It was more bad news for NBC on Monday, as Olympian Mikaela Shiffrin announced that she was pulling of out the downhill race on Wednesday in an effort to focus on alpine combined event the following day.
That decision came after organizers moved the combined from Friday to Thursday in order to avoid high winds, and following Shiffrin’s disappointing fourth-place finish in the slalom last week.
The golden girl of skiing, who was chasing five Gold medals at these Games, has now pulled out of two events, causing problems for NBC and its prime time coverage which has been lacking in both household names and medal winners.
NBC is also without its two most veteran anchors, Matt Lauer and Bob Costas, and an attempt to bring on beloved figure skater Adam Rippon as a correspondent for the second week of coverage feel apart when the Olympian rejected the network’s offer.
Hold on tight: The 2018 Winter Olympics have produced few medal winners from Team USA and provided little must-see TV for broadcaster NBC (Hoda Kotb, Savannah Guthrie and Adam Rippon on Monday above)
Puke: On Monday, NBC learned that Mikaela Shiffrin (above after throwing up last Thursday) was withdrawing from downhill and figure skater Adam Rippon turned down a correspondent offer. Shiffrin’s lone gold was won outside of primetime due to weather delays
Ice, ice baby: This comes after Shiffrin placed fourth in the slalom last week just minutes before figure skater Nathan Chen fell during his disastrous short program (above)
‘I am flattered that NBC wanted me to work as a correspondent for them here in PyeongChang. Doing this would require me to leave Team USA and move out of the Olympic Village. I don’t want to do that so I had to declined the opportunity,’ wrote Rippon on Twitter.
‘I love being on Team USA and representing our country. My teammates were there for me during my events, and now I NEED to be there for them. I look forward to being with them, and I’m very excited for the rest of the competition. Go Team USA!!!’
Rippon did however spend most of Monday morning with the Today crew, providing some much needed entertainment as there were just two medal winners over the weekend.
John-Henry Krueger picked up Silver in the 1000 meter short-track speed-skating race on Saturday while on Sunday Nick Goepper grabbed Silver in the men’s ski slopestyle.
At the 2014 Games, the United States claimed all three spots on the podium in the slopestyle event, but on Sunday defending silver-medalist Gus Kenworthy finished in fifth while McRae Williams was down in tenth.
No night was more disastrous however than Thursday, when two Americans who were expected to medal spectacularly collapsed within minutes of one another.
First up was Shiffrin, who finished off the podium in the slalom, her strongest event.
NBC did manage to get some play out of the 23-year-old skier’s slope-side spewing moments before the race, and her stunned reaction once the results were in for the event.
Shortly after that came Nathan Chen’s disappointing performance in the men’s figure skating short program.
Chen, who was the face of NBC’s Olympics coverage alongside Lindsay Vonn and Shaun White in the lead-up to the Games, fell during his skate and landed in 17th place going into the second night of competition.
He did manage to deliver an incredible long program and land a record-breaking six quad humps in his free program to rebound to fifth place – but that still left all three Americans off the podium.
That performance happened early in the competition however due to his ranking, leaving Rippon as the featured skater of the night from Team USA.
Rippon was by far the most artistic skater of the evening, but his program had no quads meaning he stood no shot of getting a medal unless the field fell apart.
He took the top spot when it came to interviews though, particularly his exchanges with Andrea Joyce, who he has taken to calling ‘Angie.’
Luger: NBC is also without its two veteran anchors this year, Matt Lauer on Today and Bob Costas of NBC Sports (Roker and Lauer above in 2014)
Steam queens: This means Al Roker has been paired with Craig Melvin (above) for segments in South Korea that lack the chemistry and comfort Roker shared with Lauer
Three’s company: Megyn Kelly is in New York, but has largely spent the first half of her show covering the Olympics while being joined in by the hosts of American Ninja Warrior, Matt Iseman (left) and Akbar Gbaja-Biamila (right). American Olympians did so poorly Sunday night that much of Monday’s Olympic segment was spent chatting about their own career paths
A week into the Winter Olympics, the United States has won only 10 medals, leaving little of interest to watch some nights and causing ratings to sink from the previous Olympics.
Of those 10 half have been gold, with Shiffrin picking up one in giant slalom and three snowboarders scoring first place finished for Team USA: Jamie Anderson and 17-year-old superstars Red Gerard and Chloe Kim.
Gerard and Kim were the focus of much attention after their wins last week, with the two relative unknowns prior to their victories.
NBC quickly capitalized on Kim’s with interviews and increased prominence in their marketing and advertising material, whereas Chen seemed to disappear from those spots after his finish off the podium.
Shiffrin meanwhile won her Gold well after midnight due to a scheduling issue, a time when most Americans were already in bed on the East Coast.
She is also a remarkably focused competitor, and thus less inclined to give the lengthy interviews with medal winners that NBC depends on during the Games.
White won the fifth medal, but that victory quickly proved to be a headache when he downplayed allegations of sexual harassment made by a woman back in 2016 at his post-event press conference.
He went so far as to call her complaint, which was settled outside court, ‘gossip’ at the presser, where no females were called on to ask questions.
The following morning her appeared on Today to apologize for his remarks but then disappeared from NBC’s coverage.
At the start of week two, Vonn, Shiffrin, and the US men’s and women’s hockey teams are among the hopefuls expected to medal in their events.
Vonn failed to medal in her first event- much like nearly every speed skater has failed to medal.
The problems are not just on the slopes or in the rink either, with Today notably trying to find a groove without Lauer while NBC Sports broadcasts its first Costas-free Winter Games.
Lauer and Al Roker had great on-air chemistry at the Games, and provided viewers with some must-see TV moments, like when they luged together down the Olympic track in Spandex.
Their gimmicks also provided the network with great viral moments, which have been sorely lacking this games.
Mother may I?: Lester Holt with Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen in South Korea
Teens: Gold-medal winners Red Gerad (left) and Chloe Kim (right) in snowboarding
Gossip girl: Shaun White’s (above last week) victory was tarnished by comments he made about sexual harassment allegations he faced last year
Roker has now been paired with Craig Melvin, with whom he checked out a South Korean spa or jimjilbang last week in a underwhelming segment for the morning show.
On Monday the two were back at it again, visiting American troops in South Korea.
That segment, while deeply heartwarming, will likely not be the viral sensation of the Roker-Lauer luge run.
It was at the last Winter Olympics that Lauer allegedly carried on a relationship with a young staffer that led to his termination.
Mike Tirico has taken over for Costas, and while a seasoned pro has yet to establish himself the way Costas did, with many tuning in just to see the veteran sportscaster.
He even managed to turn coming down with pink eye into a viral moment in 2014 at Sochi.
MEMORIES: This Olympics has had almost no viral or talked about moments. But four years ago Bob Costas managed to get buzz even for his pink eye
The delegation sent by President Trump did NBC no favors either, with Vice President Mike Pence saying little and his wife Karen saying nothing in their brief interviews with NBC after attending the Opening Ceremony.
This was not the case in 2014, with President Obama helping to fuel ratings when he declared that openly-gay and media-friendly athletes Brian Boitano, Billie Jean King and Caitlin Cahow would represent the US, among others, in light of Russia’s human rights violations .
That drama, along with concern that the Olympic Village and venues might not even be complete in time for completion, also helped to heighten interest and drive tune-in among viewers.
And lastly, the news cycle is wreaking havoc on NBC.
A majority of their Nightly News and Today staff are in South Korea, which has left less people back in New York to cover breaking news.
In the past week that has included the Florida school shooting and Mueller indictment as well as Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux’s split.
The news cycle is also wreaking Havoc. Lester Holt was anchoring nights about the worst school shooting since Sandy Hook with the backdrop of ski slopes – and vast amounts of NBC staff are in Korea along with almost every anchor
Megyn Kelly is in New York, but has largely spent the first half of her show covering the Olympics while being joined in by the hosts of American Ninja Warrior, Matt Iseman and Akbar Gbaja-Biamila, in an awkward cross-promotional coupling.
She did skip covering the Games last Thursday, in the wake of the shooting, and on Monday, with Americans performing so poorly in PyeongChang over the weekend, the threesome instead spent the Olympic segment revisiting the career paths of Iseman and Gbaja-Biamila.
Guthrie also managed to score a major interview for Today last week when she went to the demilitarized zone between North and South Korea to discuss the path to freedom taken by solider Oh Chong Song, who barely escaped the totalitarian regime with his life last year.
Today has managed to stay ahead of Good Morning America and CBS This Morning, but by no great margins.
NBC is still managing to clobber the competition with its primetime coverage, as most networks air repeats, but television ratings are down double digits from the Sochi Games most nights.
The Olympics have been a guaranteed ratings winner for NBC ever since 1988, the year the network acquired the rights to broadcast the Summer Games.
In 2002, the network picked up the rights to the Winter Games, and in 2011 paid a record $4.38 billion to the International Olympic Committee to broadcast through 2020, the most expensive television contract in history.
On Saturday, NBC only managed to pull in 13.62 million viewers for a 3.2/13 ratings and share, the lowest primetime numbers yet for these Games.
That is just over a tenth of the 126.5 million viewers who tuned in on a Wednesday night back in 1994 to watch the ladies short program featuring Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan.