NBC Promises to Cut the Crap During Live Earth Coverage

July 5, 2007

After drawing complaints regarding the large volume of commercials broadcast during their Live 8 coverage two years ago, NBC has promised a more streamlined coverage of Live Earth, reports the Hollywood Reporter.

In July 2005, the deluge of complaints was so huge that MTV and VH1 acknowledged their product-whoring and each televised five hours of commercial-free coverage a week later.

This year, NBC has dedicated a significant portion of its resources towards the coverage of Live Earth, with a three-hour primetime special Saturday night on NBC plus 18 hours of live coverage on Bravo, seven hours on CNBC and additional coverage on Sundance Channel, Universal HD, Telemundo and Mun2. Microsoft’s MSN has exclusive online global rights.

For Live Earth, NBC Universal is teaming up with concert promoter Kevin Wall and advertisers to cut commercial time by roughly 50% per hour. That means there will be more than 50 minutes of program an hour (compared with about 42 minutes normally).

Here’s hoping that other global crises will step up to lower ad time. If we’re screwed anyway, we may as well be entertained.