Why NBC didn't broadcast Beijing 2008 Open Ceremony LIVE?

Question

Time is not an excuse: Fans could have watched at any time.

Time is not an excuse(2): They broadcast live most competitions. A lot of them between 12:00 AM and 6:00 AM.

TV space it is not excuse: They put it on TV more than one time.

Rigths are not excuse: Being in the 1st world? Other countries including 3rd world's broadcasted LIVE!

Censoring is a prove of doing this in a deliberated way: No even on the internet the show was available. They cut all access to this event online!

So why?

Answer 1

The bottom line is money.  Advertisers pay big money to advertise during the opening ceremony.  For this, the networks try to air the ceremony during a time when they will have the most number of viewers.  More viewers = more people see the commercials = more potential sales for the advertising companies = consumers are forced to watch the opening ceremonies at the network's specified time.

Answer 2

Because arrogant American don't know Chinese!

Answer 3

As the first answerer said its a case of money and maximising profits.

Also because it bought the rights to televise the games, it can show what it want to. To be honest it doesn't have to show any of the games on TV, its not forced to do so by law so basically it did what it did. But in the end it only annoys the viewers who wanted to watch it live.

Answer 4

Because the time zone different. 1 pm Beijing is 1 am in Eastern time. Who is going to watch tv at 1 am??

What if it was 3 pm or 4 - 5 pm beijing time??

It is easier to have re-run

Answer 5

I should go farther: Greediness!

Because they are tyrants, lazy and selfish.

Because they don't care about what people want.

Because the don't have imagination.

I don't think is a matter of money only. It is also kind of evil ego!

As far as I know they had another "prerecorded" Beijing Opening broadcast after the first one. A second "prerecorded" show CAN'T draw more spectators than a LIVE  broadcast of the Beijing Opening Ceremony. At least they are the same size audience.

It is not for money because if we translate big audience=big money,

Why are they broadcasting late at night (almost everybody sleeps between 12 AM-6 AM) sports like rowing? Is this a Big-Money-Making audience?

It is also because other countries Networks have a feel for their citizens and enjoy having them to see their team parade live at the very moment they are waving their hands to them and to the world and they just don't.  

Answer 6

Well the main reason would be money, and how many people would be watching. What would be more logical? Showing the Beijing Olympics Live at 4 a.m. in the morning in the USA or just showing it at 7:30 p.m. where most people are usually out of work and watching T.V.?