Last night’ s coverage saw them repeat whole swathes of material they had broadcast the night before (of the women’s 500m speed skating and luge).
Perhaps they could have shown a number of complete routines in the men’s ice skating which many of us were hanging out for rather than the number they decided was enough. Two. Channel Nine deemed that the return of champion skater Yevgeny Plushenko from retirement and the only man attempting quad jumps as only worthy of coverage in their ‘updates’.
If the appalling programming wasn’t enough, Nine has kicked the boot in well and truly in having the mess hosted by Eddie McGuire. One search on Twitter of his name will reveal the depth of anger and hatred viewers are feeling about Eddie’s delivery. A Facebook page has even sprung up as another forum for people to share their displeasure.
Eddie McGuire is one of those personalities on Australian television that polarise people more than most. His background and main stomping ground of experience comes from hosting the Victorian version of The Footy Show – the last bastion of inappropriate jokes at the expense of homosexuals, women, immigrants and any other section of the community that does not drink beer and watch a minimum of three footy matches a week. While he has moved on his attitude – from his performance hosting the Winter Olympics – has not.
Patronising toward women
Poor interviewing skills
And don’t get me started on the pen tapping on the desk or at the camera, the obscenely large wristwatch or the use of phrases like ‘climactic finish’. A fellow Twitterer also swears they heard him say Canadia.
Offensive
Meanwhile, apparently there is an event taking place called the Winter Olympics. While Channel 9 fill rafts of their broadcast with commentary from this ill-informed, close-minded, homophobic, misogynistic individual viewers are missing out on airtime that could be filled with the actual sports.
*****
Update: Crikey.com have posted this story.
THe SMH: Here, here (great insights from Michael Idato) and here
Some more thoughts on the matter, originally posted on the Facebook page:
I’m not sure if any of you watched the Four Corners report about the NRL, Matthew Johns (amongst others) and the sexual assault on the girl in NZ?
In part of that report they showed NRL players having classes on what was sexual assault and challenging their attitudes towards women. In it they presented a scenario that went along the lines of some footballers going out on the turps, bringing a girl back to their place and then assaulting her. They then presented the same senario but it put them in the place of the woman.
Of course, when asked what they thought about the woman’s predicament it was all, ‘she deserved it’, ‘she had led them on’ and so on and so forth.
When asked what they thought when it was the footballer who’d been assaulted by the men they were all, ‘he didn’t deserve that’, ‘he’s been violated’ and so on and so forth.
As totally disheartening as this is – that these young men needed to be taught this, that they had not been brought up in an environment which had taught them this already, that you could see the discrepancy so markedly in their minds – Eddie McGuire is the pin-up boy to this type of male. Where women are there to run the home, perform in the bedroom and ideally have a good pair of tits. The faster the car the better, the bigger the drinker the more of a man, the ‘no son of mine is goner be a fag’. Of course the slipperiest part of this slope comes out in things like the Cronulla riots and the hijacking of the Southern Cross to become the symbol of close-minded rednecks rather than representing a land where all are welcome and equal and no one gets left behind.
The most puzzling aspect of all this is that Eddie McGuire managed to rise from the muddy bank of The Footy Show and walk on two feet into positions of relative power and subsequent wealth.
So here we have a free-to-air TV channel paying an absolute fortune for the broadcast rites of the 2010 Winter Olympics. You would think that would ensure a team of sports reporters rich in knowledge and experience and perhaps one or two ‘lifestyle’ reporters to give us the fluff and bubble pieces about the Olympic experience. You would expect a tight broadcast of live action and pertinent replays that respect the fact we now live in a highly connected world and while we may not know the ins and outs of ice-hockey, the luge or speed skating we have a deep respect for what it takes to reach Olympic standards and indeed have a national identity of loving sports whatever they may be.
They got it partly right with one of the fathers of Australian sports reporting Ken Sutcliffe hosting the morning/daytime schedule. Indeed, that broadcast can be quite enjoyable and slick (although even he has come unstuck in the last few days with a jibe about the mens double luge which would probably have otherwise gone unnoticed was it not for Eddie’s previous foray into the gay gay). Leila McKinnon seems to have the right level of enthusiasm and professionalism to pull off her role in the team and it strikes me she has realised this opportunity to be the Johanna Griggs of Channel Nine and is running with it. Hard.
But then ‘they’ (they being I’m not entirely sure but some sort of senior management committee because only this sort of decision could come from a committee) made the fatal decision to put Eddie at the helm. The poster boy of Channel 9’s Olympic team. And well, it was just an out-of-control downhill ski from there. Crashing into gates and fences by trying to bait the unbaitable in Dale Begg-Smith into some uncomfortably narrow-minded ‘we was robbed’ beat up. Going head over tail by gushing like a schoolboy over Katarina Witt and making her clearly uncomfortable in raising a playboy shoot she did when? decades ago. Smashing into barriers with his deeply patronising exchanges with every female sportsperson he’s interviewed and revealing his own pathetic, antiquated and completely inappropriate attitudes towards homosexuals with his gay gags about the male figure skaters.
Oh sure, we all chortle at the flamboyance of those guys – similar to our reaction to ballroom dancing competitions I imagine, but there is a time and a place and a way to do it where people are not offended. Where it is obviously coming from a place of a ribbing not a derision. Where it is a dig not a revelation of your own hang-ups. The saddest part of that incident was at no time did Eddie acknowledge the incredible athleticism and skill of those ice skaters. As if somehow the fact they wore costumes and danced! on ice! completely discredited the ability and hard work it took for them to reach that point.
And so here we sit. A man with an attitude clearly more at home in Australia in 1970 than 2010 but with more money and subsequent power than the rest of us will ever see.
And I guess that is the most depressing part of all.