NBC received a lot of negative attention throughout the 2012 Olympics coverage, from the beginning to the end. NBC’s screw ups were even made popular on Twitter with the #NBCfail trending topic. Throughout the coverage, Twitter was flooded with NBC’s mess-ups and oopsie-daisies, from having too many unnecessary commentaries to not airing live coverage and even spoiling a gold medal win for Missy Franklin.

Opening Ceremony #fail

NBC left out a large chunk of the opening ceremony by completely omitting the tribute to the victims of the terrorism attacks in London. Instead of watching the ceremony on NBC, viewers could watch Ryan Seacrest interview Michael Phelps. Although Phelps was once again a hot topic during the Olympics, the interview could have waited until after the opening ceremony was done.

Franklin promo #fail

If NBC had aired the Olympics live, the Missy Franklin mishap would not have happened. Although the Olympics is all about showcasing the talent of athletes from all around the world, the games also showcase touching stories about some of the athletes.

One of the stories was about the 17-year-old swimmer from Aurora who won the gold medal on the 100-meter backstroke and 200-meter backstroke final.

NBC accidentally aired a promo of Franklin winning the medal before the race even happened. This mishap certainly upset viewers tuning in, and it probably didn’t make advertisers too happy, either.

Advertisers know that millions of people are tuning in with their eyes glued to the TV screen, in fear of missing one split second of an event because that split second could be a memorable one. If the advertisers feel that viewers will stop tuning in to NBC for their Olympic coverage due to the delayed airing, the network could potentially lose money due to advertisers pulling their ads, so everyone loses in the end.

Senseless Commentary #fail

Sports events always have commentators sharing their predictions and opinions about athletes and the game. Most comments made usually make sense and are relevant. NBC, on the other hand, failed.

Andrea Kremer kept asking the gold medal swimmer “which Michael Phelps” we would see. She was referring to the winning Phelps or the loser? How is an athlete supposed to respond to a question like that?

Hopefully NBC has learned from their mistakes this year and can really clean it up for the next Olympic games. And hopefully viewers will give the network another chance to clean up their act.