NBC anchor Tim Daggett in London:
“We have our own little scoring reference,” Daggett explained several times throughout the Olympic competition, “1.2 deductions or less, [the score is] green; it’s a go score. It’s great. Then there’s cautionary… And then there’s red, and that is obviously bad.”
Elizabeth Stranahan – Pushing perfection: Exploring activity systems through elite gymnastics scoring (PDF)
In that thesis Stranahan weighs the pros and cons of NBC trying to simplify the new (2006) Olympic Gymnastics scoring.
Personally, I like it.
When I next saw Tim I made a point of telling him that the colour code truly does help the general public. The very worst thing about the Code change was losing the marketing value of “Nadia’s perfect 10.0.
Gymnastics Coaching.com 
THANK YOU! So many are critical of the colors/shapes that NBC uses. But these are often the same people who are critical of the NBC-way in general. Gymnastics fans need to remember that NBC caters to the average viewer who only watches trials and the Olympics themselves. They don’t focus on the hardcore fan who keeps up with the sport year-round and who watches every obscure World Cup meet. An average viewer isn’t aware that an 8.8 E-score is actually good in this day and age, and they certainly don’t know what a 15.533 means because it’s a complicated scoring system that isn’t intuitive. I think that the NBC trio, yes, even with Elfi, did a great job explaining the new scoring system in a way that anyone can understand. Having listened to the commentary by the Australians and BBC, NBC is no worse. Does anyone remember Monica Phelps?
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