So you want to be a commentator or presenter for this year’s broadcast of the Games of the XXX Olympiad? Then you’ll need a few things if you hope to make it to London.
Working for the official broadcaster Channel Nine is a must, as is a track record as a seasoned commentator. But if you really want to improve your chances, you’ll be needing a penis.
That, at any rate, is the lesson I’ve learned from looking at Channel Nine’s presenting team.
The only woman fit enough to join the team is Leila McKinnon, wife of Channel Nine CEO David Gyngell. McKinnon will join Ken Sutcliffe, Cameron Williams, Karl Stefanovic, Eddie McGuire and Mark Nicholas as part of the official team.
While Nine will have a select few women commentators in London covering certain sports, these women only get a guernsey because they are deemed to be ‘experts’ in their respective sports. Their role will be more about being behind the microphone, providing analysis, rather than in front of the camera presenting one of the major global sporting events in the world.
Why this insistence on women who have expert knowledge? What special expertise do Karl Stefanovic or Eddie McGuire have when it comes to the Olympics? Sure Eddie knows AFL, but last time I checked, Australian Rules football wasn’t an Olympic sport.
Of course, Channel Nine doesn’t see anything wrong with this situation. Nine boss Gyngell claimed it was all about merit, saying the network was not ‘mired in blokey back-slappery’ and declaring there is ‘no glass ceiling’. This, from a station where the board is dominated by males. Me thinks the man protests a little too much.
Claiming the decision is based solely on merit is strange, especially since Australia is not short on highly qualified female journalists and presenters. For example, Alicia Loxley, Nine’s Olympics correspondent and reporter, has dominated the screens in Sydney and Melbourne and has proved to be a great success story.
ACA’s Tracy Grimshaw, Sydney sports reporter Roz Kelly and Georgie Gardner from Today would be equally at home with the Olympic broadcast duties.
In some respects, the absence of women from Nine’s Olympic coverage team isn’t surprising. It’s Australian as AFL. It wasn’t until 1982 when “Football’s First Lady” Caroline Wilson began covering sport, specialising in Australian Rules – almost a century after the league was founded.
Ever since, Wilson has been a trailblazer for women in the sports department. This is not just in football coverage, but for all major sports, with Jo Griggs fronting Summer of Tennis coverage and Liz Ellis the leader in Channel Ten’s broadcast of the trans-Tasman ANZ Championship.
Even, then, Wilson hasn’t had it easy, copping flak from the likes of Nine’s Sam Newman who infamously claimed ‘there is no place in sport for women’.
Melbourne journalist and former Melbourne Football Club deputy chairperson, Beverly O’Connor, argues “more women are needed in football to change the culture, but women over 35 were turning away from the game”. Too many are turning away, from not just male audience dominated sports, but too few are being considered worthy of presenting roles in major sporting events.
Perhaps the ‘lack of interest’ can be explained by constant recycling of male presenters fronting sports coverage each year, be it AFL, NRL, golf, cricket or the biggest sporting event in the world, the Olympic Games.
What’s the solution? One place to start is the ABC’s well received submission to the 2006 Senate Inquiry into Women in Sport and Recreation in Australia. The submission by the ABC outlined the need to re-establish ABC Television’s development role in sourcing and training women’s sports broadcasters through the establishment of a number of broadcasting cadetships.
Historically, the ABC has played a key role in the development and promotion of women as sports broadcasters. Broadcasters such as Karen Tighe, Simone Thurtell, Tracey Holmes and Debbie Spillane are evidence of the ABC’s commitment to place women in key on-screen roles..
It’s an example that Nine could learn from.
Fifty six years after Nine covered the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, Nine’s decision to fill its commentary team with predominately men shows that those running the network are stuck in the 1950s.
Marvin
Guest
I definately agree that the coverage team for channel nine is sadly lacking in the female area. Lelia Mckinon , in my opinion is far from professional she is always stumbling with her choice of words and comes across as a bumbling amateur without the luxury of a TelePrompTer. Could it be that her role at channel nine has anything to do with her marriage to the CEO?? There are far more talented and professional female presenters that would have been better suited to fit the role. It comes down to the adage , it's not what you know or how talented you are , but it's who you know. This of course is only my opinion which I have based on Lelia's performance over the years. I welcome any feedback , positive or negative.
Big V
Guest
Still won't forget nine's atrocious coverage of Vancouver 2010
cathryn gross
Guest
Great article. One of the many thinks that has tarnished my opinion of 9 is the long holidays leila mckinnon seems to be able to take every 3 or 4 months, after being pushed to breaking point while hosting the hard hitting TODAY on a Saturday morning! It is soooo hard to telemarket Hawaiian holidays and the finest examples of race day attire. There are some wonderful female journalists in the Channel 9 stable, but Leila is not one of them. She lacks credibility and sincerity, and often comes across like a deer in the head lights. If you are only going to take one female journalist, at least make it a great one! NEPOTISM is alive and well at Channel 9, and while this is the case 'im not sure they will attract the "best and brightest" of either sex, but women in particular. Promotion on merit is far from alive and well at 9.
Jason Cave
Guest
Bear in mind this is Nine's first Summer Olympic Games coverage as a major broadcaster. The previous one they did was in 1960 in Rome, and since then it was all Seven (with exception to Ten's coverage of the 1984 Olympic Games from Los Angeles and the 1988 Olympic Games from Seoul). Speaking of Ten's 1988 Olympic Games coverage, is Mike Gibson the only man to cover the Winter & Summer Olympic Games at two different networks? Gibson covered the 1988 Winter Olympic Games for Channel Nine in Calgary, Canada, and then later that year crossed to Ten to be one of the hosts of Ten's Olympic Games coverage with Bruce McAvaney.
KNACKERS
Guest
The number of mainstream sporting media people who are knowlegeable about traditional Olympic sports iis miniscule,. Some such as Bruce McAvaney or Tim Lane swot up for the event and are quite capable but alas I see no one like that on this list Eddie McGuire for instance likes athletics so much that he had a major role in taking the athletics venue previously known as Olympic Park and turning it into a training gtound for the Collingwood Football Club . Anyway we have all met people who think anyone who doesn't choose football ( of any kind ) or maybe cricket as their sporting preference is a little eccentric . I wouldn't use the Fairfax approach to sports reporting as a model for anything . They specialise in appointing people who are the most out of place at a sporting presser as their rep .Suits inner city dilletantes who are their main audience
Caz
Guest
I wish this wasn't so unexpected but 9 has a track record attitude that sport is for men. However, thank god they did actually choose a decent sports specialist, female commentator for the equestrian, Lucinda Green. Yes, she has a silver spoon in her mouth but at least she knows the sport well and can string a sentence or two together. After the debacle of the jockey 7 used last time around, I am relieved.Yes - he rides horses for a living, no - he does not know the actual sport being contested.
Shungmao
Guest
I thought Eddie McGuire was a woman???? -- Comment left via The Roar's iPhone app. Download The Roar's iPhone App in the App Store here.
Football United
Guest
THIS!
Pete #205
Guest
This is Channel 9 we're talking about here. They only bought the rights so that nobody else would show it. They'll take pleasure sitting in front of the camera with a shit eating grin, giving us all the metaphorical "up yours", and hinting that we should have subscribed to Fox if you wanted to watch any Olympic competition. They did it with the RWC, they'll do it again here. Seeing as I'm a bit lazy now, anyone know if SBS is doing co coverage this time?
Maughan
Guest
No women or all women. Should it really matter these days? As long as it was not done on the basis that women in general are incapable of filling the role it shouldn't matter.
Jack Russell
Roar Guru
Maybe they asked a couple of their female studio announcers and they declined. I doubt is was the deliberate decision you're making it out to be.
BigAl
Guest
Knowledge and interest in most Olympic sports is minimal across the general public - 'user friendly' faces such as Karl Stefanovic and Eddie McGuire would be used to draw (and retain) more people to the telecast - they ARE Ch9's highest profile people after all, and will contribute valuable hype. They may be stuck in the 1950s , but they are also stuck in some huge budgetary problems right now and management may well be wishing it was the 1950s
JiMMM
Guest
I do agree with what you have said there, but as someone who has foxtel, I'm not going to watch Channel Nine's coverage. the simple fact is that Nine has a track record of butchering any sports that they cover so I'm not going tobother and really I don't care who they have. If you want to be a serious sports reporter nowadays you have to work for foxsports, everyone else is just a generalist journo
Rabbitz
Roar Guru
Meh. The "personalities" you listed are clearly just the studio "talking heads" who will anchor Nines poor collection of mainstream only coverage, which will consist of very little live sport coverage, and lots of repeats of a narrow selection of sports. I am pretty sure that regardless of the talking heads they select, whether the have a ding-dong or a woo-woo, that the coverage will be poor and mostly consist of ads. Why would you bother with FTA coverage? There are plenty of streamed sources as well as PayTV. The streamed sources have the added bonus of NOT having the parochial, ocker, piss-poor, unknowledgable local commentators...