Annette Sharp: There have been exceptions, but Channel 9’s Olympics coverage is woeful

With all the Aussie gold it’s a shame Nine’s coverage is over-bloated windbaggery. Where is Bruce McAvaney when you need him.

Three things almost saved Nine’s Paris Olympic Games coverage from being an exercise in vapid windbaggery and overbearing bombast; the incredible record breaking efforts of the Australian Olympic team whose women shone in every moment, commentator Dave Culbert and Ally Langdon at prime time.

Our radiant, humble athletes, Culbert’s expertise and Langdon’s poise managed to periodically elevate Nine’s coverage from being one long afternoon of Nine’s Wide World of Sports. In the end though, perhaps dazzled by their own technical wizardry and 42 platforms chocked with IOC feeds, the host broadcaster failed in the most fundamental of missions, to tell the story of Australia going to the Games.

Any content producer with a camera can be a cheerleader to great talent. Only an intuitive, observant and experienced content producer can use a camera to build an editorial bridge that might transport a nation of couch-bound doughbellies into the punishing universe of the elite athlete.

Todd Woodbrige, Ally Langdon and Karl Stefanovic in Paris for the Olympic Games. Picture: Instagram

By this writer’s measure Nine nailed the storytelling once during the past two weeks with a package about BMX gold medallist Saya Sakakibara and her brother Kai.

Voiced by Kai, the package told the Sakaibara’s traumatic story with a simplicity that took your breath away and a minimum of manufactured hype. Nine’s most egregious fail at the Paris Games was its inability to find and tell more of these heroic backstories.

Given the company is ceaselessly spruiking its journalism, its failure to harness some of the better storytellers within its own vast ranks for its TV coverage, borders on obscene waste.

But of course this was an Olympics for Nine’s television division and so it was the television division that had to be showcased in every available cross-promotional moment, even if it was at times at an athlete’s expense.

The Channel 9 Olympics broadcast team.

Nine’s daily telecast kicked off with Australia’s most jingoistic TV gibberer Karl Stefanovic assailing us with a whole lot of noise about the previous day’s sporting highlights as his perennially smiling co-host Sarah Abo battled to get a word in.

As the pair ploughed through a daily serving of Olympic factoids, we were treated to Stefanovic routinely shouting “What about the emotion?” — which frankly diminished the emotion — and such banal insights as “How good is the skateboarding commentary? How good?”, which preceded a meaningless clip of two commentators most of us have never heard of jumping up and down in a studio booth like a couple of breathless fanboys. Legendary swimming commentator Norman “Gold! Gold! Gold!” May would have marvelled at their restraint.

In Stefanovic’s hands, the Olympic Games, the greatest sporting spectacle on the planet, was very nearly reduced to a prop for the presenter’s cumbersome and fatuous ego. Thank God Nine left the blustering flog idling in the breakfast slot where he could cheer for someone other than himself for a change.

The prime time hosting duties went to A Current Affair host Langdon and Nine’s baby-faced evening news sports presenter James Bracey, a youthful Macaulay Culkin-esque character who amply meets Nine’s all-white hosts criteria.

Bruce McAvaney gave the Olympics the gravitas it required. Picture: Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

Langdon and Bracey were easy-on-the-eye and capable autocue readers, however Bracey still has much to learn about live interviews and amply earned 14-year-old gold medallist skateboarder Arisa Trew’s dismissive side eye when he patronisingly remarked during a studio interview: “I could sit here all day and listen to you talk the lingo of skateboarding.”

Critically for Nine, Langdon and Bracey, like Stefanovic and Abo, at times barely seem to comprehend the magnitude of the sporting gems being cast before them. Neither duo managed to bring a sense of occasion, let alone gravitas, to Nine’s coverage, a crime in large scale broadcasting.

During the Seven Network’s long tenure as Olympics’ host broadcaster, Seven understood (Tokyo 2021 with Hamish McLachlan notwithstanding), that the recruitment of a seasoned, engaged and informed veteran sportscaster as studio anchor was critical to an Olympics broadcast’s success. Viewers wanted to feel like they were in safe and trusted hands, as too did the TV production unit.

As a result Seven cultivated TV commentator Dennis Cometti and later broadcaster Bruce McAvaney as anchors. Both men made their names and reputations anchoring Seven’s Olympics’ coverage, a fact which makes Nine’s decision to part ways with Jim Wilson prior to Paris look especially foolhardy as Wilson, who has nine Olympic campaigns under his belt — seven as host, had long been seen as McAvaney’s natural successor.

Fortunately Eddie McGuire, who still ticks the veteran sportscaster box, was prepared to leap into action and return to Nine for Paris for hosting duties. This may be a fact which most Australians are unaware of as McGuire was relegated to the graveyard 1am to 6.30am overnight shift, an appointment that could suggest McGuire is on the outer at Nine or was perhaps too expensive to hire for prime time duties.

Another expense weighing heavily on Nine’s budget is retired Australian cricket captain Mark “Tubby” Taylor who, as we understand, had to be found a role to justify his lucrative six figure annual contract.

Hence he was consigned to diving. How could he mess that up?

Similarly Nine went in search of a role for retired tennis player Todd Woodbridge, the host of its afternoon game show The Tipping Point and one half of doubles duo The Woodies with Mark Woodforde. Woodbridge earns a pass for his role hosting three hours of television daily and doing it with plenty of decorum.

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Other notable mentions go to Giaan Rooney, Ian Thorpe, NRL commentator Mat Thompson and Roz Kelly covering the swimming, Mr Versatile Dave Culbert and Tamsyn Lewis-Manou on track and field and Jon Harker, James Tomkins and Matt Hill.

While this writer believes it’s a basic courtesy to badge-up events that are being replayed as “replay”, Nine evidently felt there was no need to do so, preferring have us believe the sporting action was coming out of Paris 22-hours a day.

At day’s end though, the record-setting success of the Australian Olympic team was always going to help Nine to record ratings even if its studio hosts left much to be desired and the heavy slate of advertising on Nine’s main channel frequently took precedence over the action (including when viewers watching the Brazil v France women’s soccer match missed the only goal scored due as Nine went to an ad break).

Something for Nine CEO Mike Sneesby, an Olympics broadcasting novice, to contemplate before he starts making plans to join the torch relay in Los Angeles in 2028.

Originally published as Annette Sharp: There have been exceptions, but Channel 9’s Olympics coverage is woeful