Australia’s only biathlon competitor Alexei Almoukov heads from the shooting range. AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Andrew Vaughan
As the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic Games are consigned to history, the Australian public’s brief fascination with winter sports comes to an end, relieving us of yet another free-to-air sports coverage disaster.
Just like Channel 7 managed during the Beijing Summer Olympics and recent Australian Opens, Channel 9’s Winter Olympic coverage became a major talking point that overshadowed the Games themselves.
Sadly, Belinda Noonan has been discussed as much as Torah Bright, Eddie McGuire talked about as much as Lydia Lassila.
It’s become a familiar tune for Aussie sports fans as free-to-air networks fail to adapt to the changing technologies, viewing habits and expectations from audiences who in turn have grown tired of the commercial networks’ apathy and excuses.
What’s remarkable about watching this trend unfold in recent times is how the commercial networks seem so oblivious to the errors of their ways.
The catalogue of errors began well before the Games when Channel 9 and Foxtel assembled their teams of commentators and presenters.
The cult of personality, or, to be more accurate, the cult of celebrity that infatuates the Australian media, particularly television, has increasingly wormed its way into sports coverage.
How else could we explain the presence of Mick Molloy, Eddie McGuire and Ruby Rose (famous for reasons I cannot fathom) as the faces of the Games!
When you get people like Molloy and McGuire commenting on something as foreign to them as figure skating, they resort to banality and, in their cases, having to resort to appalling homophobic comments.
The fact that such comments were made on air in this day and age is shameful.
In other cases, the commentators seemed amateurish.
James Brayshaw, for example, did more howling than actual commentating in the snowboarding and mogul events.
Too often the Aussie commentators showed a lack of knowledge in the sporting events they were commentating on, let alone the athletes competing.
As Ed Wyatt, best known as the former face of SBS’s Super Bowl coverage, blogged: “Whatever happened to actually learning the names of competitors and how to pronounce them properly? How many times do we have to hear about ‘the Slovak,’ ‘the Chinese,’ or ‘the Canadian’.”
The athletes do have names, which deserve to be broadcast.
Thankfully Channel 9 relied on local experts for the ice hockey rather than the likes of McGuire who, let’s remember, in an interview with ice hockey’s greatest Wayne Gretzky, asked what it felt like to put “the ball into the net?”
They should have done this for the majority of the events that they, frankly, knew nothing about.
We, as Aussies, like to think of ourselves as sporting doyens. But when events such as the Winter Olympics come along, where we are far from the pacesetters in events that are largely foreign to us, our Australian-centric view of the sporting world is exposed.
Rather than rise to the occasion, accept their deficiencies in these sports and attempt to learn and expand their knowledge of them, media organistaions are found lacking and fail to rise to the occasion.
The media, therefore, watch as outsiders, inevitably making incorrect judgments and resorting to assumptions and generalisations.
So we are increasingly told things like: the Australian Open tennis is suddenly boring, unbearable to watch and irrelevant because there isn’t a competitive Australian; Mark Webber must be crap because he hasn’t rattled off F1 titles; and Cadel Evans must be a choker ‘cause he can’t win the Tour de France.
If Australia is going to increase its funding to winter sports, as has been discussed, then we should start embracing and understanding the Winter Olympics so at the next Games we don’t have to put with such rubbish coverage.
MV Dave
Guest
Just off the WOs but along the same lines albeit a different sport...Interesting view from an American 'Sokkah' writer at the NY Times complaining that English commentators eg Martin Tyler etc have been hired to commentate the World Cup games broadcast to the American audience via ESPN etc. Complains that US commentators should have been hired to do the job; http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/05/world-cup-with-an-accent-on-tv-in-united-states/ Also interesting to read some of the posts back to the blogger most of whom agree that the English commentators should be used because they have more experience and knowledge.
James
Guest
Still don't get why people insist on Aussie commentators! What is so bad in having Americans, Canadians, etc, who actually know about the sports!
Farmer
Guest
Sorry for the repitition - pays to check spelling before you press the send button.
Farmer
Guest
I would imagine it is a Ch 9 merchandising initiative. Just another way to squeeze a few more dollars out of the event. My question is - who would buy that stuff? It is a wonder they are not organising SMS message / phone in contests to vote on the most Gold moment of our ( Ch 9 ) coverage - "all calls at 55 cents except higher charges for mobiles" .
Farmer
Guest
I would imagine it is a Ch 9 merchandising initiative. Just another way top squeeze a few more dollars out of the event. My question is - who would buy that stuff? It is a wonder they are not organising SMS message / phone in contests to vote on the most Gold moment of our ( Ch 9 ) coverage - "all calls at 55 cents except higher charges for mobiles" .
Farmer
Guest
I would imagine it is a Ch 9 merchandising initiative. Just another way top squeeze a few more dollars out of the event. My question is - who woyuld buy that stuff? It is a wonder they are not organising SMS message / phone in contests to vote on the most Gold moment of our ( Ch 9 ) coverage - "all calls at 55 cents except higher charges for mobiles" .
Nic Chamberlain
Guest
Yup. Eddie did that after Tara Bright won gold! the framed pic for $600. How does Tony Greig get away with that in the cricket by the way?? Nic
Farmer
Guest
Bever fever, If we do not have "home grown " commentators - then simply take the feed from a network that does. Why should we take second grade rubbish from dud game show hosts and footy show commentators. This is the point people are complaining about. Ch9 are clearly not interested in presenting a good coverage and do not show any "respect " for the event. They are more interested in getting more mileage out of signed talent ,irrespective of whehther they know anything about the event. It is the 20:1 scenario all over again. God help us when we get to the Summer Olympics. It is only a matter of time before we have Eddie spruiking limited edition - only 5,000 of these - , signed posters from the Aussie Gold medal winners. Cheers.
Ni chamberlain
Guest
Firstly, this wasn't first visit to this site so don't assume everyone here are lemmings. Secondly, I'm from the UK and you guys are a far better winter Olympic nation than us, at least you have some snow for kids to grow up with and fall in love with the sport. We've got a few lucky scots who have that privilige. The UK has a terrible heritage in winter Olympics yet continues to pull out quality commentary (and coverage of gold medals, novel idea!). And incidentally, channel 9 took more staff to the games than the BBC. The point about using local commentary has been well raised on this thread, why make Brayshaw struggle when you can get local, quality commentary. And I refuse to believe that Australia doesn't have former Olympians, senior coaches etc who could have done a job sumarising some events alongside a schmuck like mcguire. Steve Cram does an admirable job of it for the BBC, a former summar games gold medalist, but he understands the intensity of competition at that level. There are other options to these morning show nobodies.
bever fever
Guest
Of course we are ignorant of the winter olympics, we only have a tiny part of this country that gets the oppurtunity to be involved in winter olynmpic sports, where are we meant to get seasoned winter olympics commentators from ?, who follow the sports in the northern hemisphere and have the ins and outs knowledge. The guys did as best they can, who pray tell should they get, please throw up some aussie commentators who know these sports well ?. As usual Musolino is just stirring the pot, BTW Adrian did you name any commentators that fitted your bill or just whinge about ones you did not like. As usual the lemmings follow.
James
Guest
Her and Eddie together were awful for Lassila's event. What about Eddie talking about the Chinese athlete whose nickname was peaches and Eddie says she would be creaming herself right about now! Thanks Eddie!
Skating
Guest
What I don't understand is how apparently it was offensive by the Russian figure skating couple to dance as "Aboriginals" yet again the woman commentator of Channel 9 put on a Russian accent to say something like "but he didn't do a quad" mocking the Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko. Obviously it's OK for Aussies to laugh at other nations but if someone does it to them...what a disaster
Hansie
Guest
I thought Camplin was the worst of the commentators. Her barracking for the Australians was disgraceful. She positively revelled in the Chinese competitor, Xu Mengtao, crashing out ("she ate snow, that's what she did").
Mick
Guest
I think it stems from the melbourne is the sporting capital of melbourneI attittude that is why macguire & brayshaw were there with some other ch-7 were the same at aussie open, 7, 9 & 10 should just take the overseas broadcast because they can not do any worse than they are doing now. I know of sbs not using the oevrseas braodcast all the time because some of the commentators are .... 1 sided & / or verging on racial sterotypes
Ice Pete
Roar Pro
I think the networks did the best they could with what they had. The didn't have much. I got my money's worth out of the $50 Foxtel subscription, I would have paid that just to see the ice hockey final live and in full, which I did. I switched over a couple of times to see Channel 9 covering naken people at the Sydney Opera House. Figures. I did enjoy that for the Foxtel commentators, they did make an effort to learn as much as they could about the sport and to get into the whole culture of the games. Having done (poorly) commentary before, I know it's damn hard, even when you know the sport and players really well. I would give Foxtel 9/10 for the coverage, the 4 concurrent channels 24x7 was brilliant, and when I did watch Nine Network, well I'd give it a 5/10. They were way too conservative on what people would accept as far as intrusion into regular programming, and way too patronising of people's knowledge and interest in the sports, dumbing down the commentary.
sledgeross
Guest
I dont think its fear or hatred James. Its merely a junket! If I was James Brayshaw or Tim Bailey and someone said "we want you to cover the winter olympics in Vancouver" as if you wouldnt go. I dont blame the commentators, because as I said, I thought they did ok considering. management needs to oisten to the punters though and lift their game. Im mean cmon, Ruby bloody Rose!
AndyRoo
Roar Guru
I believe the feed sent down to Melbourne is full of top quality journalism and insightful sports coverage. But once it gets to docklands the signal is scrambled beyond recognition. Sadly it still wins the ratings.
Nick
Guest
Channel 9 have lost the plot. Eddie is a bafoon with little appeal or knowledge of anything non AFL. Cringe material. Mick Molloy god bless him should stick to what he does best whatever that might be, becasue comedy and sport don't mix well at all.
Michael C
Roar Guru
Hmmm...channel 7 national headquarters are up in Sydney. You can't blame Melbourne, least of all for Roy, HG or Gordon Bray!! Heck - it's the Sydney dictators who cut off the AFL coverage before we get the song sung from the rooms of the victors. They just don't 'get it' up in Sydney....it's not a sporting town. Sydney is a 'gossip magazine' town. ;-)
AndyRoo
Roar Guru
Roy and HG, Bruce Macavaney, Gordon Bray , Joanna Griggs lets not even mention the tennis.... the list of Channel 7 (run from Melbourne) atrocities agaisnt Australian sport continue. Sydney does have SBS who’s world cup and tour de France coverage set a great example of how sport should be done. As does Fox sports to an extent (not a big fan of their rugby team but again it’s better than 7’s) again based in Sydney.