Presidential debates (please, no live blogging.)

[fishwax]

21. not a particularly deep inquiry into any of those issues

(which, again, underscores why it isn't a very convincing analogy)

how people watch them: although some olympic events are delayed on broadcast tv, they are all live streaming on the internet.

how they are delivered: see above

I would wager that the percentage of debate viewers who first watch the presidential debates on tape delay is very, very small. I'd also wager that the percentage of Olympics viewers who first watch the events tape-delayed tonight (as opposed to having seen them live-streaming online, whether they had access to such or not) will be very, very large.

Presidential debates are typically broadcast on television by all four major broadcast networks and at least three cable news networks. Additionally, each of these networks is likely to stream audio and/or video on their website. There will be other websites, too, that will stream this content live as it happens. (Additionally, radio stations/networks broadcast audio of the event live as it happens.)

On the other hand, relatively few olympic events are being broadcast live on TV in the United States. Yes, they are all streaming live on the Internet, but they are nowhere near as readily available as the presidential debates. For instance, NBC has all sports streaming live online, but (as I understand it) you can't access that streaming unless you have a cable package. There are other sites you can go to for feeds, but not everyone will know about them, some of them will be of questionable legality, and some people won't have the resources to actually watch them at those sites.

The actual debates themselves, additionally, are a fairly small part of the debate package. Also important are the days and hours of analysis that begin with liveblogging while the debate is underway and continue on news channels, radio networks, newspapers, and so on. Since there are typically more voters who don't watch a given debate than voters who do, that work is an influential part of the whole process. That's not the case with the olympics, where discussion for weeks in advance is meant to build anticipation as to whether team/athlete X can win event Y, culminating with the result itself.

There are plenty of other differences, too, of course. Yes, they are similar in that they are both current events and both can be watched live (with more effort and by a smaller population, in the case of the Olympics). But the differences are much more pronounced.