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Other nations coverage of Olympics


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Hi, I am Japanese and read interesting informations on here about Olympic and Japanese media broadcasting of it. Can I ask, is another country different? Do they not cover their own athletes for this exciting event of Olympics?

 

I am interested to know, as I have no experience apart from my Japan media. Thank you very much.

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Aside from Canada's spectacular, impartial, full-time coverage of everything and everyone at the 1976 Montreal Summer Games, I only know about the US Olympic coverage.

 

Sadly, it is the same thing we get here in Japan.

 

Watching the US coverage of the Olympics, you have the feeling that there are mostly only US athletes in the Olympics.

 

And there are lots of time-wasting interviews and "Up Close and Personal" stories about each US athlete, where we get to hear interviews with his elementary school teacher, see pictures of the family dog, etc.

 

Meanwhile, while forced to watch this pablum, we are missing exciting Olympic performances that are going on all day.

 

What an aggravating waste.

 

I'm in Japan this time, so I don't know how this year's US Olympic coverage is going. Perhaps someone living in the US can report on this.

 

I suppose the only differences between the US and Japanese coverage that I can think of offhand would be:

 

1. The US coverage shows mostly US athletes. The Japanese coverage shows mostly Japanese athletes.

 

2. The US coverage actually shows some full events, such as the entire ice skating final or the entire downhill racing competition...whereas Japanese coverage hardly ever does that.

 

3. The US reports usually show the top finishers' performances, even if no US athlete is involved, especially if they are noteworthy or record-breaking...whereas the Japanese coverage usually shows the non-medal Japanese performance again and again, while hardly even giving any view of the actual winners or record-breakers.

 

4. The US coverage continues at about the same daily length until the end of the Olympics...whereas the Japanese coverage seems to vanish as soon as Japanese athletes have finished.

 

But all things considered, the US coverage was always, to me at least, unsatisfying. I felt like I was being manipulated and my view of this giant sprawling international sports event called the Olympics was reduced, censored, packaged, dumbed-down and completely controlled by a TV company with a kind of simplistic, US-self-important, McDonaldized Time Magazine kind of redigested pablum broadcasting of the most uninteresting sterile predictable sort.

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The italian coverage is very similar to the US one. To be honest, in the past years the coverage was way better, with nearly all the events broadcasted live. This year, because of the different time zones, most of the contests are in prime time so, unless there is an italian athlete running for a medal, they prefer to broadcast fantastic stuff like soap operas or quiz shows and you have to wait at least 11pm to catch a glimpse of the action in SLC. I think another reason for this is that nowadays there aren't any italian athletes that can generate a media frenzy like Alberto Tomba did in the past years. When Tomba was skiing, everybody, and I really mean everybody, was glued to the TV and knew everything about the olympics. Now we have some good athletes in other disciplines, but they are no Tombas.

The sad thing is that the media directors, instead of saying "well, Tomba is not here anymore, let's focus on other events, like snowboarding, which has a strong following between the under-35", just said "Tomba is not here anymore, so the advertising revenues are really low. F**k the olympics. We'll broadcast only the events where we are nearly sure we can get at least a bronze medal". The result is that we got the fantastic opportunity to see live ALL the four runs of the luge (where the ital. won a gold medal) and we had to wait 1AM to see the halpipe contests (where the commentary was something like "now Ross pulls a... I believe it's a 540 or maybe a 720.. and now he... er... makes a very big jump"). The funny thing is that there are no luge courses in Italy and the Italian Luge Federation is composed of TWELVE athletes. Twelve. A huge following. Well, who cares? We won a gold medal, so let's put snowboarding at midnight or 1AM...

 

Swiss TV is a totally different matter. I don't know if it's in their DNA to be neutral, but the coverage is fantastic (at least in the french and italian part of Switzerland). They broadcast nearly all the events live. Of course the focus is on swiss athletes, but at least you got a chance to see everything, even if there are no swiss running for gold...

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If you are in the French/Italian part of Switzerland, then I recommend that all of us on the SJG forum visit your house with a load of chips and beer and wine, watch a bit of the TV coverage, then you can guide us through the secret runs on your favorite resort.

 

It would sure beat sitting here at a desk and eating the company cafeteria food.

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Yeah, I wonder if it's possible to see swiss channels by satellite. Today's programs...

 

SFnetwork (in german)

06.00 Salt Lake Update

10.00 Salt Lake Highlights (with all the stuff of the previous day)

12.05 Salt Lake Update

16.55 Salt Lake Live

(Curling, alpine skiing, biathlon...)

22.20 Salt Lake Aktuell

22.45 Salt Lake Live

(Curling, alpine skiing, Ice hockey, short track...)

 

TSRnetwork (in french)

10.45 Salt Lake Highlights (with all the stuff of the previous day)

17:00 Salt lake Live (until midnight)

Curling men

Alpine skiing

K 120

Alpine Skiing again

Curling

Alpine Skiing

Curling women

Ice Hockey

 

Now that's a pretty complete coverage. Of course the ice hockey match is Switzerland against idontknowwho, but I'm sure they will broadcast semifinals and finals even if Switzerland is not there.

 

Anyway, I'm in Milan, but I have a house in Nendaz, a small village very close to Verbier (same domain). Well, actually it's not a house, it's simply a flat. Ok, not even a flat, it's just a big room, but it has everything I need to spend 3 or 4 days a week there, in winter: shower, fridge, bed, TV... I'm not sure all the forum can squeeze in it, but we can try.

 

Bring only beer & chips: the wine here is excellent and my cellar can satisfy the taste of everyone (traduction: there is a convenience store just out of the door and the selection of wine is awesome). How do I recognize you? By your famous brown snowmobile suit? smile.gif

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Simon,

please don't tell me that from your house/flat/room you have a view to that huge dam where the Mont Fort backcountry tracks end...

*sobbing in jealousy*

Why are some people blessed with these things!?!

 

Oh well, maybe I can afford something like that when I grow up.. At least we had 50-60cm of fresh snow in Arai last weekend.

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