{"id":285,"date":"2008-08-12T19:10:54","date_gmt":"2008-08-12T18:10:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/?p=285"},"modified":"2008-08-12T19:12:15","modified_gmt":"2008-08-12T18:12:15","slug":"olympics-coverage-on-rte","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/2008\/08\/12\/olympics-coverage-on-rte\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympics Coverage on RTE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Radio Telef\u00eds \u00c9ireann (RTE<\/a>) is the Irish national broadcaster, and it is my source for the 2008 Olympics on television. Its coverage<\/a> consists primarily of three programs: Olympics through the Night, Olympics AM, and Olympics Today. All three consist of live broadcasts as well as overviews and highlights. At any time from about midnight to 4pm, the Olympics is broadcast on one of RTE’s two television channels — but never both to this point.<\/p>\n

I record all three programs every day, so I see all the events that RTE chooses to show — although I see many of them at 12x or 30x speed. RTE’s choices are shaped by the sports for which Irish athletes qualified and the events of (putative) Irish interest. These are quite different from what I remember of US coverage, but that should be no surprise.<\/p>\n

Still, I am surprised by what I’ve seen. Here are the sports that overwhelmingly dominate the schedule to date, in order of prominence by my rough estimation :<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Boxing (several Irish competitors with medal chances)<\/li>\n
  2. Swimming (few Irish competitors)<\/li>\n
  3. Equestrian (several Irish competitors)<\/li>\n
  4. Soccer (no Irish competitors)<\/li>\n
  5. Cycling (few Irish competitors)<\/li>\n
  6. Rowing (Irish teams with some chances)<\/li>\n
  7. Badminton (few Irish competitors); Shooting (one Irish competitor)<\/li>\n
  8. Sailing (few Irish competitors); Kayaking\/Canoeing (one Irish competitor); Fencing (one Irish competitor)<\/li>\n
  9. Basketball, gymnastics, judo, field hockey, volleyball and miscellaneous others<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Boxing, swimming and equestrian dominate the coverage, beyond the interest in Irish athletes. Given the number of Irish competitors in athletics, I expect track and field to start to dominate in the next few days. <\/p>\n

    The television coverage, aside from the live broadcasts with RTE’s commentators, consists mostly of an anchor or two sitting in one of two studios, with an expert or two giving analysis. Here is a screengrab of the blue studio:<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/p>\n

    The analyses are quite lengthy by US standards, and there is almost none of the gimmickry of American sports broadcasting. No telestrators, very little slow-motion — in fact, the replays that illustrate each analysis are usually a simple playback of the entire performance rather than a series of edited and isolated “crucial” moments. I put a short clip on YouTube<\/a> of the analysis that immediately followed Irish paddler Eoin Rheinisch’s two K1 runs<\/a> yesterday. You can click on the image below to see it.<\/p>\n

    \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

    There are almost no mini-documentaries, vignettes, montages or music videos. There are very few interviews with athletes, Irish or otherwise. I haven’t watched much of the round-up show that airs in the evenings, Today at the Olympics; it may have more of that kind of thing.<\/p>\n

    As with many experiences here in Ireland, I’m getting a not-quite-familiar perspective on the Olympics. I’ll follow up with more impressions as the week goes on. Feel free to post any questions or curiosities you think of, as Dave did. Your comments may help me notice and articulate some other interesting features of the Olympics from an Irish point of view.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Radio Telef\u00eds \u00c9ireann (RTE) is the Irish national broadcaster, and it is my source for the 2008 Olympics on television. Its coverage consists primarily of three programs: Olympics through the Night, Olympics AM, and Olympics Today. All three consist of live broadcasts as well as overviews and highlights. At any time from about midnight to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,4],"tags":[152,119,154,759,153,148,149,155,151,150],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bakkerbugle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}