gsp@ulysses.UUCP (Gary Perlman) (08/02/84)
rabbit!jj makes a good point about the ABC coverage of the Olympics. I would like to take the point further. American TV, ABC sports is just an example, is very provincial. The news coverage focuses on the USA as the center of the universe, unlike other countries I have lived in. Americans, being of provincial outlook, usually say, "But we ARE the center of the universe!" Still, in other countries, I could read about places like Pakistan in the international news section, not as a filler below baseball box scores. ABC has always had the worst Olympic coverage of any network, and every time, they award themselves for it. This year is a new low. The time spent showing sports is down to less than 1/4; half of air time is filled with ads, and another quarter is filled with profiles of atheletes. I am really not interested whether Julianne McNamara feels she has missed her childhood. I would rather see the Chinese gymnasts. My favorite Olympic coverage was by the CBC for the Olympics in Montreal. Twenty hours a day, much of it without comment, of a huge range of sports. And I did not have to hear some guy on ABC saying six times a night, "Remember you can only score in volleyball when it's your serve." Still, this is the best coverage of the Olympics ever by ABC. It is biased toward the Americans, but they are by are the best team, of those attending the Olympics. They may be the best American team ever, and their competition with the boycot countries would have been interesting.
tag@tty3b.UUCP ("Tom Gloger"3974 97320) (08/03/84)
I fear the next Olympic event may be: (shudder) Announcing! -- Tom Gloger AT&T Teletype Corporation Skokie, Illinois ihnp4!ltuxa!tty3b!tag
seifert@ihuxl.UUCP (D.A. Seifert) (08/03/84)
I agree with the Teddy Bear, Woodstock, and Gary regarding the
rather disgusting olympic coverage. Take Sunday (please?),
the camera-person for volleyball should have been put in the ring
with one of the heavyweight boxers. (with no helmet) Constant
zooming and panning with the effect that you couldn't see anything.
Once in awhile you'd see a glimpse of the ball flying past the
corner of the screen. Lots of good closeups of the players talking
to each other between plays. Thats what's important, right? :-)
Should of had one camera frame the entire court, and LEAVE IT THERE.
Let the other cameras play with their zoom lenses, and use it for
SUPER-SLO-MO *if* they ever get anything good. One gets really tired
of seeing a nice spike but not seeing where it lands. etc etc.
I also wonder about the artistic merit of all the nice closeups
of the (bicycle) road racer's butts by the camera-on-a-motorcycle.
(Which was probably a nice distraction/nuisance they could have done
without.)
It was painfully obvious that they were concentrating almost exclusively
on the US team. The constant switching back and forth between events
is extremely annoying. I'd much rather watch a tape-delayed broadcast
with events in a reasonable sequence to "live" action which is unwatchable.
Last night's (Wed) coverage was somewhat better. They actually showed
other countries in the gymnastics! (talk about a cliffhanger!) The
v-ball camera-person was much better also. But the constant inane
patter they seem to feel is necessary. -ugh- "What do you think about
this event?" "Well, both teams are top competators, both are in excellant
condition, I think we'll see a really close match here tonight...."
and on and on and on...
--
_____
/_____\ "Get out there and keep moving forward!"
/_______\ - Leo Franchi
|___| Snoopy
____|___|_____ ihnp4!ihuxl!seifertwetcw@pyuxa.UUCP (T C Wheeler) (08/03/84)
I've had it up to here with Howard 'Bigmouth' Cosell. The guy seems to think he is a boxing expert when he can't even tell what type of punch is being thrown. I have been rooting for the 'other' guy every night. I too want to see some of the other contestants perform. I like to see some of the 'underdogs' come through. It is getting very embarrasing to constantly hear about how many medals we have won. T. C. Wheeler
cdash@druxv.UUCP (Shub) (08/03/84)
this morning the Denver rocky mountain contained the following cartoon:
USA Bike Racer USA Wrestler USA Cheerleader
likeness of likeness of likeness of
a biker a wrestler cathy rigby
wearing a big
ABC button
official ignorer of the 1984 olympics
...!druxv!cdash {charlie shub AT&T-IS Denver (303) 538-3922}osd@hou2d.UUCP (Orlando Sotomayor-Diaz) (08/04/84)
Well, Jose Antonio Samaranch, President of the International
Olympic Committee has sent a letter to the LA Olympic organization
(if I heard right), complaining about ABC's coverage of the olympiad.
His arguments sounded similar to jj's and Gary's. Whether ABC
is going to get their act together is another matter.
--
Orlando Sotomayor-Diaz /AT&T Bell Laboratories, Crawfords Corner Road
/Holmdel, New Jersey, 07733 (Room 3M 325)
Tel: 201-949-1532 /UUCP: {{{ucbvax,decvax}!}{ihnp4,harpo}!}hou2d!osdps@celerity.UUCP (08/06/84)
I agree that the ABC coverage is biased in favour of the USA team. I am a
British citizen who has lived in California for 9 years. At the start of the
Olympics I intended to support British athletes on the few occasions when
there was one with a reasonable chance of winning, and US athletes in all
other events. By the end of the first week my order had changed to:
1) British
2) European community or British commonwealth
3) anyone OTHER than US.
I watched the women's marathon on ABC yesterday. I know that there was at
least one British competitor, because I saw the flag during the openning
ceremony. I don't know her name or where she finished. When CBS is covering
a PGA tournament, they seem to find time to list all the competitors who
make it to the final day at least once, and say how they finished. ABC may
have done this for the marathon while I was out of the room for a few
minutes, but if so they did it fairly fast. During a marathon there would
seem to be plenty of time to list the entire field and their current
positions several times.
I think that things have begun to improve slightly - possibly because of the
protests by the International Olympic Committee. The last couple of days
they actually interviewed a few non-American athletes. I would still rather
see more of the athletes competing, and less of them talking.
Does anyone know whether ABC is supplying pictures to any of the countries
without camera crews at the Olympics? If so, I hope they are doing a better
job of giving a general view of the games.
--
ps
(Pat Shanahan)
uucp : {decvax!ucbvax || ihnp4 || philabs}!sdcsvax!celerity!ps
arpa : sdcsvax!celerity!ps@noscdxp@pyuxhh.UUCP (D Peak) (08/06/84)
Is ABC trying to change the olympics into a "Battle of the network Ts & As" ?
Am I imagining things or have you noticed "butt" shots of the women gymnasts ?
And cleavage shots in the womens sprint events ????
--
Dave Peak (pyuxhh!dxp)
Ye Gods and little fishes !!!!!!!!!!!!!wm@tekchips.UUCP (Wm Leler) (08/07/84)
I was up in Canada last week, and could receive four different
stations that were showing olympic coverage -- two USA (ABC
affiliates) and two Canadian. As could be expected, the USA
coverage dominated by USA athletes, and the Canadian coverage
was dominated by Canadian athletes. The Canadian feed was from
ABC, of course, and I noticed that the Canadian stations were
pushing USA atheletes as well. I got into a conversation
about this with some Canadians. Nobody seemed to think that
there was anything unusual about ABC pushing USA atheletes.
I seemed to be more embarassed about this than they were (but
maybe they are just used to US provincialism). About the
only thing we could agree on was that the ABC coverage sucked.
My personal complaints --
bad camera work (volleyball)
attempting to show things live
switching from event to event
too many spectator shots (this isn't football!)
terrible comentators ("you can only score in
volleyball when you are serving" -- gag!)
Why don't they tape entire events, edit them and show them
from start to finish? I don't care if the coverage is live,
as long as I see it the same day.
Wm Leler