The Daily News: A Book (about Skating), A Rant (about a Rant), and A Ratings Report

Here's a shameless plug #1 from Yours Truly while I’ve got y’all here…and I’m not particularly good at this self-promotion thing, but bear with me…

Because I’ve written a book (!) About figure skating (!!) That I think just about every fan of the sport will enjoy.

It’s currently titled SKATING ON AIR: THE BROADCAST HISTORY OF AN OLYMPIC MARQUEE SPORT… and is scheduled to be released by McFarland Publishing near the end of the year. Here are some quick things to know about it:

+ It tells the story of how figure skating reached the masses in the first half of the 20th century… rose to headliner status on TV, particularly with Olympic broadcasts, in the second half of the century… and is struggling to maintain that status nowadays in light of a multitude of changes, both in the sport and otherwise, through the past 15 years.

+ By way of interviews with over 30 sources (including on-screen talent and figure-skaters-turned-broadcasters), it seeks to explain the unique relationship shared between TV and skating—including the ways TV has changed the sport and vice-versa.

+ Consequently it’s filled to the brim with interesting stories about “the old days” of covering the sport, the various battles for broadcast rights, the struggles to make coverage more progressive… and of course behind-the-scenes accounts of the stories you probably remember best… maybe some you’d forgotten about too.

+ It features a foreword by CBS’ Verne Lundquist... who, as you might recall, used to cover this Olympics thing for CBS alongside Scott Hamilton and Tracy Wilson.


I’ll share more about this book from time to time on the blog, and next week will try to find a lull in the Olympic coverage to tell a little more about it… but in the meantime, please send me a note at this email address if you’re interested in SKATING ON AIR and would like to keep tabs on it (send any questions there too!). And please… spread the word if you’re so inclined. Thanks!

And now the news…

I don’t know if every skating blogger out there feels compelled to chip in their 2 cents about the Plushenko medal aftermath, but here are just a few things I’ll throw in there that I haven’t heard discussed much yet:

1) Plushy seems to, in essence, be blaming the “new” judging system for rewarding Lysacek with gold. In fact, his statement to Andrea Joyce shortly after the competition implied that with the 6.0 system, his efforts would have been properly acknowledged. Funny how he didn’t mention that the “new” system was in place in Torino… you know… where he DID win gold? It just so happened that back in 2006, no other men could come close to his level of excellence, so the quad/no quad thing was almost a moot point (too many butts were hitting the ice, to be blunt).

2) Speaking of that pesky quad… remember when people were speculating as to whether or not Plushy would do TWO quads in his free skate? For example, when it was learned he’d drawn the last skate of the night… the question became “do you think he’ll do two quads?” “Well, it’ll probably depend on what his competitors do, and how well they do it.”

Guess what? He only did one quad… never came close to trying a second. Had he LANDED a second quad, he might be the gold medalist right now. But he didn’t. He decided one was enough. He either miscalculated… or underestimated. Either way, this isn’t anyone’s problem but his.

3) And even Evan didn’t say anything about this, and I guess it was the wise choice to do so… he DOES have a quad, but in the interest of his own physical health (namely the stress-fracture that was brought on by training it in the past), he opted not to do it.

I might mention this is quite different from, say, Patrick Chan proclaiming I have it, but I don’t need it because my skating is overall so much better than yours.

The latter I can see Plushy taking issue with. But is he now trying to call Lysacek out for not “taking the dare”, as it were? Essentially saying injury schminjury, come on, be a MAN?

Wasn’t Plushy the oldest competitor in the men’s event? Suddenly it doesn’t seem like it.

4) One more thing, and this is more about the reported Russian reaction in general… for all the media, politicians, skating federations, etc. over there that appear to be up in arms over the decision the judges made, might I point to EXHIBIT "A" —an article that ran just after the 2002 pairs judging scandal got underway in Salt Lake City…including this quote:

Alexander Kuznetsov, figure skating coach, said: "The Russians would never have brought up this issue. (RE: the scandal)

"The Russians would have proven their right to victory at the next competition.

"As far as I know, Russia's never protested a result in the last several years."

This doesn’t count as a formal protest, I know…but at least we know now that Russia’s as capable of crying foul as we are.

It’ll be interesting to see how long this carries on. Even in Salt Lake, the pressure was on virtually everyone involved to get the spotlight off the scandal so the other events (figure skating included) didn’t get lost in the shadows.

Though, hint to Russia… if you want NBC to benefit from this dust-up, by all means, keep those quips and statements to the press coming!

Speaking of NBC…(RATINGS UPDATE)

It’s getting confusing… in cross-checking numbers for a given night I’m finding different numbers, and if it’s an overnight-ratings-vs.-true ratings difference, I’m not sure which is which. So here’s what I can tell you with any certainty:

+ The best ratings night yet (including Opening Ceremonies, I think) was this past Wednesday. Unfortunately, we can’t attribute it to figure skating as it wasn’t on; this victory goes instead to the likes of Lindsay Vonn and Shaun White. But from what I read, this was the first time the Olympics had defeated American Idol since it had to go head-to-head with it several times in Torino.

+ Looks like Thursday (Men’s free skate) pulled in the best skating-night Olympic numbers thus far; a reported 25.3 million viewers was the average the night Lysacek won his gold.

+ Overall, ratings are up considerably from tape-delayed Torino… but down from similarly-time-zoned Salt Lake City. Not sure if the 8-YEAR time difference was accounted for, though… or that a lot of the high numbers from SLC had to do with that little judging scandal I just referred to above.

Coming up on Sunday night… that beloved ORIGINAL DANCE!