Competing for the worst sports coverage award
In terms of the worst sports coverage ever, it's been a close run thing this year. (I'm sorry that, for our non-Australian friends, I am going to forego the chance to knock the TV-NZ coverage of Rugby with the egregious Murray Mexted; the UK TV coverage of Premier League Football; the various idiosyncratic coverages of American football, baseball, basketball and ice hockey; and even free-to-air TV coverage in the US of Olympics. Each of these could match or surpass Australian sports coverage and, occasionally, knock it into a cocked hat.) In 2006, the Nine Network got off to a flyer with its cricket broadcasts. Why they still retain the execrable Bill Lawry and the awful Tony Greig is an open question. Perhaps whatever diabolical pact they'd signed with Kerry Packer will expire with the latter's death. Seven hit back with the usual appalling tennis coverage, mitigated by the importing of Jim Courier to augment the Australian know-nothings. Ten got into the act with the golf, although their cause was not assisted by Jack Newton and Wayne Riley who seem to know whereof they speak. But these were the expected performances of known triers. The cake would be awarded to the special events coverage that sucked the most.
Seven put their best feet forward (and mouthward) in the way it covered the Turin (or Torino as they insisted on calling it) Winter Olympics. There wasn't much wrong with the coverage, except for the delay and the time they showed it. Instead of showing the events live, we had what were basically highlights packages shown after 8.30 or 9.30 the following night. The events covered concentrated on Australian reps and were not shown in any way that allowed for a sense of drama or suspense. The commentary was serviceable without being brilliant. Given that the audience would be unfamiliar with many of the events, and the rules that governed them, and that in some case like Ice Skating the rules had recently been altered, more explanation from the 'experts' would have helped. In all, this was not a great entry in the hall of shame for sports coverage and quickly faded from memory.
Nine has done much better with the Commonwealth Games, a sportsfest for those parts of the world that used to be red on the world map when I was a kid. It's become an excuse for Australian triumphalism and the broadcast we've been subjected to reflects just that. Instead of showing sporting events as they occur, we have been subjected to a completely Australian-centric view of the whole event. Coverage focussed on the Aussie competitors almost to the exclusion of other entrants and we were subjected to every medal ceremony where "Advance Australia Fair" was played. We got glimpses of other medal ceremonies, but usually only for the brief instant that a local silver or bronze winner was given their medal. I heard "Scotland the Brave" once, but cannot remember many other anthems. As a result of the concentration on Australian winners, there has been no attempt to broadcast sports as they are happening but, rather, as the television station thought appropriate. So we'd leave an event part-way through, go to another event, and then sometimes hours later return to the first event. In the case of sports other than swimming, cycling and athletics, you had to wait for the main events to complete before you saw anything. It says something for the utter incompetence of the way in which the Games were presented on television, and the plethora of disruptive ads interpolated at the oddest time (with repetition ad nauseam of the same ads), that the coverage managed to ruin the event for those of us who were actually interested in most of it. (I always except Rhythmic Gymnastics and Synchronised Swimming (not to mention Dressage, which was not performed here) from the list of things in which I have the slightest interest and Sevens Rugby, I discovered, is pretty useless as a spectator sport.) The sad thing about the coverage is that, for the most part, the commentary was way ahead of the usual standard, with several outstanding, and informative, experts actually informing viewers of the complexity of the sport.
Added to all its other sins, Nine refused to interrupt the Games to report on major events like Cyclone Larry's destruction in and around Innisfail, but, in Sydney and Brisbane, stopped in the middle of events in order to broadcast fairly uninteresting rugby league games, forcing viewers to wait until midnight, or after, to see the outcome of events like Platform Diving and the Basketball and Bowls finals and Hockey semi-finals. Despite the best efforts of its commentators to make up ground (and here I have to note a major caveat: Darryl Eastlake and Dean Lukin at the weightlifting were as egregiously awful as any commentary set has ever been at one of these events: it was like they were trying to outdo Roy and HG, except that they were being serious), the Nine Network has walked away easily with the gold medal for atrocious coverage.
Which, given that the Comm Games looked like the events were well-run and the crowds generally supportive of all athletes, no matter their country of origin, was a shame for those of us not in Melbourne to see the fun. The Games demonstrated once again that Australians run these sort of events very well, no matter what city is host. It doesn't derogate from Melbourne's success that the event was only a fraction of the size and complexity of the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Bleak City did itself proud and earned most of the self-congratulatory bouquets it threw at itself. The Closing Ceremony went just the wrong side of kitsch, although Dame Edna and the thousands dancing Ednas was an inspired, purely Australian, touch, but for the rest a "bravo" to Melbourne and a regret that we couldn't be there for the action.
And a note that, as the AFL season starts, the Swans remain the true and undoubted champions.
First written: April 2006
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