Sorry Peach! Though I would love to see a season of TAR run with the RFF crew as a whole. It would make for a great 10th anniversary season!
Back to TAR16 air dates:
the Winter Olympics are in February, so I think TAR 16 would not brgin airing before the final Sunday when the Olympics close in Vancouver
Yeah, I would imagine that it would be a safe route to pursue. OTOH, you've got the Closing Ceremony on February 28 (Opening is on a Friday, the 12 of that same month), but then the following week is the Academy Awards. That means the show would start on March 14 to best avoid all of the conflicts. Basically TPTB would have cram the season in so as to best have it end during May sweeps. In cramming, that would mean moving the Survivor finale to May 23 and having TAR16 run for 10 weeks, including a 2-hour episode somewhere in there.
Given that, and the fact that there may be some Country Music Awards show (or the like) on a Sunday somewhere in there, I think that they'll start immediately following the Superbowl. That way, they get the show going instead of starting it during all the other stuff. I would think it would be best to get two weeks in there; however, the Grammy awards air a week before the Superbowl.
This is the third time that TAR has aired a season during the Olympics, with TAR2 and TAR9 (or 4th if you count TAR5 and the 2004 Games). However, IIRC, the show was still midweek, sans the necessity to finish the season before the Survivor Finale and Live Reunion. Without Survivor being a conflict, Seasons 2 & 9 was able to surface after the Olympics.
With TAR on Sunday, it'll be interesting to see what happens with all the stuff going on. My guess is that between TAR and Survivor, based on everything we may we may not know, Survivor may get the post-Superbowl slot. Regardless, I hope we get a season this spring (as there are several options around this). FWIW, I hate to see the show pushed back, because if so, it might be a Sept-Dec run (instead of a summer run that would make more sense).