Giant of broadcasting ensured ‘best ever’ Sydney Olympics coverage

GARY FENTON: 1946 -2023

Gary Fenton’s nickname for much of the 27 years he worked at Channel Seven was “Little G”, his widow Marie recalls (there was a “Big G” higher up). However there was nothing little about him. He was a giant of Australian broadcasting, roaming the Olympic and AFL arenas as an industry innovator and head of sport at both Seven and Nine.

Gary Fenton, member of the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympics, 1997.Credit: Fairfax

Lesser known were his light entertainment victories as a producer. There were “specials” for artists as diverse as Rod Stewart, Shirley Bassey and Barry Humphries. Mini-series like A Town Like Alice, All the Rivers Run and The Shiralee. Comedies including Acropolis Now and Big Girls Blouse.

“Gary was a tireless supporter of Australian talent and of Melbourne-based production,” posted Steve Vizard, whose career was made by shows like Fast Forward, Full Frontal and Tonight Live, which Fenton championed. “A humble, stellar bloke.”

Fenton even won a VFL Media award in 1979 for commissioning Mike Brady to write Up There Cazaly as the theme tune for Seven’s coverage of Aussie Rules, now the sport’s unofficial anthem. Nevertheless the man born in Melbourne on April 21, 1946 – and who died on January 31, 2023 after a 13-year battle with prostate cancer – was recognised as the behind-the scenes king of Australian sports broadcasting.

During his stellar career Fenton was responsible for free-to-air TV coverage of rugby league, Test cricket, golfing majors, three of tennis’s grand slams (Wimbledon, the Australian Open and the US Open) and the Bathurst 1000.

Gary Fenton in the Olympic torch relay. Credit: Fairfax

But his twin sporting passions, as evidenced by the vast sports memorabilia collection he built up, particularly during his retirement, were the Olympics and Aussie Rules.

The first of his 15 Olympics, nine summer and six winter, was at Montreal in 1976, a demoralising games for Australia.

His last, as guest of the International Olympics Committee (IOC), was the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi in Russia. In between, from 1996-2000, he served as chief operating officer of the Sydney Olympic Broadcasting Organisation (SOBO) and was the executive producer of the global telecast that went from Homebush to the rest of the world, producing more than 3400 hours of Olympics coverage.

For that, Fenton was awarded a coveted Golden Rings award by then IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch. John Coates, vice president of the IOC, said: “While Gary led the way in the development of Australian sports broadcasting in the 1980s and 1990s, we from the Olympic movement will always remember him at SOBO.”

“He worked with all the international broadcasters to ensure that their combined coverage of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games contributed to these Games being described as the best ever. Internationally Gary was regarded as our best.”

However, as a Melburnian, Fenton never relinquished his passion for Aussie Rules, initially barracking for North Melbourne but then for the Swans when his career took the family to Sydney in 1996. He and Marie de Souza married at Melbourne’s Conwwarr Weir on November 22, 1975.

His oldest friend, Brian Ward, who spent time with Fenton in palliative care in the final five weeks of his life, says they recognised each other through previous athletic meets (when Fenton was a sprinter), but formed their lifelong friendship in January 1967 on the first training night of the season at Sandringham Football Club.

“We were 15. Gary was a very good footballer - a wingman with great pace, great courage and great ball-giving ability.”

‘He should be lauded as the driving force behind the worldwide television coverage of the Olympic Games in our country, in Sydney 2000.’

Bruce McAvaney on behind-the-scenes TV legend Gary Fenton

Veteran Seven broadcaster, Bruce McAvaney credited Fenton “on having a profound effect and influence on a legion of people in the television industry and I’m one of them.

“He re-shaped the way the IOC negotiated media rights and he should be lauded as the driving force behind the worldwide television coverage of the Olympic Games in our country, in Sydney 2000.

“He was a brilliant negotiator who was equally adept to an instinctive strike or playing the long game.He had a gift when it came to providing opportunity to raw, often unknown talent. A one-off.”

Jeffrey Browne, who became Nine’s managing director after Fenton moved to Nine in 2006, was the last person to see his friend alive. One of Fenton’s favourite non-family photos was of him running in the Olympic torch relay before Sydney 2000.

Gary Fenton was instrumental in getting the London Olympics to Channel Nine.Credit: AP

Browne took his friend in palliative care a photo of the two of them together before the 2012 Olympic torch relay as they were waiting for British tennis commentator Sue Barker to hand it over. There had been only one 500 metre spot allocated for the Nine team through North London, but Fenton “insisted I do it even though I said it should be him”, Browne recalls. “That was Gary.”

Browne credits Fenton with inspiring Nine to secure the Australian rights to the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics and the 2012 London summer games over Seven, the incumbent broadcaster: “It was a very strategic victory for us. Nine wasn’t in a good financial position then, after the death of Kerry Packer in 2005. Seven was in the ratings ascendancy. That’s when Fenton proposed an audacious plan.

“We were just having a chat when he said, ‘Why don’t we have a crack at getting the Vancouver and London Olympic Australian broadcasting rights?’ “Because it would cost at least $100 million and we can’t afford it,” Browne replied.

It was Fenton’s idea to consider sharing the costs and coverage with Foxtel. After months of haggling, Foxtel’s then chief executive Kim Williams agreed. The free to air and pay TV stations would submit a joint bid, promising an unprecedented 2500 hours between them.

Gary Fenton shows Princes William and Harry around the Nine/Foxtel commutations centre at the 2000 London Olympics.

“What do we do now, Gary? Browne asked. Fenton replied, “We fly to Lausanne in Switzerland (headquarters of the IOC) and make our pitch,” Browne recalls.

There was chicanery and commercial-in-confidence aplenty, but the call from the IOC came through at the appointed hour, 11.05 am.“Gary and I were on a walk in Lausanne,” Browne says. Seven hadn’t matched the joint Nine/Foxtel bid.

“Gary sank to his knees. He was so relieved at having won, because he’d put so much into it.“Not only was he a master tactician, he was a brilliant television producer and an even better technical television builder. A legend of Australian sporting and broadcasting history.”

During the 2012 London Olympics, Fenton guided Princes William and Harry around the Nine/Foxtel communications centre he’d overseen, and which won an IOC award for the depth and quality of its coverage.

Cathy Freeman winning gold in the 400m was the defining moment of the Sydney Olympics, and Gary Fenton was key to its broadcast.Credit: Dallas Kilponen

There will be no funeral, without his three children – daughters Amy and Jess, and son Casey, or his two Greece-based grandchildren, Elke and Luca – who are currently overseas. Instead there will be a memorial celebration of his life, yet to be arranged.

As for his sporting collection, his widow says, “Gary had no wish to pass it on to the family. He always accepted it was his passion, not ours.

“After being commercially valued, it will probably be auctioned. It includes complete sets of Aussie Rules cards dating back to 1846, Brownlow medals and one of Australia’s finest displays of Olympic torches.”

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