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How Do You Rate Your Local Broadcaster's Coverage of Vancouver 2010


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CTV did a poor job, cutting to other sister networks in the pre-show that had no relevance. I hope the CBC comes back for 2014.

How about ads/commercials during the ceremony itself (assuming CTV is a commercial network)?

Channel Nine down under had only one break once the actual ceremony started and showed the athlete's parade in total (which was a surprise). However some of the commentary was at best amateur and at worst offensive (so-called TV expert Eddie McGuire kept ticking off teams that had no chance of winning medals...obnoxious prat)

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How about ads/commercials during the ceremony itself (assuming CTV is a commercial network)?

Channel Nine down under had only one break once the actual ceremony started and showed the athlete's parade in total (which was a surprise). However some of the commentary was at best amateur and at worst offensive (so-called TV expert Eddie McGuire kept ticking off teams that had no chance of winning medals...obnoxious prat)

Yeah, gotta agree. props for the lack of ads (actually, I could have done with a break or two more to dash to the loo).

And brickbats for the comentary - but what do you expect from Eddie.

Favourite quote of the night: "Colombia's a country with a lot of snow"!

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SporTV here in Brazil did a fine job. There wasn't any commercial breaks that I'm aware of. The commentators were slightly more aware of their surroundings than their Rede Record counterparts XD It annoyed me a little bit how they would go on and on about the delegations uniforms. Was that really relevant or necessary? Still, it worked quite well. The guy doing the simultaneous translation was quite good at his job. Still, it would have been nice to be able to change the audio here in Brazil. I've checked both Record and SporTV and neither allowed me to turn off their commentators. Is this a standard practice with Olympic Broadcasts?

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I'm gonna switch to the French broadcaster going forward. If for no reason but to avoid Brian Williams. He was annoying on CBC and he's annoying on CTV.

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Yeah, gotta agree. props for the lack of ads (actually, I could have done with a break or two more to dash to the loo).

And brickbats for the comentary - but what do you expect from Eddie.

Favourite quote of the night: "Colombia's a country with a lot of snow"!

I loved how Eddie and his blond twit off sider said 'when the Canadians come out we will tell you about how they haven't won an Olympic gold medal at their home Olympics" about 3 or 4 times before the Canadians did come out, telling us already...fools. Plus whilst they went berko over our team (fair enough to some extent) they ignored 100% Austria who are one of the WOG's powerhouse teams.

Still, could be worse. I think it was Ann Sanders during Nagano who said 'there they are, the most recognizable symbol in the world...the 6 Olympic rings'. Plus 'twas a shame no sign of Phil Liggett

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It is linked with Prime Television which is free to air. It had the same commentary but it adverts and by the end was running about 30 minutes behind sky television.

Thanks Mikey

Hmmm...intrigued that so far no one's heaped scorn on NBC's coverage. Either all our American friends are asleep or...god forbid...maybe the peacock got it right?!

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Heresy I tells ya! How any home broadcaster can show the OC of their own games with commercial breaks beggars belief. Even Channel 7 didn't do that during Sydney 2000...

Interestingly enough, NBC this year actually purposely tried to show as few commercials as possible during the ceremony.

NBC's production values were excellent as usual, but I really am not feeling Al Michaels (who pulled night time studio duty since Bob Costas was at BC Place). Michaels is doing the day time stuff this time around, and I want Jim Lampley back!

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I flipped back and forth a few times between the CTV-W and NBC-E feed. Ended up watching more of the NBC broadcast because they showed fewer commercials and their audio signal included more of the audience and background noises. CTV perhaps had clearer audio, but it felt lifeless without the background noises you could hear on NBC. This made a huge difference when listening on a DD 5.1 setup. CTV production was a step up from their typical broadcast, but frankly their team simply cannot compete with the experience and dollars thrown at the screen by NBC. It's a shame that after lording our superior CBC coverage over the Americans for so many years we've taken a step back. I found a lot of the characters pieces by CTV sappy and melodramatic. NBC can also be rather cloying at times, especially since they're almost entirely Yankee focused, but I liked that they incorporated more spontaneous (looking) interviews with athletes. At the end of the day, both used 90% of the same footage to cover the ceremonies, but I'd definitely have to give NBC the edge in terms of broadcast quality for tonight.

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I have a distinct feeling that all English language broadcasters follow the model set down by the US networks from the 70s...the so-called human interest angle where cloying sentimentality, irrelevant humour and/or jingoistic simplicity is used to make the athletes 'more interesting'. Frankly I will always prefer an expert who is looking for a story based on achievement and non-nationalistic grounds, with far more objectivity.

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Heresy I tells ya! How any home broadcaster can show the OC of their own games with commercial breaks beggars belief. Even Channel 7 didn't do that during Sydney 2000...

Channel 7 did have ads in Sydney 2000

They ran an ad during the infamous 'marching band' segment that got many a people pissed off

No complaints about Channel 9's coverage today from me

Ed/Blondie didn't waffle on that much compared to Bruce/Joanna Griggs past efforts

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Must admit I thought there were no ads during 7's broadcast...my video of the Sydney OC I thought didn't have such a break, but that went in the bin when I picked up the DVD (which does break during the marching bands). Course being there in the stadium means I didn't see any broadcast footage till later.

As for Bruce & Joanna vs Eddie & Leila Bruce McAvaney will always be the best credentialled commentator. He takes the time to learn about the athletes and has bern covering games since 88 Seoul. Eddie is a show pony twat who thinks he can parlay his AFL footy show popularity into serious sports commentary. I wouldn't expect Fatty Vautin to do this job, do same goes for the Collingwood Goose.

Sad to say the best female Olpuc or general sports commentators in Aust TV are not on 9 or 7. Tracey Holmes is the best so unless you get Foxtel you won't see her. Debbie Spillane and Karen Tighe are also good but no chance of being Olympic commentators thanks to the ABCs poverty. And Rebecca Wilson is simply too opinionated. So Leila, Joanna and their ilk are only there for fluff pieces and to nod their long blond locks

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Can't comment on CTV's coverage, as I haven't seen it yet (I was at BC Place) but I do have a note for NBC...your breakaway announcer is about 34 years off. While they too were held in Canada, these are NOT the Games of the XXI Olympiad...they are the XXI Olympic Winter Games.

Edited by Kendegra
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I have a distinct feeling that all English language broadcasters follow the model set down by the US networks from the 70s...the so-called human interest angle where cloying sentimentality, irrelevant humour and/or jingoistic simplicity is used to make the athletes 'more interesting'. F

It was the ABC television network that created that model, which they called "Up Close and Personal", and it was first seen during the 1984 Los Angeles games, not the 1970's.

but I do have a note for NBC...your breakaway announcer is about 34 years off. While they too were held in Canada, these are NOT the Games of the XXI Olympiad...they are the XXI Olympic Winter Games.

YES! That stuck out like a sore thumb for me, because it is a pet peeve of mine. I hated that, I was like "Oops! That's wrong!". The problem is, both the researcher who researched the information and the writer who wrote the script, like so many people, do not understand that an Olympiad is the four year interval between summer games. That's why summer games are always "The Games of the *** Olympiad" while the winter games are always "The *** Olympic Winter Games". Oh yeah, and it's also properly the "Olympic Winter Game", not "Winter Olympic Games", something else people always screw up or don't get right.

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It was the ABC television network that created that model, which they called "Up Close and Personal", and it was first seen during the 1984 Los Angeles games, not the 1970's.

YES! That stuck out like a sore thumb for me, because it is a pet peeve of mine. I hated that, I was like "Oops! That's wrong!". The problem is, both the researcher who researched the information and the writer who wrote the script, like so many people, do not understand that an Olympiad is the four year interval between summer games. That's why summer games are always "The Games of the *** Olympiad" while the winter games are always "The *** Olympic Winter Games". Oh yeah, and it's also properly the "Olympic Winter Game", not "Winter Olympic Games", something else people always screw up or don't get right.

I'd argue that the 'Up Close and Personal Approach' (if that is what it was called) was in existence at least from 1980 (I recall with great clarity the pieces on air given by Jim McKay during the Lake Placid Games in covering Tai Babylonia and Randy Gardner), if not earlier due to the work of Roone Arledge (who according to SI was chasing the female viewer which is where this modus operandi seems to be focused).

But no matter when it started the extent this approach has been taken to now is starting to feel like bad reality TV. I can understand the desire to entertain and to explain the mysteries and vagaries of sport, especially winter sports which many people only care about once every four years, but the manner in which the bleeding obvious is combined with soap opera dramatics ruins so much Olympic broadcasting (well at least it has down under).

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ESPN+ was terrible. First of all, the guys were talking all the time about anything and nothing related to the ceremony. They started to talk how beauty Nikki was and how her dress was too short for winter while Rogge and the GG entered the stadium... I couldn't even heard the Vice-Regal March or anything that happened later. Then, in the Cultural section, they were mute for almost an hour. I understand some English so I tried to translate to my family but it was very difficult... nobody understood what was going on...

And finally, they were supposed to be an international broadcaster... but they were totally Argentinean-biased. Everything they were talking was about something related to ARG. When Chile entered the stadium, they started to talk about how Chilean athlets train in Argentinean ski centers (???) and they didn't mentioned the number of athlets nor the flagbearer. Colombia was totally omitted and there were just two words for Peru in its inaugural parade.

Extremely disappointed...

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In Germany the two public TV-channels are showing the Vancouver Olympics (and I hope they will show the Olympics in future too)

It is ARD turn to start and I think the OC coverage wasn't bad - it annoys me a little bit when they think that the have to show where a country is when they believe many people don't know it during the entrance of the nation...

Who doesn't know where Algeria is - or Kyrgyzstan?

What me really pissed me of has F. already mentioned - the run of Wayne Gretzky to the outside cauldron wasn't shown...

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