NBC (Pea)cocks a Snook At Olympics Audience?

[Doug Harris]

Some controversy has arisen
http://www.thrfeed.com/2008/08/nbc-fake-olympi.html over various aspects of
NBC's coverage of the Olympics.
NBC denies, of course, that it's (pea)cocking a snook at the intelligence
of viewers. To the contrary (I suppose), said an NBC Sports spokesperson,
when asked about a stamp declaring onscreen that the west coast's version
of events was "live" when coverage was only "live" on the east coast:
"The audience makeup of the Olympics is very much like that of 'American
Idol' and 'Dancing with the Stars' which have 'live' season finales
presented in much the same way," the spokesperson declared.
I know those shows are good old fashioned (!) American entertainment, but
I for one (he says somewhat elitistly) wouldn't want to be considered as
one with audiences of either of those shows. But then my perspective on
such things may well be, like the 50 million Frenchmen who couldn't be,
wrong.
--
I'm reminded, re the 'live' issue, of radio shows of yesteryear that
declared themselves to have been "recorded before a live audience." Now
I think of it, was that phrase born about the same time as laugh tracks,
which made it difficult to tell if an audience was, in fact, present
during the original presentation of the material that was, in another
then-common phrase, "recorded live for rebroadcast at this time"?
dh

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org