NBC Hit For Editing Opening Ceremony Segment Seen As 'Victims Tribute

NEW YORK -- NBC has come under fire in the British press for editing out a performance during the London Olympics opening ceremony that has been interpreted by some as a tribute to victims of the "7/7" terrorist attacks that rocked that city in 2005.

The network, which has exclusive U.S. broadcast rights to the London games, cut instead to a taped interview between Ryan Seacrest and gold-medalist swimmer Michael Phelps.

The Daily Mail scoffed that NBC replaced a "tribute to 7/7 victims with bland Michael Phelps interview."

The Guardian, in a piece headlined "Row after NBC drop opening ceremony '7/7 tribute,'" said that section of Friday night's performance has been "widely interpreted" as a tribute to the 52 victims of the 2005 bombings.

As Scottish singer Emeli Sandé sang "Abide With Me," and a memorial wall featured images of spectators' deceased loved ones, BBC commentator Hazel Irvine noted that "the excitement of that moment in Singapore seven years ago when London won the Games was tempered with great sorrow the very next day, with the events on 7 July."

Deadspin, which first called attention to the missing segment and features video of the BBC's coverage, noted that the International Olympic Committee's media guide makes no direct reference to the 7/7 attacks. In the media guide, the related dance sequence, featuring 50 dancers, is described as dramatizing "the struggle between life and death using such powerful images of mortality as dust and the setting sun."

When asked about editing the song-and-dance performance, an NBC Sports spokesman responded in a statement: “Our program is tailored for the U.S. television audience. It’s a credit to [opening ceremony producer] Danny Boyle that it required so little editing.”

James Poniewozik, television critic for Time magazine, noted Saturday that there's "some disagreement over whether the segment was actually, literally a tribute to terrorism victims," despite the reference to the attacks during the BBC's coverage.

"But it also doesn't really matter," Poniewozik wrote. "Specific or general, a tribute to the missing seems like precisely the most sensitive section of a ceremony to edit out. And besides that, given the stranglehold NBC maintains on content for an event its audience has a massive interest in, why edit anything out? It may have been a long ceremony, as they always are, but there was plenty of time to air the song rather than have Ryan Seacrest interview athletes (which NBC has the rest of the games to do, over and over and over)."

This isn't the only criticism NBC has received over its broadcast of the opening ceremony.

While NBC is livestreaming every medal event -- a first in Olympics history -- the network isn't allowing online access to the opening and closing ceremonies before the spectacles air on prime time. On Friday, U.S. Olympics fans could follow coverage of the opening ceremony on Twitter or seek out live feeds online, but couldn't watch the entire four-plus-hour spectacle on television before NBC aired it that night.

Despite the criticism, NBC's ratings didn't suffer. On Saturday, the network announced that Friday night's opening ceremony was the most watched ever for a Summer Olympic Games, with 40.7 million viewers on average.





Um...wut?

Also, why watch the Olympics when you can just go online and find out?

Translation: We don't cover foreign events in our news coverage in the first place, so how in the world would the ignorant dumbfucks in the US possibly know about 7/7 or understand what was going on? They would become confused... and when they get confused they get angry... because they are, again, incredibly stupid.

Nevermind that US media outlets refused to livecast the games online because they claimed they needed their commentators to add "context" for viewers.

And you know if the BBC cut out some 9/11 attack, so many talking heads would be furious over here. Meanwhile, I'm at the understanding that terrorist attacks hurt us all.

When Lauer and Viera were yakking during the opening ceremony I was thinking "are we that fucking stupid that we need these assfaces to 'explain' what's going on for us?"

Also, when Pakistan walked out, someone said something so effing off the wall I was like "wait...what the hell does that have to do with anything?" ...I just looked it up (because I figured I wasn't the only one to be like "huh?") and I got: "and here comes pakistan. but of course we're more interested in keeping an eye on the country than their athletes."

Yeah, this is insane. There was such a huge outpouring of support from the rest of the world for years following 9/11, and look at this shit. Assholefaces.

i have no interest in the olympic shit in general but that is some pretty dumb shit if it went down like that.

But honestly, I watched FOX29 news @ 10 a few days back and I was reminded why I don't watch news programms, rather do my own research. Everyother story was about a celeb, or something FB and Twitter related.

No wonder people are fucking retarded.

Also, the whole of the opening ceremony was a celebration of Britain. If you are cutting things that aren't relevant to America you need to cut the entire thing.

Originally posted by: Davey.

Also, the whole of the opening ceremony was a celebration of Britain. If you are cutting things that aren't relevant to America you need to cut the entire thing.

Haha, exactly, the opening ceremony didn't go well over here anyway.

I thought it was incredible silly at times but I also think that the commentators helped make it worse.

I had mixed feelings about it, but at the same time I understand completely that it would be impossible to make everyone happy. Throughout it I was thinking about all of the stuff that I would've liked to see. More literary references like dickens, Wordsworth and more Shakespeare would've pleased me, but I can also completely understand why some people would say 'stfu about dickens, where is Harry potter lol.'
I was immensely proud that the national health service and the inventor of the world wide web got attention.
All in all, the production was incredibly impressive, although I do think some of the content could've been changed. I also accept that this is a completely subjective opinion.

lol, i thought it was horrible, so fucking cheezy. rollerskating old timey nurses? really? and those mohawked punk-dressed line dancers jiving to the sex pistols on the giagantotron made me want to puke and laugh at the same time.

the chinese got it right: go abstract and high art; do a lot of abstract shit that's pretty to look at and listen to, no one wants to sit through the audiovisual equivalent of haggis and beans.

what i got from that 'performance' the other night is that for some reason, the u.k., which has contributed so much to high art, literature, and theatre, seems to think cheezy broadway musicals like starlight express are the greatest thing ever. weird and hilarious. a british friend of mine told me something similar happened in the 80's when disco was waning here, they just picked up and ran with disco versions of classical music, that that shit was everywhere. lol

but yeah, nbc is stupid. show it live or don't show it at all. either would have been fine.

also, the commentators definitely made it way worse and more hilarious by trying to parse out and explain every retarded thing going on.

I would actually explain the cheesiness of the whole thing as a form a condescension. Almost a british sense of 'we know what we are famous for, but the global audience is too stupid to appreciate it. Lets make it silly to keep their attention while boasting.'
Also paul mccartney is an old lesbian who needs to fuck off, admit his hair isnt naturally mahogany, and stop playing hey fucking jude. Worst song.

-The queen looked miserable as fuq. Don't give me that "she's 80!" nonsense. My grandmother smiled a lot.
-Voldemort can not be killed by a bunch of Marry Poppins.
-Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond.
-That gigantic baby...

I think james bond is terrible.
If any of us met him in real life we would hate him. He is constantly rude and smug.

Originally posted by: Dianana

-The queen looked miserable as fuq. Don't give me that "she's 80!" nonsense. My grandmother smiled a lot.
-Voldemort can not be killed by a bunch of Marry Poppins.
-Daniel Craig is my favorite Bond.
-That gigantic baby...

lol. the queen looked pissed. i can only guess she was thinking, "i paid $50 million for this slop."


also, daniel craig is great, but sean connery is still the best bond in my opinion. pierce brosnann doesn't even count.

this is unrelated but did anyone see on the ABC News last night they had a Beefeater who said the dumbest questions on tours come from Texans?

"Does having your head chopped off hurt?"

"Is this where they kept Sleeping Beauty held prisoner?"

those were things Texans felt necessary to ask the poor man.