The Olympics that can't compete

Each night Kim Rosenthal, a New York veterinarian, sits down on the couch with her two children to watch the Olympics. But while she's not reaching for the remote, she feels like something's missing: coverage.

"I just think it's sad we don't see more of the Games," says Ms. Rosenthal. "Instead of seeing these guys on a farm or on the beach, I want to see more of the competition."

It has, of course, become a staple in the modern coverage of the Olympics: gauzy profiles in which an athlete is bathed in a golden glow as an announcer solemnly intones the tale of some tragedy overcome on the march to Olympus.

Yet even this tried and true storytelling technique hasn't been able to drum up enough drama to overcome a collective yawn from the US public. A week into the Games, the summer Olympics seem to have lost the quadrennial buzz that once made it a symbol of world peace, where the athletes of the world came together to compete in exotic and, for most Americans, unknown sports.

One of the main problems: Thanks to a 15-hour delay and the advent of the Internet, Americans already know the outcome before they head for the couch. What's the point, many people ask, of watching a race when you already know who won? "Live television is still the draw

for the Olympic games," says Matthew Felling, media director at the Center for Media and Public Affairs in Washington. "Especially now, in the Information Age, unless you just have diehard equestrian fans, most won't be willing to watch something you already know the result of.

"If you can just log on in the morning, why would you want to watch the men's volleyball team at night, when you already know they lost to China?" he adds. "So it's no surprise the games Down Under will cause the ratings to go down under."

Still, there are entire cable channels devoted to reruns of classic sporting events, so additional factors may be behind the fact that the 2000 summer Games are drawing fewer viewers than any other since Mexico City in 1968. One simply may be that they aren't being held in the summer, which means Ian Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband are competing for attention with Monday Night Football, baseball's pennant races, and homework.

In fact, grading papers holds more allure in some circles than the Olympic rings. "We were talking about it in the cafeteria this morning," says Emelinda Banuchi, an 8th-grade teacher in the Bronx, N.Y. "It just doesn't have the same kind of vibration or enthusiasm we've had in other years. I mean, I've turned it on a few times, but then I just change the channel. Before, I'd watch for hours."

Many of those who are gripped by the spectacle don't feel like waiting a half a day for Bob Costas to tell them who won. The number of visitors to Web sites like FoxSports.com and CNNSI.com has risen markedly since the start of the Olympics, according to PC Data Online, which measures Internet traffic. Some viewers in New York, Michigan, and Washington have tuned into the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., which is airing 18 hours of coverage a day, most of it live. "There are a lot more avenues to find out the results," says Lisa Siewers, director of national broadcasting for Hampel/Stefanides ad agency in New York. "You can wake up in the morning and simply turn on the radio."

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