NBC and Olympics Tribute to Terrorism Victims (Video)

We all know that NBC did not air the opening ceremony of the London Olympics live.

It was delayed to be shown in prime time.

The broadcast fit neatly into a four and a half time slot, obviously edited.

During the ceremony, there was an extremely odd break. They broke away from the festivities and went to a tape of Ryan Seacrest interviewing Michael Phelps.

Very, very strange. I've never seen the coverage of the opening ceremony interrupted that way. It was more like an intermission than anything of interest.

I thought it was a bad decision by NBC.

It was worse than I thought.

I just assumed NBC inserted the interview in its coverage of the ceremony. I didn't think NBC chose to eliminate an important part of the ceremony from its coverage.

Hosts Meredith Vieira and Matt Lauer made no mention of the dramatic segment at all.

It was a dishonest, deceptive move. Viewers watching NBC didn't were prevented from seeing the very serious portion of the ceremony paying tribute to the victims of the terrorist attacks in London on July 7, 2005.

From Deadspin:

The major transitional element of today's London Olympics opening ceremony was a downtempo performance of adoptive sporting anthem "Abide With Me" by Scottish singer Emeli Sandé. The song and accompanying dance were a tribute to the victims of the 7/7 terror attacks in London that claimed 52 victims days after the 2012 Summer Olympic hosts were named.

...NBC regularly excises small portions of the opening ceremony to make room for commercials, but we've never heard of them censoring out an entire performance—especially to air an inane interview. We've asked NBC why they didn't air the tribute, and if they get back to us we'll let you know what they say. In the meantime, enjoy the performance everyone else in the world saw. [BBC]

Update (12:25 a.m.): Some readers have commented the official media guide to the opening ceremony makes no reference to 7/7. The sheer number of news stories that cite the performance as a tribute to its victims (as well as the performance itself) gives us pretty good confidence that the memorial was its theme. Here's the prepared BBC remarks as aired:

Ladies and gentlemen, please pause silent for our memorial wall for friends and family who can't be here tonight. The excitement of that moment in Singapore seven years ago when England won the games was tempered the next day with sorrow from the events of July 7th that year. A wall of remembrance for those no longer here to share in this event.

Watch the video of the segment cut by NBC here.

Why was this portion of the opening ceremony removed by NBC?

I expect complete coverage.

We sat through every participating country's team march in to the stadium, nearly two hours of nothing.

Certainly, the parade of nations could have been edited to permit the airing of the 6-minute tribute NBC chopped out.

By editing the ceremony, omitting a dramatic dance and vocal performance, NBC altered the tone of the program.

Way to go, NBC! Keep in the utterly lame and inappropriate tribute to socialized medicine, but scratch the tribute to victims of terror.

NBC definitely did a disservice to its viewers.

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UPDATE: NBC Hit For Editing Opening Ceremony Segment Seen As 'Victims Tribute'

When asked about editing the song-and-dance performance, an NBC Sports spokesman responded in a statement: “Our program is tailored for the U.S. television audience. It’s a credit to [opening ceremony producer] Danny Boyle that it required so little editing.”

James Poniewozik, television critic for Time magazine, noted Saturday that there's "some disagreement over whether the segment was actually, literally a tribute to terrorism victims," despite the reference to the attacks during the BBC's coverage.

"But it also doesn't really matter," Poniewozik wrote. "Specific or general, a tribute to the missing seems like precisely the most sensitive section of a ceremony to edit out. And besides that, given the stranglehold NBC maintains on content for an event its audience has a massive interest in, why edit anything out? It may have been a long ceremony, as they always are, but there was plenty of time to air the song rather than have Ryan Seacrest interview athletes (which NBC has the rest of the games to do, over and over and over)."

No question.

NBC blew out.