In a shift, NBC’s Mike Tirico is leaving Beijing earlier than planned.
The Associated Press reported Sunday that Tirico will return from Beijing after Monday’s primetime Olympic coverage and remain in the United States for the remainder of the Winter Games. NBC’s original plan was to have Tirico stay in Beijing through Thursday, travel to Los Angeles for the Super Bowl, and then potentially return to Beijing.
Instead, he will host on-site one last time Monday, travel Tuesday — with Maria Taylor filling in for him on the primetime show — host from NBC’s Connecticut studios on Wednesday and Thursday, travel to Los Angeles for the Super Bowl next Friday-Sunday, and then host the remainder of the Games from Connecticut thereafter.
In total, Tirico will end up having covered just five of NBC’s eighteen primetime Olympics telecasts on-site in Beijing.
Tirico is one of a select few on-air broadcasters on-site from Beijing, along with a handful of reporters. NBC kept its play-by-play and color commentators in the United States and even had “Today” host Savannah Guthrie co-anchor the Opening Ceremony remotely from New York.
No rationale was reported for the move. One can assume the network did not want to risk any chance that Tirico miss what would be his first Super Bowl assignment since 2006. While Tirico has not shied away from discussing the various controversies involving Olympic host nation China — a country whose leadership has shown vanishingly-little tolerance for criticism — the AP report gave no indication that factored into the network’s decision.
Taylor, who will be anchoring from the U.S., will be the first fill-in host for an Olympics on NBC since 2014 — when Bob Costas suffered an ill-timed eye infection that resulted in then-“Today” hosts Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira anchoring primetime coverage for a full week of the Games.
[News from AP 2.6]
