Both Pittsburgh and Detroit had been holding viewing parties inside and outside of their arenas for away games, but those fun times have come to an end. Last week you may have noticed a giant jumbotron screen missing from Mellon Arena in Pittsburgh, and today comes word that the NHL told the team to remove it. Via Detroit News....

There will be no "Joe Vision" broadcast of Tuesday night's Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals because NBC would not rescind its exclusive rights to the telecast.

The game will not be shown at Pittsburgh's outdoor plaza either.

At issue is television ratings, and a large crowd at Joe Louis Arena could be hundreds -- if not thousands -- of television sets not tuned in to NBC.

"It is certainly something we wanted to show but were unable to secure the rights," said Steve Violetta, Senior Vice President of Business Affairs for the Wings.

NBC representative Brian Walker did not immediately return a phone message for comment, but NHL media relations vice president Frank Brown confirmed the situation while expressing sympathy to Red Wings fans.

"We are very much in tune and very sensitive to the great experience that fans have by coming to a great venue and watching a great hockey game," Brown said. "That said we need to be sensitive to the business end of things and that business is ratings driven."

Really? Really NBC? You're trying to make the argument that a thousand or so people not watching the game at home would cause a dip in the ratings? Really?!?! That's just idiotic. Ratings in those two cities will still be through the roof because it's a Game Six, and to deny Red Wings fans a chance to witness their team win the Cup in their own arena, is just plain wrong. Hopefully wiser heads prevail, but with the game starting at 8pm tonight, there's not much time to change the decision.

NBC blocks Joe Vision broadcast of Red Wings-Penguins (Detroit News)

Noooooooo! Stupid Tiger. Why did you have to go and ruin a perfectly good weekend of Golf by losing yesterday? Not only are we as fans out a weekend of viewing Tiger taking out, random PGA Pro after random PGA pro, but the NBC "brass" has probably been cursing the name of Tim Clark for the last 18 hours or so.

There is good news for you Golf fans though. Just because Tiger isn't playing in the Tourney anymore, doesn't mean NBC won't be shoving clip after clip of him down your throat! Via the LA Times....

Tiger Woods is out in the second round of the Accenture Match Play Championship, beaten Thursday by South Africa's Tim Clark. That means Woods won't be playing Saturday and Sunday during live network television coverage of the event, but he'll still be prominent on NBC.

"We'll have to deal with showing what happened to Tiger because this has gone from being a golf tournament to a news event," NBC golf producer Tommy Roy said. "Our weekend telecast will have to deal with showing what happened to Tiger. It will be our duty."

Wednesday's first-round coverage of the match-play event resulted in the highest first-round ratings ever for the Golf Channel. Golf Channel President Page Thompson said the 1.8 rating was up 50% from the same round a year ago. "It was exceptional," Thompson said.

Well that's just great. What NBC doesn't understand, is that all of those people interested in that angle won't even be around to bombard them with all of Tiger news. Instead you'll have hardcore Golf fans, wanting to watch some of the other players they enjoy, and NBC will be pissing them off to no end by continually talking about Woods. It should be a fun weekend on the "Peacock"!

NBC won't forget about Tiger Woods (LA Times)

Hey, who thinks ten people for a pregame show is too many? Certainly not NBC! The Peacock added yet ANOTHER analyst to their set for their five hour pregame show, putting their current total at eleven. The latest to join the ridiculous count is current Patriot, Rodney Harrison. Via NBC PR....

Rodney Harrison, who earned two Super Bowl rings with the New England Patriots, will join NBC's Super Bowl XLIII Pregame Show it was announced today. In a 15-year-career, Harrison has made three Pro Bowl appearances and is the only player in NFL history with both 30 career sacks and 30 career interceptions.

NBC's Super Bowl XLIII Pregame Show kicks off at Noon ET and will be led by its "Football Night in America" studio team of Bob Costas (host), Cris Collinsworth (co-host), Keith Olbermann (co-host), Dan Patrick (co-host), Jerome Bettis (analyst), Tiki Barber (analyst) and Peter King (reporter). Tony Dungy, Mike Holmgren and Matt Millen were also recently announced as contributors.

In addition to his two Super Bowl rings, Harrison was part of perhaps the most famous play in Super Bowl history, attempting to defend David Tyree's miracle reception in last year's Super Bowl XLII. During NBC's pregame coverage, Harrison will discuss his role in Super Bowl lore as part of a feature on the Tyree catch.

At this point they're going to have to go over to Conan, and borrow some mics or something. I haven't even seen what they're planning, and I'm already aggravated by this nonsense. With that many people on board, all day Sunday is going to be a dizzy, convoluted, set of random pieces with no real semblance of order. It's just impossible for it not to be.

I rarely feel bad for West Coasters (given that you get Football so early in your day), but I finally have some sympathy with the coverage that NBC is giving you during these Olympics. Those to the West have been subject to events being listed as "Live" that are certainly not going on at that time and have basically been relegated to watching one of the best Olympic performances on a time delay.

Well yesterday there was a bit of hope in a rumor from Media Bistro that NBC was going to air Michael Phelps' race for a potential eighth gold live across the U.S. Well friendos....that's not happening. Via Sports Business Daily and Yahoo Finance....

SBD: "An NBC Sports spokesperson dismissed a report that that NBC was considering airing Saturday's prime-time Olympic coverage live in all time zones due to U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps potential winning his eighth Gold Medal. The spokesperson called the report, “Absolutely false. There is no chance that this will happen”

Yahoo Finance: "NBC has been airing the swimming events live on a feed for the eastern and central time zones, but offering the same programing three hours later on delay for West-Coast viewers.

"It will not be shown live on the West Coast," said Brian Walker, NBC Olympics spokesman in Beijing. "This is a baseless rumor and I don't know the genesis of it."

"The situation will remain the same as it has for all of our prime-time broadcasts," Walker said. "The reason that we're showing this in the normal prime-time patterns on the West Coast is because this is when the majority of people are available to watch."

So there you have it. No Phelps for you....and for what? A few points in the ratings? This decision is unprecedented for a network to air events live on one side of the Country and not the other. It's amazing how out of touch NBC is with its viewers, and the choice is baffling to say the least, so I completely understand if you're frustrated. Unfortunately for you, it doesn't look like NBC cares.

West Coast TV to stay on delay, even if Phelps gets shot at breaking Spitz's record (Yahoo Finance)
Phelps Race May Get Coast-to-Coast Live Coverage (Media Bistro)

Even before the Games got underway people were questioning how accurate NBC's ratings reporting was going to be and furthermore, how exactly they were going to do it. There's not question that NBC has recorded rather large ratings on the strength of an interesting Opening Ceremony and Michaels, but apparently the numbers they are giving the public are in question. Via the Washington Post....

About 107 million people in the United States sampled the first Sunday of the Beijing Games across all of NBC Universal's broadcast and cable networks, making it the most sampled first Sunday in Summer Olympics history.

For the record books, the NBC broadcast network averaged 30.4 million viewers Sunday in prime time -- actually from 7 to 11:45 p.m. That's the best prime-time average audience through the first Sunday for a non-U.S. Summer Games since Montreal in 1976, when the words "audience fragmentation" had not yet become the most feared phrase in the executive suites of the networks.

Time for the NBC Fine Print: The 107 million viewers who sampled the Games on one of the NBC Universal networks -- NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, Oxygen (yes, really), etc. -- and the 81 million who checked out the NBC broadcast network in prime time Sunday are "reach" figures and measure anyone who watched as little as six minutes of a telecast. These are of great bragging interest to the network presenting big-ticket programs such as the Olympics; they're also of enormous interest to advertisers. That's because conventional wisdom says anyone who watches six minutes of a telecast probably was subjected to an ad break.

The 30.4 million who watched NBC represents the "average audience," meaning the average number of viewers watching each minute. That's the standard typically used to discuss programming on television.

I know that's confusing (to me too), so I asked a friend in the "business" to break it down. Here's what I gathered.....Reach figures really mean nothing to advertisers. They'd rather know the average audience because that calculation, once broken down, can show you just about how many people have been exposed to your ad.

It seems odd to me that a network would continue to be shady with figures even though they're close to setting all sorts of records. If you add to the television coverage, the success of the live online content , the whole package has been an overwhelming success. It'll be interesting to take a look again when all the numbers are in.

[/nerdiness]

Edwards's Mea Culpa Merits a Mere Blip Against NBC and Beijing (Washington Post)

FOX has done it for the MLB All Star Game and the Super Bowl, but now NBC is going to copy the practice for the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby this May. They'll also have a host comparable to Ryan Seacrest....

NBC Sports will add a half hour of coverage at the beginning of its traditional start of the Kentucky Derby telecast, featuring a Red Carpet Show presented by Head and Shoulders.

The Red Carpet Show will be hosted by Billy Bush of the NBC Universal-owned syndicated Hollywood magazine show Access Hollywood. The Red Carpet show will be part of the new Access at the Derby half hour, hosted by Bush, and will air at 4 p.m. on May 3. Bush will go behind-the-scenes at Derby parties, interview celebrities and show fashions. The Red Carpet Show will offer glimpses of celebrities arriving at Churchill Downs, site of the race.

I don't watch Access Hollywood but I've heard Billy Bush on the radio before and he's not THAT bad. Also, the Derby's Red Carpet will only be a half an hour long, so it won't be exactly like the 5 hour overkill of the Super Bowl one.

NBC Sports Adding to Derby Telecast (Media Week)