Hollywood Babble On & On #938: NBC- National Bialystock Corporation

The London Olympics are over, NBC enjoyed a ratings bonanza from its coverage, and may even get a modest profit out of the deal, but it's also revealed something about NBC's business plan.

NBC's business plan is to offend, insult, and annoy as many viewers as possible.

Yes, millions of people watched the network's coverage, but I've yet to hear of anyone who was happy about it. I know that my own twitter timeline was dominated by complaints from viewers who complained about the tape delays, the games they played with the editing to make it look more like a reality show than a sporting even, the interrupting of events to air yet another interview with swimmer Michael Phelps, the brainless and constant chatter of the commentators during the opening and closing ceremonies, dropping coverage of a memorial to the victims of the London terrorist attacks, and holding back on airing sections of the closing ceremonies to air a preview episode of this show:

It's almost as if NBC is being run by Max Bialystock, one of the main characters in Mel Brooks' The Producers. If you're not familiar with the film, the stage musical, or the film of the stage musical, The Producers is about Max Bialystock, a washed up Broadway producer who teams with his accountant Leo Bloom to scam investors by putting on a deliberate flop.

Their plan is to find the worst, most offensive, play they can find, oversubscribe it to investors, let it flop and pocket the money.

The problem with NBC's resident Bialystocks is that no one seems to be really gaining anything out of it.

NBC is struggling to reconnect with audiences after David Jeff Zucker's extended reign of error. That reign was supposed to have ended with cable giant Comcast's purchase of the NBC-Universal empire, but there seems to be no end in sight.

NBC scored good ratings with the Olympics, and they're going to trumpet that as a triumph and proof that they're a pack of geniuses, but it comes with 3 caveats.

1. The Olympics are a major sporting event that can generally get pretty good ratings any year when the USA isn't boycotting it like they did at the old Moscow games in 1980.

2. NBC had a monopoly on the live coverage, which made them the only place to go to see the Olympics.

3. I have yet to hear from anyone who was remotely pleased with how NBC handled the Olympics. In fact, most report being annoyed and angered that an event meant to promote international fraternity and peace was being used to push this--

--A sitcom that looks like something you would see in a sketch or a movie about bad network TV shows.

Not only that, millions of people who saw the preview, now actively resent the show, and will probably avoid it like the plague during the Fall TV season.

So you have to wonder, who the hell could possibly be gaining from this nonsense?

It's certainly not NBC, and it's definitely not the viewer.