CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Following the spectacular opening ceremonies to the Olympics in Beijing comes the real task for viewers; finding the events they want to watch over the Games' 17 days.       

NBC (WSAZ locally) begins at 10 a.m. today and, with the exception of an hour from 6-7 p.m. for local and national news, will be wall-to-wall Olympic coverage until midnight.

A good place to find NBC's Olympic coverage schedule each day is NBCOlympics.com. Click on "TV and online listings," from where you will be prompted to provide your zip code and cable or satellite provider, and seconds later you are on your way to watching the games smarter. You will be able to see the day's schedule, not only for NBC but also for other channels carrying events - CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Oxygen. MSNBC will have a two-hour Olympics wrapup show weekdays at 5 p.m.  

NBCOlympics.com will also be a great source for watching events online, as more than 2,200 hours of action will be available live or on demand, mostly during the early morning hours.   

DirecTV customers probably noticed a few new wrinkles Saturday. All of the channels with Olympic content (except NBC) have been placed back-to-back on channels 750-756. This makes it easier to channel surf while looking at different events. Nearly all DTV customers have interactive receivers, so pressing the red button on your remote takes you to the on-screen Olympics guide, showing the current viewing schedule and allowing you to see what's coming up over the next 24 hours. This interactive feature also provides an up-to-the-minute medal count and even has a 10-question trivia challenge which changes daily.

DirecTV offers a variety of premium foreign-channel packages, but China-based CCTV 9 is still available to all customers with the basic Total Choice package on channel 455. CCTV 9 doesn't have live events, but is has reporting non-stop Olympic news and analysis from a Chinese perspective (the channel is in English). Sadly, CCTV 9 will be dropped from the DirecTV lineup on Aug. 25.

Around the dial

ESPN's prime time newsmagazine "E:60" returns Tuesday with an extended look at the new NASCAR team ownership dreams of Randy Moss. E:60 followed Moss as he began his venture as a team owner in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series. In the profile, Moss tells Rachel Nichols his reasons for becoming a team owner and what his ownership means for minorities in NASCAR. E:60 reports on the announcement of his deal at Daytona, his first visit to his race shop in Charlotte, N.C., and his first race as NASCAR team owner at the Kentucky Speedway outside Cincinnati. The next edition of E:60 will mark the start of a run of 14 consecutive weeks of shows, ending Nov. 11.

The amount of preseason football coverage on NFL Network this month is staggering. In case you decided to sleep in this morning and missed the Eagles-Steelers replay at 7 a.m., there is plenty more today. The NFLN's schedule of replays for today includes Atlanta at Jacksonville (10 a.m.), St. Louis at Tennessee (1 p.m.), Tampa Bay at Miami (4 p.m.), Indianapolis at Carolina (7 p.m.), Denver at Houston (10 p.m.) and the New York Jets at Cleveland (1 a.m). NFLN will have more than 400 hours of preseason games and scrimmages this month as a record 54 of the 65 total preseason games played will air over a 26-day span that began Thursday. For DirecTV customers, 42 of those games will be available in HD, eight more than last year.

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Following the spectacular opening ceremonies to the Olympics in Beijing comes the real task for viewers; finding the events they want to watch over the Games' 17 days.       

NBC (WSAZ locally) begins at 10 a.m. today and, with the exception of an hour from 6-7 p.m. for local and national news, will be wall-to-wall Olympic coverage until midnight.

A good place to find NBC's Olympic coverage schedule each day is NBCOlympics.com. Click on "TV and online listings," from where you will be prompted to provide your zip code and cable or satellite provider, and seconds later you are on your way to watching the games smarter. You will be able to see the day's schedule, not only for NBC but also for other channels carrying events - CNBC, MSNBC, USA and Oxygen. MSNBC will have a two-hour Olympics wrapup show weekdays at 5 p.m.  

NBCOlympics.com will also be a great source for watching events online, as more than 2,200 hours of action will be available live or on demand, mostly during the early morning hours.   

DirecTV customers probably noticed a few new wrinkles Saturday. All of the channels with Olympic content (except NBC) have been placed back-to-back on channels 750-756. This makes it easier to channel surf while looking at different events. Nearly all DTV customers have interactive receivers, so pressing the red button on your remote takes you to the on-screen Olympics guide, showing the current viewing schedule and allowing you to see what's coming up over the next 24 hours. This interactive feature also provides an up-to-the-minute medal count and even has a 10-question trivia challenge which changes daily.

DirecTV offers a variety of premium foreign-channel packages, but China-based CCTV 9 is still available to all customers with the basic Total Choice package on channel 455. CCTV 9 doesn't have live events, but is has reporting non-stop Olympic news and analysis from a Chinese perspective (the channel is in English). Sadly, CCTV 9 will be dropped from the DirecTV lineup on Aug. 25.

Around the dial

ESPN's prime time newsmagazine "E:60" returns Tuesday with an extended look at the new NASCAR team ownership dreams of Randy Moss. E:60 followed Moss as he began his venture as a team owner in NASCAR's Craftsman Truck Series. In the profile, Moss tells Rachel Nichols his reasons for becoming a team owner and what his ownership means for minorities in NASCAR. E:60 reports on the announcement of his deal at Daytona, his first visit to his race shop in Charlotte, N.C., and his first race as NASCAR team owner at the Kentucky Speedway outside Cincinnati. The next edition of E:60 will mark the start of a run of 14 consecutive weeks of shows, ending Nov. 11.

The amount of preseason football coverage on NFL Network this month is staggering. In case you decided to sleep in this morning and missed the Eagles-Steelers replay at 7 a.m., there is plenty more today. The NFLN's schedule of replays for today includes Atlanta at Jacksonville (10 a.m.), St. Louis at Tennessee (1 p.m.), Tampa Bay at Miami (4 p.m.), Indianapolis at Carolina (7 p.m.), Denver at Houston (10 p.m.) and the New York Jets at Cleveland (1 a.m). NFLN will have more than 400 hours of preseason games and scrimmages this month as a record 54 of the 65 total preseason games played will air over a 26-day span that began Thursday. For DirecTV customers, 42 of those games will be available in HD, eight more than last year.

We are beginning to hear some details on how the Sirius XM merger may affect sports fans. CEO Mel Karmazin told Fortune last week when the new Sirius XM lineup is created, you'll need a new radio to get every available channel. Those radios won't be available until sometime in 2009 and it will be even longer before they begin appearing as car audio options. 

In the meantime, within the next 90 days, Sirius XM will roll out some "best of" options, in which XM customers will have access to selected Sirius programming, and vice versa. These new programming options will work with existing XM or Sirius radios and are expected to add an additional $4 to your monthly bill.

An hour-long Big East college football preview show will air at 6:30 p.m. Monday on ESPNU, followed by a replay of South Florida's upset at Auburn last year. On Tuesday, ESPNU's Big East preview airs again at 10 a.m., followed by two Mountaineer football games from 2007 -Louisville at WVU at 11 a.m. and Pitt-WVU at 1:30 p.m.

This morning's edition of ESPN's "Outside the Lines" (9:30, replay on ESPNews at noon) examines diversity in NASCAR. OTL will explore the work culture inside the NASCAR community and retell the story of former NASCAR official Mauricia Grant, who filed a discrimination lawsuit against stock-car racing's governing body in June. While working for NASCAR, Grant inspected cars, called penalties and supervised the pit box.

"It's a hostile work environment," said Grant, NASCAR's first African-American official.  "It took a lot of emotional blows. I would have to gear up in the morning to get prepared for that."

Reach Dave Weekley at Week...@Yahoo.com.