Does anyone know how the U.S. olympic coverage will handle the time differences?

Question

I was just curious how the time differences will be handled in the U.S. coverage for the 2008 Bejing Olympics? Like aren't they typically a day ahead of the U.S? and also isn't it night during out day? Will we have to watch everything taped instead of live?

Answer 1

The local time in beijing is 12 hours ahead of here at US/Canada eastern standard time(day light saving), so when they started an event at 9am in the morning of a monday, it is still 9pm here sunday evening. The events can start as early as 9am in the morning and runs until 10-11pm at night, some games with over time expected.



NBC will broadcast those more important games(ie, finals, or games with team usa in it) live even after midnight because there will be people staying up watching it. But there will also be reruns of those games during the day you will have to check the schedule on their website when the events get close to see when it will be on tv.



here is the schedule for all the games during olympic in local time.

Answer 2

Beijing is 8 hours ahead of UTC, which in turn is 5 hours ahead of ET / 6 hours ahead of CT / 7 hours ahead of MT / 8 hours ahead of PT, 9 hours ahead of AKT and 10 hours ahead of HT. So for instance when it's midday in Beijing, it will be 4.00am in London, 1.00am in Washington, midnight (the previous day) in Austin, TX, 11.00pm (the previous day in Billings, MT, 10.00pm (the previous day) in San Francsico, CA, 9.00pm (the previous day) in Anchorage, AK and 8.00pm (the previous day) in Honolulu, HI.



This means that for the major primetime events (such as the Men's 100m) it will be shown at night in Beijing (about 9.30pm if Athens is any guide) which means that it will be shown at 9.30am ET / 8.30am CT / 7.30am MT / 6.30am PT / 5.30am AKT and 4.30am HT. As a result they will either show it as live (but with a 12 - 16 hour delay) or show highlights during the main US primetime slot.



I shouldn't worry too much though. Come Vancouver 2010, you should be able to watch everything live (as Vancouver is in the same timezone as LA) and London 2012 is only 5 - 10 hours ahead (depenedent on timezone).

Answer 3

I imagine the net works are going to use tape delay.

Most of the track events are at night, which is morning in the U.S. so they will not be shown live on regular television.