Today was my first day back at work, so I had to rely on watching my recording of the Australian Open on TV. Every year, I am amazed at how Channel 7 manage to make their coverage even worse, just when you think it couldn't get any worse. Aside from that, it also sounds like they don't listen to any complaints, because they sure get plenty of those every year too (like here and here).I've already got my remote control out, so being free from ads, I would have thought the experience would have at least been bearable. But it seems like every year, they are showing less and less tennis.
If I was watching it live, I would have already moved on to my slightly blurry live stream by now.
- Every time I skip through an ad break (after a changeover), they manage to miss the first point every single time. Don't commentators always say it is important for the player to win the first point?
They've been doing this for several years now for the day sessions, but now they have added some additional ads in between games (without changeovers) where they also end up missing the first point.
- Whenever a set is finished, they always do their best to intentionally come back to the match once the entire first game is over. Meanwhile, audiences are hoping they didn't miss anything important by hoping that player held serve.
- I have just paused my video recording to come here, because yet again, they have shrunk the screen to one-third size, to show a match on the left and an interview on the right. This time, it's Francesca Schiavone's interview. I have to admit that her glowing review of Australian people was very nice and endearing, but perhaps that could be shown another time.
- Ever since their Australian Open series coverage, starting in Brisbane this year, they've had a sudden obsession with constantly showing the scores on screen. This isn't just words coming across the screen, but they shrink the entire match, and show the score down the bottom. It's really annoying on the eyes. I remember, in Brisbane, they would show results of anything. Sydney qualifying, men's doubles, results from Chennai, results from Doha. Today they just put up scores of yesterday's results, maybe later there will be more of yesterday's results since there isn't much going on today. Probably there will be juniors and legends results up there soon too. Any excuse to shrink the bloody screen, and distract us from the match.
- Sometimes when a player serves an ace, a commentator (usually Sandy Roberts) will remark that an "ANZ ace" was just served. What will happen next? Will forehands and backhands be sponsored next year?
- When Soderling took an injury time-out for a blister on his foot, immediately an advertisement on the screen for Panadol (painkillers) came up. How cheesy is that?
Though I have to admit that Home and Away ad, with the three shirtless guys coming out of the tennis court is also really horrible (but I can also see how it might appeal to some people).
- Then finally, of course there are the matches being delayed in states that aren't on the same time zone as Melbourne. That's the same every year though. Last year they finally started to take advantage of digital television with different shows on different channels, so it really should be live at least on there. There's no excuse not to.
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8 comments:
Actually I've thought that the coverage is better this year, at least it does not annoy me as much as previously, not that it is great mind you. And I can see how it would be annoying especially missing points because of ads.
I actually like that they are showing the scores because usually they are hopeless at showing the results, and before I had internet it was really hard to find what was happening with anyone but the top singles players, but yeah I can see why it would be distracting, they could do it in less intrusive way, same with the interviews.
That's true, that they used to never really show any live scores at all so I used to run to my computer all the time and also stay there if a certain match was getting very tight or an upset was occurring. Those were in the days where there was no live stream. I think that was often in case, if there was an upset that they'd wait until later on in the day when they had spare time to replay a couple of games. But yeah, they could easily do it in a less intrusive way.
Watching the Murray match at the moment - they've just come back to the 2nd set, and just as you said, we've missed the entire first game. Hopeless.
Yep. I think they don't skip points on the night matches, so at least it will get better from here.
I've been getting hits to this article with some people typing into Google:
"channel 7 tennis missing points commercials"
"prime seven missing tennis points"
"australina open channel 7 ads missing tennis"
"channel 7 miss first point of every game"
"why do channel 7 miss the first point in the tennis"
Obviously it's not only annoying me.
Why does Jo Griggs call Li Na - Li? That is her surname! I would have thought Jo was better informed.
Did she call her Li as if it was her first name? That's pretty horrible.
Yes - she did. She's a great commentator and I thought she would have been better informed.
...or that she would have had plenty of opportunity to get corrected by someone else, during the tournament.
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