DirecTV HD Olympic coverage

First, it's a day behind. But OK, I get it, NBC wants to protect
their crown jewels of ads. I can understand that. But the looped
aerial footage of Greece? How many times do we have to see that? And
the one commercial for Dish (sorry, SBC)? Surely there are more than
two pieces of footage to run in between the segments.

Or -- better yet, dummies -- don't run any commercials at all. No,
that's too simple. Just run the stock footage forever. People will
forget they've seen it before.

The opening event was totally unwatchable, live or not. The fact that
there were commercials (or, in the HD version a day later
"commercials") is a travesty of highest order. The commentary was
about as inane, low IQ, and thoughtless as any Rose Parade drivel.
(One interesting note -- the live commentary was almost exactly
verbatim the HD coverage, except with different commentators. That
means it was scripted or, horrors, re-enacted! Althought, truthfully,
the HD commentary was not quite as bad and dropped a lot more of the
really stupid stuff.)

I have heard a lot of grumbling about the Olympics in the past and for
this year's events as well. I never understood it and chalked it up
to American shortsightedness and low IQ. But now I begin to
understand it's not your fault, it's your broadcasters' faults.