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TEN's coverage of Sochi


Brekkie Boy

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For completeness sake here is one to talk about Ten's coverage - the first Olympics they've covered this century. On TV they have coverage on Ten and One, with up to eight live streams on TenPlay - their online player.

One of the annoying things about Aussie coverage, regardless of the broadcaster, is the opening copyright disclaimer at the beginning of every broadcast. As far as I've seen it only seems to happen in Australia and I think it's a horrible way to open a broadcast of the Olympic Games. If they have to include it why can't they just air it at the end.

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I was going to bring up that opening copyright myself. Is Ten going to do that right now--actually the OC has already gotten underway right now? I think it did like Seven, SBS, Nine, and FOXTEL all did. Is Australia the only nation to do that in the opening? Too bad as RunningRings points from where you are the OC is late at night live and won't be re-aired on Ten due to Olympic programming conflicts. In a sense, it's like back in Moscow 1980 when Seven showed them. If FOXTEL was a partner for Sochi, you would more of a chance to see with replays and at least four channels to watch everything, though we could've see an embargo with Ten asking to have it shown live only through them like Nine did for Vancouver and London.

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Well, thinking of the OC coverage, I'll give Ten credit for only the one ad break. I think we only missed a few seconds of the skating mascots. No great loss.

But the commentary??? Sandra Sully and co were Obviously just reading from the media broadcast briefing notes, and always seemed to be out of synch with what was happening - in fact, they always seemed to be describing what was happening one sequence ahead in the cultural portions. Just so bloody amateurish.

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It is one advantage of when events do take place overnight - there are far fewer ads, if any. I know during C4's disastrous venture into the World Athletics Champships as the "morning" sessions aired overnight they were largely ad free. They made up for it with the "evening" sessions in the morning though.

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Watching the overnight coverage on One. Yeah, pretty good - but all they're having to is have Nicole Stephenson sit at the desk and throw to the official feeds. Which they mercifully let run with, as you say, few ad breaks. I suppose it helps that it's a winter games, and really only of novelty value mostly in Oz.

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Hate having to say this, but Roy and HG are sure only a shadow of their former selves. Not even very funny, apart from the fact their Russian Revolution us little more than a filler, this time round.

Sadly I feel the same, and I loved them so much in the past, maybe that sense of humour is now a bit outdated too? I am not sure, they seem a little more stereotyping than before.

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Channel one showing mens normal hill individual instead of showing curling.

Trying to watch some curling on the ipad (Russia vs Great Britain) but it constantly drops out and then I have to exit and watch the ads again only for it to stop.

Ten play on the computer also has basically no live streaming.

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Yes, Ten did follow suit following Seven, SBS, and Nine with the copyright "annoyingly" customarily at the beginning of each Olympic programming block. But Ten's intro is far better IMO than Nine's Vancouver one even though that does incorporate Australia frequently juxtapose with winter sports. Plus, you get to see Torah Bright, Alex "Chumpy" Pallin, and Daniel Greig. 10 did replay the OC at 9pm AEST.

How was the Countdown to the Opening Ceremony that this intro came from?

Did see 7's INXS miniseries promo (lifelong INXS fan here). I can see why that can beat out Ten's Olympic coverage in the ratings; Australia, even with its new Winter Olympics pedigree, still has some ways to go for mass interest. Or likely it's just more, I hate to say cult following and nothing beyond.

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Actually, I've been finding the coverage we're getting of the actual sports between Ten and One is pretty good - perhaps the best of a WOGs so far. But only because the Ten network coverage is so cheap and nasty.

I've tended to tape the overnight live feed from One and flick through it in the mornings. I'm finding big hunks of coverage to events we've never had telecast in full in Oz - biathlon, cross country and, yes, I have seen curling. In past games we'd be lucky to get 10 second result highlights from these (or in the case of curling, a Ten minutes "isn't this sport funny!" highlights and bloopers package in the final days). I didn't realise some of these can be quite exciting to watch. And Ten lets them run and run to their conclusion - previous Oz broadcasters would do the frenetic five minute by fine minute short attention span switches with ad breaks every ten minutes between different events to focus on anything that's Green and Gold: "We'll leave you here as the last skate pair prepare to do their final performance and see if they can snatch gold for Russia to take you live to 17-year-old Rachel Bogan of Armadale who's about to post her Personal Best of 68th spot in the women's luge qualifier A. But first we'll have a short break". For three days in a row, I've even seen quite extended clips of the medal plaza ceremonies!

But as I said, this is only due to Ten's cheapness. All they do is have their roster of presenters in Sochi and the studio in Melbourne introduce throws to the OBS and let it run. They don't even put in too many ad breaks - probably because they're not getting that many anyway. Must be the easiest job to be Ten's on-air producer in Sochi: "Throw to the combined downhill and let it run - we don't have any ad breaks we have to schedule in for another hour. I'll be taking a nap, wake me with five minutes to go!"

On the down side - I've seen more women's downhill runs and luge runs over the past three days than I ever care to see again.

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I am... loving the TEN multi channel coverage. Often they have huge chunks of just sport- few ads, no crosing to the host desk, no getting you up to speed after a break- just sport! And as they are showing pretty much just sport for many hours, we are getting to see biathlon/ cross country/ curling/ luge.... all sorts of stuff.

The commenters, being a bit green at the job are actually refreshing - I got a bit tired of the egos of Eddy Maguire, Bruce Macevaney, Sutcliffe etc, older men who seem to think you watch sport to hear them interpret and digest everything for you.

As far the Opening, again very good, not tooooo much talking BUT they keep giving everything away in advance or explaining what's on screen. When I studied broadcast journalism rule one was never describe what is on screen, your viewers are not blind (apologies to blind people)!


Oh- Roy and HG are way past their use-by-date.

I can have a little chuckle at competitors with names like Semen (RUS) and Wank (GER) without having to watch Roy and HG labour the joke out over a half hour show.

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Getting a fresh face just in the form of Ten which hasn't done the Olympics since 1988 is significant enough. The egos from the other networks can be a problem, especially from Nine with Eddie McGuire being the face of 9.

But I'm glad Ten allows the Winter Olympic programming go from beginning to end instead of and bouncing around and just showing an Aussie Olympian competing and making personal bests. Nothing against the Aussie Olympians, but now there's options for viewing like online like on TenPlay and the One digital TV channel for fuller coverage. Surely, Ten got it cheap with litle ad breaks but that's good for the reasons we just mentioned here in terms of coverage.

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It's going to be interesting how the next rights play out. All three have been playing lowball for Rio, because of the time zone, so far. But the IOC apparently now is trying to put the package out for 2016-2020 for bidding. With 2018 and 2020 in great time zones for us, the IOC is apparently hoping to get $200 million for the three. And Seven, Nine and Ten are all apparently highly interested in the latter two.

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I definitely agree that the coverage has been amazing. They have been showing a range of all the events and the majority of the finals. However, and I know I keep on saying it but i'm still waiting for curling to appear on t.v. I've seen encore's of a lot of ice hockey matches and encores of other events and yet haven't seen one bit of curling.

However, saying that, last nights coverage was amazing. Got to see all of the slopestyle qualification and final. Then got to watch the Men's halfpipe qualification and once it was done they perfectly cut to showing us the live finals of the Women's and Men's cross country sprint finals.

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However, and I know I keep on saying it but i'm still waiting for curling to appear on t.v. I've seen encore's of a lot of ice hockey matches and encores of other events and yet haven't seen one bit of curling.

That's a bummer. I did catch the Canada-Germany men's match the other day. Not sure if on Ten or One. Probably One I guess.

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I agree the coverage has been decent on Channel 10/One - I wsh the streaming was HD ( I still think 'watch what you want foxtel' in 2012 was the closest we ever got to Canadian/BBC level olympic broadcasting - that was the best one off $50 bucks i ever spent)

The web streaming component for sochi on ten has been disappointing in comparison. As I've said before, the Canadian CBC coverage online on demand has been fantastic for sochi (better than the host coverage of CTV in Vancouver). But then again, the winter olympics are the prime olympics in canada and more popular than summer games.

I am hoping the games go back to seven ideally or at least stay with ten, I do not want eddie mguire to ever touch anything olympic related ever ever again......


Yes, Ten did follow suit following Seven, SBS, and Nine with the copyright "annoyingly" customarily at the beginning of each Olympic programming block. But Ten's intro is far better IMO than Nine's Vancouver one even though that does incorporate Australia frequently juxtapose with winter sports. Plus, you get to see Torah Bright, Alex "Chumpy" Pallin, and Daniel Greig. 10 did replay the OC at 9pm AEST.

How was the Countdown to the Opening Ceremony that this intro came from?

Did see 7's INXS miniseries promo (lifelong INXS fan here). I can see why that can beat out Ten's Olympic coverage in the ratings; Australia, even with its new Winter Olympics pedigree, still has some ways to go for mass interest. Or likely it's just more, I hate to say cult following and nothing beyond.

I can see why people find the copyright annoying, but i have a strange nostalgia for it as it is the only event that has anything like it. I remember it from Sydney 2000 days and always feel like the olympics are starting when i see that 'this broadcast......"

But then I am crazy :P

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I do not want eddie mguire to ever touch anything olympic related ever ever again......

I actually saw Eddie in London one night outside the athletics.

I don't mind him too much. He can own up to his gaffes, like with Johnny Weir in Vancouver. And at least he has that everyman touch that crosses the Aussie social strata from bogan to big end of town. I didn't really catch, or remember much of what I did, of the Nine coverage from London. Gotta say, the BBC were, of course, super patriotic. But never less than very slick.

I can see why people find the copyright annoying, but i have a strange nostalgia for it as it is the only event that has anything like it. I remember it from Sydney 2000 days and always feel like the olympics are starting when i see that 'this broadcast......"

But then I am crazy :P

No, I'm with you on that. Sorta like the no advertising in the stadiums, it's part of the prestige branding that sets the Olympics apart from the other major sports events.

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