Opinion
Televising the Olympic Games is a difficult balancing act. Always there are hard decisions to be made through clashes in events or the need for international perspective as well as coverage of New Zealand's competitors.
What appears on screen will never satisfy every viewer. Yet, notwithstanding these
difficulties, Television New Zealand's performance at Beijing has been flawed.
The nadir was reached when a promised crossover from One News to live coverage of Tom Ashley's gold-medal-winning boardsailing race did not happen in time. TV3 was able to beat the official Games broadcaster in announcing Ashley's triumph.
Even before this, however, severe cracks were showing in TVNZ's coverage. A decision to leave the women's road cycling race mid-event to cover a soccer match left those watching aghast, if not angry.
And then there were the commentators and interviewers deployed at the Games venues. Veterans Peter Montgomery, John McBeth and to a lesser extent Keith Quinn have, quite rightly, been criticised for the quality of their work.
At times all have made substantial errors or seemed to lack knowledge of the event they were covering. Montgomery's blunders for Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell's golden race plumbed the deepest of commentating depths. Brendan Telfer in triathlon and athletics and the experts at cycling and swimming were honourable exceptions.
The commentating problems were superseded by the inane interviewing by Toni Street, who seemed to view herself as a cheerleader for NZ. Many competitors struggled to lower themselves to the tenor of her questioning. Happily, some relief and insight into our athletes were provided by Mark Sainsbury's engaging Close Up interviews.
Before Beijing many decried the handing of coverage of the 2012 Games to Sky. There will be far fewer complaints now. Sky will bring a new breed of commentator, multiple channels and less chance of the public missing major moments because of poor judgment.
