mancuso-vonn

There are a lot of bad things to say about NBC’s Olympic coverage: the tape delays are unforgivable, its reliance on sappy melodrama distracts from the competition, and Bob Costas’s self-satisfaction over not aging the last twenty years is horrifying in HD, among other things. But I will give them credit for this: the Olympics is still way more watchable than “American Idol.” And for once, most of America actually agreed with me:

By creating The Perfect Olympics Storm in primetime, mired-in-fourth-place NBC finally and spectacularly broke “American Idol’s six-year unbeaten streak. In the course of what NBC modestly called “the greatest single day in Winter Olympics history” (because the U.S. captured six medals) the network averaged 29.4 million primetime viewers.

When it went head-to-head with “Idol” between 9 and 10 p.m., NBC’s Games-cast averaged 30.1 million viewers. Fox’s “Idol,” meanwhile, clocked 18.4 million devoted fans who stuck with the singing competition just so they could be the first to learn the identities of the remaining 17 utterly unknown semifinalists. It’s the first time “Idol” has been defeated since May 17 of 2004.

The Olympic telecast included the gold-silver combination of Lindsey Vonn and Julia Mancuso in the women’s downhill (and the ensuing foxy medal ceremony), Shaun White’s dominating halfpipe performance (complete with live swearing), and Shani Davis’s repeat gold medal in the 1000-meter speed skating race. Davis sounds just like Tiger Woods when he talks, by the way. Must be something about being a black guy in a white sport.

But the point here shouldn’t be my casually racist remarks. The point is that “American Idol” sucks diseased goat dong, and it’s always a special day when it loses — even if it means a win for Dick Ebersol’s Retard Brigade.