A billion people across the globe turned on their TVs to watch the opening ceremony of the London Olympics live Friday, but very few of them were in United States.

With comments about Danny Boyle’s extravaganza Britannica pinging back and forth across the world via Twitter, Facebook and the blogosphere, Americans were uncharacteristically silent.

That is because NBC Universal, the television company which paid a record $2.2 billion for the broadcasting rights, decided not to show the event live on network television.

At 16:00 on the east coast of the country, it will be shown on tape delay at “primetime” 19:30 ET.

NBC showed a “sneak peak” shortly after the first act of the ceremony ended and @NBCOlympics live tweeted the event, hardly a substitute for watching the event in all its glory.