When placed in the proper context, NBC's Olympics coverage and dismal ratings aren't that terrible

The complaints about NBC's Olympics coverage and Peacock being a confusing mess are warranted, says Josef Adalian. But Olympics viewers have never had it so good in terms of live options for watching the Summer Olympics. And while the ratings are indeed abysmal compared to five years ago, so are a lot of big events, including the Oscars. "Some of the complaining about figuring out 'how' to watch the Olympics on the NBC platforms is a classic case of 'be careful what you wish for,'" says Adalian. "After all, for years the rap on NBC's coverage was that the network offered almost nothing but prepackaged, and often pretaped, extended highlights shows. Audiences would have to wait until prime time to see events which finished up hours earlier; sports fans who wanted deep coverage of less high-profile events were often out of luck. The fact that NBC now pretty much lets anyone with a cable login watch every event live, in real time, is a massive improvement over the status quo of a decade o