Ox Notes: February 23, 2010

With less than one week until the cast of Dancing with the Stars 10 is announced, details about the new season emerge. Pro dancers Lacey Schwimmer and Jonathan Roberts announced via Twitter that they won't participate this season. Pure DwtS posted a summary of which twelve pros seem likely to compete in DwtS 10.

Pure DwtS also noted that the new cast members will be announced during Monday, March 1's Bachelor finale by Tom Bergeron and Melissa Rycroft. Does that mean Melissa's officially the new co-host?

DwtS pro Derek Hough got himself involved in the ongoing drama between British singer Cheryl Cole and her allegedly philandering husband, footballer Ashley Cole.

I'm loving Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains, especially since I'm rooting for the Villains. People and EW interviewed the latest booted cast member, Stephenie LaGrossa. EW, as always, features great episode recaps and Jeff Probst's blog.

One thing I'm not loving is NBC's Olympic coverage. Besides the universally despised tape delay the network insists on using, even in the DVR era, I'm most disappointed in the network's Web coverage of events.

The event I've been most looking forward to -- the men's 4x10k cross-country relay -- takes place tomorrow at 1:15 CST, and it's not airing on any network. U.S. men's hockey, which normally airs on USA or MSNBC, is the Wednesday afternoon feature on NBC. Instead of airing the cross-country relay in the open timeslot, USA is airing a marathon of NCIS reruns.

Here's the really dumb thing. NBC's Olympic website is only streaming curling and hockey live, two events that already get live coverage on the main network or on cable. Why not use the website to broadcast events that won't be aired on TV? I'd even be willing to pay a small amount ($.99, a la iTunes) to watch a live stream of some of the cross-country relay.

Instead of making money off of me and other fans of sports in which the U.S. isn't competitive, either directly or via ad exposure, NBC forces fans to seek out international live streams on the Internet (bring on the Tim Horton's ads, Canadian Olympic coverage!).

NBC's Olympic broadcast contract runs out after 2012. I'm hopeful that a new network will embrace current technology and profit from making the Olympics more accessible to viewers.