Olympics on TV so far..

The London 2012 opening ceremony drew big audience numbers in the U.S., UK and Canada. It is the most watched Summer Olympic opening ceremony ever in the U.S. (with an average of 41.9 million viewers) and Canada (6.4m), and the most watched in the UK (22.4m) since at least 1992.

Due to time zone similarity, most European countries should have large audience figures as well.

On the other side of the world, 2.41m viewers watched the ceremony (which began at 5am) in Australia. That's lower than the viewing figures for Beijing, but that was aired at a much more convenient time for Australians.

Elsewhere, more and more evidence is showing that NBC is seriously full of #$%*. First, it edited out a performance during the ceremony honoring deceased loved ones of spectators, explaining that its broadcast was "tailored for the U.S. television audience." Next, it refused to stream the 400 m individual medley final featuring Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte online, delaying its broadcast until primetime to secure maximum TV viewers.

London 2012 opening ceremony TV preview

Where to watch the London 2012 opening ceremony.

The opening ceremony of the London 2012 Olympics is less than 12 hours away. The ceremony itself, named "Isles of Wonder," is expected to be viewed by a billion people around the world. Almost everyone with a television or internet connection across the globe will be witnessing it live, except for those in the United States. 

That's because broadcaster NBC will broadcast it on tape delay for primetime. While broadcasters around the world aim to bring the Olympic experience to their viewers live, NBC cares about securing the largest possible audience at 7:30 ET/PT to ... promote its fall programming lineup.

Penn State sanctions by NCAA

NCAA president Mark Emmert handing out the sanctions. (Getty Images)

The NCAA on July 24 punished the Penn State football program with a $60 million fine, a four-year ban from participating in postseason bowl games and the erasing of 112 wins by the team from 1998 to 2011. That also means Joe Paterno's all-time record of 409 wins no longer stands.

Scottish Premier League suspended from 2012 to 2015

More of the same for the next three seasons. (Getty Images)

GLASGOW — Clubs from the Scottish Premier League (SPL) have unanimously voted to suspend the league for the next three seasons and award the respective league titles to holders Celtic. The decision comes two days after 54-time champions Rangers were voted into the Division Three by the Scottish Football League (SFL).

Olympics snippets – July 14, 2012

Assortment of stories from the London 2012 Olympics:

All England Club, Wimbledon, decked in purple. (Reuters)

London 2012: US Ralph Lauren uniform made in China — BBC News

The revelation that uniforms to be worn by U.S. athletes at the Olympics drew "bipartisan" disapproval from top lawmakers. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) said the U.S. Olympic Committee "should be ashamed of themselves." House Speaker John Boehner (R) tersely remarked, "You'd think they'd know better." Everyone's sounding desperate to score cheap points.

Will you still medal in the morning? — ESPN The Magazine

The real Olympic Games take place in the Olympic Village:

"The next morning," [U.S. Olympic target shooter Josh] Lakatos says, "swear to God, the entire women's 4x100 relay team of some Scandinavian-looking country walks out of the house, followed by boys from our side. And I'm just going, 'Holy crap, we'd watched these girls run the night before.'"

We need more epic stories such as these.

Wimbledon braced for purple haze — AFP
The Olympic Tennis Event will be an encore of this year's Wimbledon Championships – minus all the tradition. The All England Club, usually decorated in dark green, will be adorned with purple livery along with huge sponsor logos. Also, players won't have to wear white and will likely dress in their national colours.

Nick Clegg's House of Lords reform is folly. Abolition would be a better option. — Martin Kettle

"The Lib Dem leader's plan is noble yet naive; against his party's interests and destined to fail. But do we need a second chamber anyway?" More »

House of Lords assembled. (Leon Neal/PA)

The unintended consequences of Nick Clegg's Lords reform are too unpredictable. If one really can't stand the upper chamber being unelected, then it should just be abolished in its present form. Allow the hereditary peers back and let it be a 100% ceremonial body, maybe convening only during the Queen's Speech.

Watching the Olympics in Malaysia

The BBC's London 2012 Olympics trailer.

Above is a pretty sweet screencap of the BBC's 100% CGI Olympic Games trailer. It features London's most prominent landmarks including the London Bridge, the London Eye, Big Ben, 30 St Mary Axe, St Paul's Cathedral, and the recently completed Shard against the Olympic Stadium's lights mounted on its distinctive triangular towers. Not to forget the lush greenery in the foreground that represents rural Britain. The BBC is of course the UK's long-standing broadcaster of the Olympics, though its rights to future Games may be in doubt.

The main channels BBC1/BBC1 HD, BBC2, BBC3, and BBC HD will be dedicated to the event over all 17 days of competition. In addition, there will be 24 live HD channels accessible via TV providers Sky, Virgin and Freesat. For Freeview and BT Vision subscribers, there will only be one additional channel. The BBC Sport website will also stream 2,500 hours of coverage.

In Malaysia, sole TV provider Astro is not also the broadcaster of this year's Olympics, having aired the previous three. It probably decided to focus its resources on Euro 2012, seeing that Malaysians are far more interested in football. In 2008, Astro broadcasted both the Euros and the Olympics. However, the cost of television rights to sporting events have risen sharply over the last few years. That, along with Astro's direction of acquiring more football rights (including the Premier League since 2010 and the Champions League from 2012-13), could be the reasons Astro is sitting out this Olympics.

Malapportionment of electoral districts in Malaysia

Parliamentary constituencies of Malaysia. (The Star Online)

A recent article on British daily The Guardian warned that democracy in the United Kingdom is in "terminal decline". Citing a study by research group Democratic Audit, the paper reports that unrepresentative politicians and indifferent voters are contributing to the decline of the democratic process in Britain. And these issues relate to a fundamental principle in representative democracy – the concept of one person, one vote.

Fortunately in Malaysia, voters are far from indifferent. Voter turnout has been near consistently upwards of 70% since at least 1982. However, as electoral reform advocates have pointed out before, while voters do their part by voting, the electoral system is inherently unrepresentative of the voters.

In anticipation of 'The Dark Knight Rises'

One of the most anticipated films of the year, The Dark Knight Rises, will open July 20 in both the United States and United Kingdom (July 19 in Malaysia). Co-writer and director Christopher Nolan will deliver the final piece of his Batman trilogy which will have spanned over a seven year period starting from 2005. The second installment, The Dark Knight, was especially well received both critically and commercially, grossing slightly over $1 billion worldwide.

Warner Bros. surely intends to surpass that mark but comparisons will inevitably be cast with rival studio Disney's mega release of the year, The Avengers. The Avengers is the third highest grossing movie of all time at $1.45bn and holds the record for highest opening weekend gross (measure of a film's hype) at $200m. The average viewer probably won't bother comparing the two since their tone and themes are rather different, but business is business for comic book publishers DC and Marvel (sister companies of WB and Disney respectively).