I’m guessing this Olympics programming is doing well enough in the ratings that NBC will want to renew it.

Another 23 episodes, for sure. A whole season.

Oh, yeah. The London 2012 Games end on Sunday.

Do we have any solutions to this?

The Summer Games every two years!

Still would be a big deal, right? One Olympics finishes, and you have 23 months before the next one cranks up. Not exactly at risk of overexposure. Not like the NFL, with games every weekend, or MLB, where every team plays 162 games.

If we could get the Summer Games every second year, those poor saps who train for four years, and then fail to stick the dismount or pull a hammy in first-round heats … they can give it a whack again before they turn old. In two years.

This is the first Summer Games since 1976 that I have seen almost entirely on television. (I didn’t watch Moscow 1980 because of the U.S. boycott, and I’m not sure it was televised, in the U.S., to any extent, either.)

And I like it. A lot.

If I in any way represent the average American-born TV viewer … well, I’m watching just about anything Al Jazeera will give me here in the UAE.

This week, that means I’m going to the very end of the track meet every night, and we are three hours ahead of London. So when it ends at 10 p.m. in the Olympic Stadium, it is ending at 1 a.m. here. It’s like the Tonight Show … except way better!

Tonight, I stayed with Al Jaz beyond the end of the track meet, and even saw some boxing — the sport the IOC seems embarrassed by but can’t quite bring itself to dump.

OK, because I’m not in the States, my eyeballs are not being taken to all those commercials; Jazeera runs the competition nonstop, which a person can get used to, for sure.

I’m pretty confident, however, that I would watch this into the wee hours even if someone dumped 10 minutes of ads per hour into it. Fifteen, even. Live programming, unpredictable outcomes, fantastic feats, nationalism, exotic people …

This is brilliant stuff! Which NBC executive came up with this concept? That guy/gal deserves a raise.

As long as they can bring us more product than just these 17 days once every four years.