Americans Actually Love NBC’s Tape Delay! Guaranteed Happy Ending

Finally someone who thinks NBC is not doing such a shabby job with the Winter Olympics. While plenty of people have spent the last 12 days complaining about NBC’s tape delayed coverage NPR’s Frank DeFord thinks most Americans actually prefer it. Much like attending a action-packed, feel-good blockbuster watching the Olympics can be that much more enjoyable when you’re already assured of the fact your country has won the gold (courtesy of that pesky little Internet). Says DeFord:

What was so revealing about this [ratings] victory [over American Idol] was that the feature attraction was Lindsey Vonn’s victory in the downhill — which, of course, had happened hours beforehand and was thus, in this Internet world, already known to most viewers.

Evidently, we would now rather revel in an assured triumph than suffer through a live competition with a problematic outcome.

Perhaps this suggests that at this time when there is so little good news in America, when we do not enjoy the everyday success we used to rather expect, when we are so at loggerheads as a people, that there is something comforting about us coming together to watch a beautiful young woman, struggling with injury, secure in our knowledge that she will raise Old Glory on high.

So basically the country just wants a guaranteed happy ending. Well, fair enough. Who needs to suffer the agony of defeat when you can just get the thrill of victory? Deford makes a few other observations of note, such as: why hold the Olympics in one location when the indoor events could just as easily happen in a more crowd friendly locales like Los Angeles or New York. Also? You may not know it yet, but you’re gonna miss Bob Costas.

But if NBC does lose the Olympics, we lose Bob Costas as the interlocutor. ESPN hasn’t anybody even near his ability to do this unique thing he does so well, night after night. You’ll have no idea how good Costas is till you see somebody else try to do it.

You can listed to the whole segment below…and you should! Frank Deford has a nice voice.