel as if live coverage isn't good for the western outposts.

Take, for example, Friday, Feb. 18. It is the first night of the ice dancing. Americans Tanith Belbin and Ben Agosto are defending Olympic silver medalists. They're a television draw. The event will be televised from 8-11 p.m (live ET/CT).

The rest of us? For us the Olympics are treated as a "reality" show, same as "Dancing With the Stars" or " American Idol." We'll watch it three hours later than everyone else and like it.

And NBC says we like it.

Said Chris McCloskey, vice president of communications: "The West Coast has a love affair with the Olympics and consistently measures higher ratings than other regions of the United States. Our extensive research has clearly shown that West Coast viewers, more than any other region, wants to see the Olympics when they're available to watch, and that is when they are home, which in almost all cases means prime time."

We outliers aren't even getting all-live coverage of the U.S. Figure Skating Championships. The women's free skate, Jan. 23, will be live from 9-11 p.m. ET and not-so-live from 9-11 p.m. PT on Channel 4. And this is from Spokane, Wash., which is, yes, PT. On the bright side, that gives us a chance to practice trying to hide from results.