Viewers were incensed Sunday night when NBC cut away from the Olympics’ conclusion to air a sitcom featuring a monkey, and those with long memories were likening the fiasco to NBC’s “Heidi” moment nearly four decades earlier.
(That was the faceoff between the Oakland Raiders and the New York Jets on Nov. 17, 1968. Oakland scored two touchdowns in the game’s final minute to overwhelm New York’s 32-29 lead, unseen by East Coast viewers because NBC broke away from the game to air its TV film “Heidi” at the scheduled 7 p.m. start time.)
When taped Olympics closing ceremony coverage came to an abrupt halt at 11 p.m. Eastern time, viewers were advised that the festivities would resume in one hour – after a preview of the new sitcom “Animal Practice” and local news. Accordingly, at midnight Ryan Seacrest greeted viewers who had chosen to stick around.
“Welcome to the London closing party,” he chirped. “Now it’s time for the big finale.”
That would be a medley pounded out by The Who. Songs included “Baba O’Riley” and “My Generation,” but not, as put-upon viewers might have noted, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”: Despite NBC’s build-up, The Who were on hand for just eight minutes.
Olympics host Bob Costas then delivered a rhapsodic postscript before declaring a wrap for NBC’s Olympics coverage at 12:35 a.m., while an interminable roster of program credits unfurled. For this, viewers had waited an extra hour on a work night.
And by then, many of them might have been wondering why the ceremony – which NBC boiled down by as much as an hour, entirely omitting acts like Muse, Kate Bush and Ray Davies – couldn’t at least have been presented in one block, ending at 11:08 p.m. while only slightly delaying NBC’s monkey business.