On cable, Olympic oddities make a splash

0 Comments | USA TODAY, August, 2008 | by Robert Bianco

There's still plenty of fun in the Games on cable.

The Beijing Olympics are down to their last four days, but they have enough TV events left to last the summer. Today alone, midnight to midnight, NBC will offer 73 hours of coverage spread over NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, USA, Oxygen, Telemundo and Universal HD, with an extra 24 thrown in if you get the Basketball Channel and Soccer Channel.

Much of it is duplicative. Even so, that's a good four days of programming crammed into one. And while many people will watch NBC alone or turn to cable only for sports they already like, you'll get more pleasure out of this final weekend if you spread the wealth.

After all, one of the joys the Games offer is that once-every-four-years opportunity to indulge in unusual,...