Agreed. I actually hit stop on the coverage after about 55 minutes as I could not take it any longer. It just seemed with the change from Al Trautwig to the new guy and some of the coverage it just seemed off.

We don't have Trautwig to kick around anymore.

I used to be critical (if being a smartass on Slowtwitch and Twitter counts as critical) mostly because of his bullshit writing.

'Lava sounds hot... and it is.'

'You could say Badmann, and you would be right... or you could say, 'she's Bad... man.' Barf.

But the broadcast was horrible. They also used to source their music from current movies and pop culture-who can forget when Stadler crossed the line to Explosions in the Sky, or when DeBoom ran through the Energy Lab to Space for the Pappa? Classic.

Even Talbot Cox thought the music selection sucked.

I almost want to ask when was the 90 min IM infomercial of an race that everyone knew the results 2 months actually good? I guess the answer to that was when Al Trautwig was reading the script.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I cut the cable cord this year so it was the first time in many, many years that I missed the Kona broadcast - and it seems I didn't miss too much at all. But I'll still watch if it makes it to youtube. :)

Did not understand the selection of the mom of 5. The whole time I was like, how selfish can this woman be? I know there are people with big famlies who compete and post here, that is your decision, but it seemed strange for them to glorify this setup in the telecast. I love the rationalization "training forces me to make my family quality time of higher quality". Oh sure, like your kids appreciate 30 "good" minutes of attention vs 2 hours of "less good"? So dumb

But did he actually do his own writing? I don't they ever ran any credits, at least that I ever saw

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

Before the Chicago Bulls co-opt'd it, Alan Parson's "Sirius" evoked images of dry winds and lava fields for me

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I do. That's 7 people that can get the tri bug (mom + dad + 5 kids...i assume if the dad was there). Shit that is a huge demographic that IM wants to jump into (I'm assuming she's a stay at home mom). IM just want the mom's AM EX number, regardless if it puts her 5 kids in therapy for the next 10 years because she didn't

ETA: PLUS if the mom of 5 can do it, you *only* having 2 kids and the dog and white picket fence- you have no excuses not to give IM your Am EX number yourself.

#marketingfortheWin

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

i can certainly appreciate your jaded view. the mom actually had a job, And it vaguely mentioned an old cancer diagnosis (10 years of remission), and her husband is a veteran, but most of the angle was on how "it takes a village" when you are training for a full. If I had a wife and 5 kids and she wanted to do fulls, i would soon have an ex-wife and a girlfriend.

Remembering that the "show" really isn't for the experienced Ironman audience, I actually thought it was mostly good. However, amongst other things I would note:

1. A lot of the show looked more like stock footage. Good footage, but not really sports events coverage.
2. Showing the ladies podium at the beginning really took the suspense out of the race
3. I'm not sure I ever figured out the special interest story of the lady with the kids. Yah, she beat cancer 10 years ago and her husband was in Iraq, and she has kids. But I'm not sure what the "special interest" was that they were focusing on. And, they surprised her at a 70.3? Just didn't make sense to me.
4. On the other hand, the story on the guy from Australia (corrected) was a tear jerker . . . and he is fast!
5. The commercials were part of an embedded infomercial . . . not sure how effective that is, but I sort of liked it.

I'm not sure what the rating were, but remember the TV show isn't geared toward "us".

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David
* Ironman for Life! (Blog) * IM Everyday Hero Video * Daggett Shuler Law *
Disclaimer: I have personal and professional relationships with many athletes, vendors, and organizations in the triathlon world.

We need one of those "behind the scenes" of the NBC telecast...5 years later type of show. This mom of 5 suddenly became a divorced mom of 8 because she's remarried to some guy named Doug who had 3 children in his 1st marriage. They have her on the couch interviewing with the camera guy while 3 kids in the background are running around trying to kill each other. Mom with baggy eyes remembers the "great" memories of that day in the lava fields....Tears roll down her eyes, as one of the kids from the top of the stairs yells at her to stop crying, "you did this mom, it's your fault"....as the show cuts to a black screen she says "i did it for them"................

That's what we need....IM reality.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

Although I appreciate the sarcastic take...

...that's seriously what it's going for. And it tends to work.

I said this elsewhere, but it bears repeating: the NBC broadcast hasn't been for "us" for years. Our day was race day (which, for the most part, WTC/ASO did very well). This is for people not currently in the sport (or in sport at all) and attempting to undo some of the old "toughest single day endurance event on the planet" marketing that created a bubble. There's always going to be some new event that promises to be more challenging, or more extreme, or something else. So messaging has to pivot.

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----------------------------------
Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

4. He was Australian.

Oh I wasn't being sarcastic. The NBC telecast is for the for the non athletic people sitting on the couch who get inspired to do this......It's never been about the ST crowd since what 1983 ABC's "wide world of sports" recapping it.

So no I was being real when I said the stay at home mom of 4 is totally the crowd IM is trying to get into.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

IM (via Active) won't take AMEX. Drives me nuts - I've forfeited a shitton of SPG points.

If I had to guess, I would reckon that somewhere online, the Mom has the job title "social media influencer." And I was happy for her to finish, but she could have saved a good 30 minutes on her bike split if she trimmed that helmet chin strap.

Yeah, I know a few IronWifey/IronHubby/IronMom/IronDad who are now IronEx

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"What's your claim?" - Ben Gravy
"Your best work is the work you're excited about" - Rick Rubin

I have signed up for every single race with AMEX. You doing it wrong bro.

We'll still have Al to kick around every two years for the Olympics. This was one of my all-time favorite tributes (and the index works brilliantly with his IM commentary ... maybe with the addition of "(athlete X )is in zoom mode!"


http://www.slate.com/...cs_sapometer_11.html


We all know that, come Olympics time, NBC goes way overboard with the heartwarming tales of diseases conquered, hardship overcome, and human spirits uplifted. Yet there's never been a tool to determine, scientifically, just how saccharine NBC's coverage really is. Until now. Welcome to Slate's Olympics Sap-o-Meter!


Here's how it works. After slogging through Olympic broadcasts of yore, we drew up a list of 33 syrupy words that NBC has chronically overused: adversity, battled, cancer, challenges, courage, cry, death, dedication, determination, dream, emotion, glory, golden, hardship, heart, hero, inspiration, inspire, journey, magic, memory, miracle, mom, mother, Olympic-sized, overcome, passion, proud, sacrifice, spirit, tears, tragedy, triumph. While these 33 words are by no means an unabridged collection of schmaltzy nouns, adjectives, and verbs, they're a good sampling of NBC's bathos. Think of them as the Dow Jones of sap.

Showing a highlight reel, 6 weeks after the fact, interspersed with personal interest stories didn't?

I am surprised they did not cover Ed Baker. Is it because he has no connection to Amazon?

Also, maye next year the voice of Alexa will be used.

The rating was .84. Hard to find the exact viewership that equates to, but seems it would match up to 4m to 6m people

A 0.84 equates to roughly 1 million people watching.

1.0 rating equals rough 1.15 million watching.

A rating getting 4-6 million would be about 3.8-5.0

ETA: Doing it this weekend going up against college football and holiday weekend after 2 days of families couped up together inside likely isn't the best weekend for it. An mid December time frame (which is when it was for years) has far better chance to "catch" interest more because it's not going up against anything but college basketball. Of course your likely at best to get a 2.5-3.0 rating for this type of show. Granted it's recapping an 9 hour event, but overall it's completely an infomercial and I dont know how many people will glue to the tv to watch to see if the mother of 5 can make it to the finish. I dont think cancer stories do it for the general public either. I think IM is an general enough term that people equate it with the full distance race in Hawaii and know that it's a S-B-R format. But other than that, I dont think it's going to pull numbers anymore. Especially with more and more cord cutting happening.

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Brooks Doughtie, M.S.
Exercise Physiology
-USAT Level II

I love the idea to provide AG winners coverage. would take 60 seconds and it brings the "every guy/gal" element to the forefront.

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Tri is my Tribe! "Sometimes you need to slow down in order to go fast."

Thanks. I was trying to match it up to the nighttime ratings, but now see that shows listed with a .75, .9, etc was also for the Adults 18-49 age group, so those are fractional (not as a whole) to the overall viewership of 4m-5m.

Missed the coverage due to a Turkey overdose. Anyone know where I can re play the coverage or when it will re aired?

Thanks