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Last night, NBC’s Sunday Night Football hosted by Bob Costas turned off the studio lights and did their entire show under candlelight to promote NBC’s new Green is Universal campaign. This could of been one of the stupidest ideas I have ever seen in my entire life. Now please do not get me wrong, doing small things to try to save this planet and the environment is a good thing. And I think NBC trying to promote a green initiative is also a good thing. But to turn off the lights in the studios during a live broadcast is beyond contrived.
I would like to list out several reasons why this could of been the dumbest idea I have ever witnessed in my life.
- Yes, you turned out the lights, but there was still a dozen or so HUGE video monitors all running. I would be willing to take a gander that the video monitors take more power to run than the studio lights.
- Your promoting during your lights off green event how Matt Lauer, Al Roker and Ann Curry have flown to opposite sides of the earth. Hmmm, how much jet and car fuel did it take to get each of them along with I assume pretty big crews to those places at the end of the planet? Yea, once again, I bet a lot more than what you saved by shutting off the lights.
- Most importantly, you are doing this while the color guy of the broadcast John Madden drives to each game in a GIANT tour bus that burns a hell of a lot more energy than you turning off your little studio lights.
This was beyond a dumb idea NBC. Maybe you guys can discuss it on your next corporate retreat as you fly out on several of the NBC corporate jets?
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Technorati Tags: NBC, Sunday Night Football, Bob Costas, Green is Universal, stupidest ideas, Matt Lauer, Al Roker, Ann Curry, John Madden
Geesh, Cord! Where’s the love baby?
First, you must have tuned into the broadcast during half time, made your “conclusions” and tuned elsewhere immediately. They only turned out the lights during the half time show. And yes, I agree, cheesy, however, they clearly were not trying to save the planet by lighting candles and turning out all but the display panels. My take away was they were doing their part to simply emphasize the upcoming week on NBC, where Universal was to promote Earth Friendly Practices.
Just did a quick search on power costs for flat screen panels. Not knowing exactly what they were using for their displays, I’ll simply quote the largest (65 incher) that I could find: ANNUAL cost is $232. (and this is more than twice any other tv’s power consumption I could find.)
Again, not knowing what lighting they use, but having some decent experience in the theatre, I would eat my hat if you could run a lighting track for the same amount of time as those video displays were running for anything remotely close to that figure.
And regarding your perception about John Madden traveling in a bus? Are you high? Well he’s not, never gets high since he never flies. How can you possibly use the fact that the stars are ruining the environment to fly to the “opposite sides of the earth” in one point of your argument, and in the next you condemn a guy with a phobia of flying for NOT FLYING? Geesh. Now I’m not sure how efficient his rig is, nor do I know how many people are riding on that bus with him. Probably less than the amount of people that fly from city to city to do the Sunday Night Football game. But who cares?
Man do you just hate football, NBC Universal, saving the environment, or what? The rest of us are nauseous? Not me? What about the rest of the reader(s) of this blog?
Ah, touché. I did think that everyone piled into the Madden mobile to the game
Actually, no I didn’t look at it from that perspective, but then I was lead astray by the poster!
And at least we are in agreement about the cheese factor of the entire “Universal is Green” thing. But did you catch the comments by Mike Tirico (sp?) late in the second half when he mention something about how “green MNF” was, and how they were putting all their prodcution notes into the blue recycle bin after the telecast? I about fell on the floor laughing about that, and with this thread in mind!
Good stuff, my friend. Stop by the site some time!
James - I did see Tirico say that, I thought that was classic. I will definitely check out your blog. Thanks for your comments.
James - I love football and have nothing against NBC or saving the environment. I do have an issue with what I believe was a totally cheesy way to promote the Today show and by turning off the lights during a broadcast and say they are being green.
To your argument about Madden, are you under the delusion that the whole crew is in the Madden Bus with Madden? The whole crew still flies to each city and Madden takes the big giant gas guzzling tour bus.
Finally, I knew I recognized you from your theater experience. Didn’t you use to star in Annie on Broadway? “It’s a hard knock life for us”.
Beam me up James D. Kirk.
Cord, At least if they would have done the candlelighting thing on Halloween, it would have been cool. Doing it this way was minor league, at best…
Joel Libava
Joel,
I agree, maybe doing a Halloween thing might of changed a thing or two, but I have to tell you I think the thing would of cheese no matter what. Thanks for the comment.
HI Cord,
I was thinking atmospheric, not smelly.
But if NBC wants smelly cheese, we can send im a box of Vieux Boulogne,the worlds smelliest.
{I looked it up}
Joel Libava
Cord: couldn’t agree more. Nothing burns credibility like a heavy-handed execution on half-baked understandings.
These guys aren’t the ones I’d turn to for deeper understandings on global climate change. Having Collingsworth playing with a flashlight and Bob Costas somewhere in the great white north didn’t sell me on the whole topic. Yeesh.
Save me a spot on the Madden Mobile.
I’m sick of the Green peacock.
I’m sick of every NBC show forcibly including environmental scenes into their programming this week.
They talk about it all the freaking time on the news. TV Shows are an escape. At least they should be.
If they wanted to save the planet, they should have used footage from the Arctic Circle instead of flying people there.
And they should have just gone dark all week. Turn off the studios, satellites, the websites, servers, and everything. That would conserve some real energy.