In ramping up for these Games, it had been my goal to get someone from London covering the Olympics for this podcast. Luckily, I achieved this goal in this podcast. And I’m proud to say that this is one our best editions.
This week, Keith Thibault of Sports Media Journal and I made this edition an Olympic theme and why not? We have two guests for you and it worked out that this is a New York theme, Richard Sandomir, the sports media and business writer for the New York Times and Bruce Beck, the sports director of WNBC-TV of New York.
We began with Richard and we spoke about his thoughts about NBC’s Primetime coverage of the Games and its familiar formula that goes back to 1992. Richard gave us what he thought was good about NBC’s coverage and what he felt was missing. He also opined on former NBC Sports Emperor Dick Ebersol’s interview with Joe Posnanski about how the Olympics are broadcast on US television. And we also discussed how NBC kept the Olympics in its stable through 2020.
Our second guest, Bruce Beck of News 4 New York joined us from London where he’s covering the Games for NBC’s flagship owned-and-operated affiliate in New York. Bruce gave us the flavor of the Games, this being the 5th Olympiad he’s covered. He explained the local angles he’s reported to viewers in the tri-state area and some of the more interesting stories he came across over the years. Bruce also told us of some of the sacrifices he’s made in covering he Olympics, plus he talked about the broadcasting camp that he and CBS’ Ian Eagle run for young teens.
This was a fun podcast to do and I hope it came across. Lots of good stuff in a 30 minute podcast so you can listen on that short trip in the car, on the bus or during your morning workout. You can find it on iTunes by searching for “Sports Media Journal” or go directly to the site.
