Jim Bell, NBC’s executive producer for the Olympics, appeared on Chris Russo’s afternoon show on Mad Dog Radio Tuesday.

Here are the highlights.

On the strong ratings:

Bell: They are well above what we had expected. Those expectations were largely based on the Athens Olympics, which were the last European-based Olympics, which is a situation where you know you’re going to be taping things to air them in primetime because it’s obviously in the middle of the night [in Europe] during primetime in the United States. And in Beijing, as you know, we had just the incredible advantage of showing all those great swimming races and some of the gymnastics live because the time difference was so extreme. And so we thought if we can kind of keep it where we did in Athens that’s going to be a big win. Well, we’ve gone well beyond that and we’ve still got a long way to go here but the early results have just been hugely, hugely satisfying.

On tape delay in primetime:

Bell: When a company invests the kind of money that we have in the Olympics we have absolutely every right to protect that investment. It’s the video, it’s the sports, it’s those kinds of things. We’ve tried to utilize new technology to stream everything live, all the events live for the hard core sports fan. But the fact is, and the numbers would seem to bear this out, there’s still a huge audience out there of people who want to watch this stuff at a time when it is convenient for them, when there are mass audiences, when people can gather around and watch TV, and one of the last great family viewing events out there.

You’ve got a family, Chris, you know what it’s like. I’ve got young kids. One’s on the Xbox, the other’s on the iPad, the other’s on Facebook, you’re watching the Giants game. This is one thing you watch together. And if you kind of end up giving it away, some of the stuff, on TV you’re not protecting your investment and you’re not serving the audience and you’re not serving the affiliates and you’re not serving the advertisers.

******

Russo asked Bell about the report in today’s New York Daily News that NBC flew Hoda Kotb to London to take part in the Today show’s Olympic coverage because the network felt the show needed a ratings boost.

Bell: “Absolute nonsense. That’s a garbage story. Anybody who watches the show knows that we’ve been running a thing with Kathie Lee and Hoda for weeks talking about why Hoda should go to the Olympics. So I have no idea. It was pathetic reporting.”

Bell responded specifically to a source quoted in the Daily News who said, “they’re just shoehorning her into the show to help bring it alive. They called Hoda on Thursday begging her to go to London because they said it wasn’t working like they thought.”

Bell: “That’s a lie. That’s a flat-out, made-up lie. It’s a lie. Again, you look back, you go to Kathie Lee and Hod

The Olympics causes you to do strange things. I never thought I’d write this much about Guy Adams (or Guy Lewis as I originally called him before making a quick correction; remember the old Houston hoops coach?)

Anyway, we all can breath a sigh of relief because Lewis, er Adams, is back on Twitter. His account has been reinstated. It had been taken down after he posted the email address of an NBC executive. Adams has been critical of NBC’s coverage of the Olympics.

I felt Adams stepped over the line by posting the email address. However, Twitter General Counsel Alex Macgillivray did a post explaining it was wrong to suspend Adams’ account. It seems Twitter personnel encouraged NBC to file a report, a no-no.

He writes:

We’ve seen a lot of commentary about whether we should have considered a corporate email address to be private information. There are many individuals who may use their work email address for a variety of personal reasons — and they may not. Our Trust and Safety team does not have insight into the use of every user’s email address, and we need a policy that we can implement across all of our users in every instance.

 
That said, we want to apologize for the part of this story that we did mess up. The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.

 
As I stated earlier, we do not proactively report or remove content on behalf of other users no matter who they are.  This behavior is not acceptable and undermines the trust our users have in us. We should not and cannot be in the business of proactively monitoring and flagging content, no matter who the user is — whether a business partner, celebrity or friend. As of earlier today, the account has been unsuspended, and we will actively work to ensure this does not happen again.

Twitter actually did Adams a huge favor. By suspending his account, he received more attention than he ever could have imagined. He just did a tweet about going on CNN soon. Oh joy.

As for Guy Lewis, the former coach is 90 and still lives in Houston.

What happened prior to the Missy Franklin race during primetime was a goof of Olympic sized proportions.

From Richard Sandomir of the New York Times:

As viewers waited to see her in the 100-meter backstroke final, NBC carried a promo for the “Today” show that said: “When you’re 17 years old and win your first gold medal, there’s nobody you’d rather share it with. We’re there when Missy Franklin and her parents reunite. A`Today’ exclusive.” The promo showed her holding her gold medal in the backstroke and embracing her parents. The result known—again, this was on tape so news of her victory was available for hours to whoever wanted to check—NBC returned from a commercial break and Dan Hicks said: “Missy Franklin just moments away from her first Olympic final.”

Really, how does this happen at a major network during a major telecast?

NBC said, sorry:

“Clearly that promo should not have aired at that time. We have a process in place and this will not happen again. We apologize to viewers who were watching and didn’t know the result of the race.”

*******

There has been much written about Guy Adams, a British journalist who had been ripping NBC for its coverage of the Olympics. However, NBC believed Lewis crossed the line when he printed the email address for NBC executive Gary Zenkel, telling disgruntled viewers to send complaints to him.

NBC responded by filing a complaint to Twitter, which reacted by suspending Lewis’ account.

Adams responded via email to a British paper:

But I don’t see how I broke them in this case: I didn’t publish a private email address. Just a corporate one, which is widely available to anyone with access to Google, and is identical [in form] to one that all of the tens of thousands of NBC Universal employees share. It’s no more “private” than the address I’m emailing you from right now. Either way, [it’s] quite worrying that NBC, whose parent company are an Olympic sponsor, are apparently trying (and, in this case, succeeding) in shutting down the Twitter accounts of journalists who are critical of their Olympic coverage.

Totally disagree. I don’t think it is that easy to find the address of a top NBC executive. Most people aren’t reporters, and even they have trouble finding email addresses.

I’m a right to privacy person. Zenkel conducts important business with that account. How is he supposed to find essential emails among the potentially thousands of emails he will receive from viewers?

Also, plenty of people are ripping NBC and still have their Twitter accounts. Adams shouldn’t believe he is that important.

Adams would have his account if he didn’t step over the line.

My friend, Ira, who has way too much time on his hands, was watching Michael Phelps compete in a heat Monday afternoon on his cell phone, a Samsung Galaxy S2. As the race was about 10 yards from the finish, the screen went blank. A message then appeared: “Exit app. Start over.”

Ira was ticked off. “It could have at least let me watch the end of the race,” he said.

Ira, though, has a computer background. He’s not surprised.

Clearly, the technology isn’t there yet to support such a massive on-line extravaganza at NBCOlympics.com. Unlike television, there still are too many variables when it comes to Internet providers, mobile devices, individual computers, etc. It all adds up to plenty of room for error.

My computer seized up on me Sunday morning. I never got to watch the end of that badminton match. By the way, I’m not kidding: Check out the badminton. Some amazing points. Not like you played in your backyard.

The New York Times’ Richard Sandomir did a piece on the streaming problems. He writes:

(People) want what they want when they want it — and they don’t want the video to freeze, skip, pixelate or buffer excessively. Some who wanted to watch Phelps race Ryan Lochte live (many hours before they raced, on delay, on NBC) were disappointed when the live streams seized up as if hexed by an NBC rival.

Twitter has lit up with similar complaints — some satisfied customers have tweeted, too — from fans who don’t want to hear that the trouble might be on their end: their broadband service’s bandwidth; the age of their computers and mobile devices; thunderstorms; the number of people in an apartment building also streaming; or interference in the ionosphere from Ryan Seacrest’s Freedom Tower-size pompadour.

And he has this quote from NBC’s Greg Hughes:

We’re enjoying tremendous success with our digital offerings. And yes, there have been some difficulties. Some on our end; some on the users’ end. And we’re working around the clock to give everyone a good digital experience. A small number of complaints, relative to the huge number of users, is a very positive early sign.

Memo to Greg: It’s is 4:29 Central Monday, and NBCOlympic.com is freezing up on me for beach volleyball. By the way, my Internet provider is Comcast, which just happens to own NBC.

As I said, it’s not perfect.

I made the decision Sunday afternoon. I wanted to watch the Olympics in primetime without knowing the results of the big swimming races.

So I literally went into a media-proof bubble. Twitter definitely was out. I sent out a tweet apologizing to my thousands (tens?) of followers, who hang on my every word. No classic 140-character gems from me for the remainder of the day.

ESPN? Nope. I definitely would find out the results via the ever-present crawl. Obviously, I stayed away from the Internet.

I even carefully avoided the television at the bar when I picked up carryout at P.F. Chang’s.

Ultimately, I watched the men’s relay and other swimming races as if they were airing live. And I enjoyed NBC’s tape-delay telecast.

But I can’t do this every night. That’s the difference with the concept of tape-delay now compared to 1996 or even 2000. Back then, you didn’t have to work as hard to avoid hearing the results.

However, in the new media age, there are too many places where you can find out what happened, even by accident. And we’ve become creatures of habit. We need our Twitter, Facebook, sports sites, and all the other wonders of the Internet.

I can’t silence my computer and iPhone every afternoon just so I can experience the drama of the vault in women’s gymnastics in the evening. Not going to happen. The addiction is too strong.

I’ll watch primetime, because that’s what I do. But I won’t enjoy it as much if I know who won and lost.

Here’s a thought: Perhaps somebody can develop an app that blocks your brain from hearing Olympics results. I’m sure work already is taking place on that concept.