Nine rolls out Olympic schedule
Nine's Winter Olympics schedule has evening highlights from 9:30pm, making room for other programming. But there is ice cold news for viewers in Perth.
- Published by David Knox
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Channel Nine has scheduled much of its primetime Winter Olympics to begin at 9:30pm weeknights.
Vancouver Gold, the three hour highlights package hosted by Eddie McGuire and Leila McKinnon, will wrap up the top events from each day.
From Mondays to Thursdays it will air from 9:30pm local time across the country. Friday, Saturdays and Sundays the start times vary from as early as 7:30pm to as late as 10pm.
Freeing up the earlier schedule will allow Nine to program other shows, although it is yet to reveal which ones.
The move could give Nine the upper hand in the ratings game, given daily shares are tallied on the 6pm-midnight block.
Live daytime broadcasts hosted by Ken Sutcliffe will air from 9am weekdays in Sydney and Melbourne, 8:30am in Adelaide, and 8:00am in Brisbane.
But Perth viewers get the raw end of the deal with delayed daytime broadcasts at 9am. With the exception of the Opening Ceremony, Perth viewers will have almost no live coverage of the games across the entire 17 days (Saturday February 20 is Live). After Seven’s delayed evening sessions with tennis, it is a bitter sting for Perth sports fans.
Weekday daytime sessions vary in length, anywhere from 3 hours to 6.5 hours. Weekends are up to 8 hours.
The Opening Ceremony is live in all cities at 12:30pm AEDT Saturday February 13, and replayed later that evening at 7:30pm in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth and 9:30pm in Sydney and Brisbane.
The Closing Ceremony is live in all cities except Perth and replayed at 9:30pm on Monday March 1st everywhere.
Nine still has cricket and NRL commitments to juggle.
Nine will also give the games coverage via Today and Nine News.
70 Responses
Thank goodness for Foxtel and I am very happy to pay for their Olympic Coverage which will be live, 24/7 and in stunning High Definition. 😀
Might be in London for the olympics so that I don’t have to put up with Eddie Everywhere in australia and enjoying ad-free coverage on BBC
I am a Nine fan. The footy was presented proffessionally when Nine hosted it, Channel Seven and Channel 10 do not rate. However Channel Nine’s coverage of the Winter Games is appauling. Those interviews of Eddies are amatuer at best and not something i am used to seeing. Every session where the ‘personalities’ rant on makes me cringe, its like amatuer hour, it feels embarrassing and its dead air. Pretty dissapointed in the coverage, James Bradshaw is about as repetative and uninformed as it gets and needs to let the proffessionals comment on the sport rather than rant with generic one liners.
Overall the Channel Nine group should stick to footy and cricket. Their attempt at hosting sports they do not understand seems disrespectful and amatuer at best.
It is no surprise people are over the under representation of winter Olympics and over representation of cricket. I agree with everyone, I think we need to complain to the advertisers and basically don’t watch bad coverage. What I have decided to do is to hopefully you tube the sport if possible. I think we need to complain to our politicians to change media laws that channels should deliver what is promoted. Perhaps some media lobby for free to air sports committee (general public) should be improved with accountability mechanisms put into place. Additionallly, as corporates they would listen to a large interest groups (i.e. the customers of their products) that are angry enough not to purchase Their products after all these advertisers are the enablers of this pathetic coverage.
Again, as events were conducted today, nine’s coverage revolved around the hosts and what a great time they were having. Broadcast coverage was of them chatting around the table and cutting to interviews while other sports were actually being played! This is unforgivable. Network staffing should be restricted to commentators only and there should be a cap of only one minute per hour when their mug is on the screen. It is a sporting event – show the sport!
very dissapointed with the olympic coverage all that is mostly shown is the luge or snowboarding or if it happens to have an Australian in it or a former Australian.
as far as i know we are supposed to be a multicultural country so why not show some of all the countries. I have no intention of getting foxtel seeing as 9 is supposed to be giving the coverage as well.
very dissapointed with the terrible coverage
Channel 9’s coverage has been a disgrace. Only a mere sample of athletes’ performances is shown rather than the normal full coverage shown in the past by other channels. Instead, they waste time with, for example, (1) crass commentary between Eddie McGuire and Mick Molloy – the comments on the male figure skaters were worthy of a drunken session in a bar – and (2) interviews of Eddie interviewing athletes of the calibre of Dale Begg Smith where he denigrates his achievement. The guy lost, Eddie – get over it.
Since most people work during the day and are unable to view events then, why on earth isn’t Channel 9 showing the coverage in prime time instead of waiting until 9:30pm or, if the wretched cricket is on, 10:00pm. It’s all prerecorded anyway and very few people have the luxury of being able to stay up until the wee small hours as they have to work the next day.
I don’t know why Channel 9 wasted the money buying the Olympic coverage – instead of enhancing their image, it has seriously damaged it.
Please, SBS or Channel 2, try and get the next winter olympics so we can enjoy them.
Worst coverage ever Channel 9…I cant believe you are giving Eddie and the (so called) experts so much air time. All of the interesting sports are truncated into 5 minute bites then we have to watch Eddie rant on about some hopeful athlete for 15 minutes. And we really dont need to see the same glod medal footage over and over every 20 minutes. I can see why TV stations refuse to have email addresses to send complaints to – Your inbox would be full Channel 9…
Channel nines Olympic coverage is a farce. TV times are ridiculous, The game show host as MC is tedious, the commentary by unqualified “footy show” participants embarrassing and the amount of events that receive no coverage at all is insane. If I hear another commentator yell/scream/say “you are a superstar” one more time I swear I will shoot myself. And why is Mick Malloy on? did he get sacked from 10? either way, he is boorish no matter what network he is with.
They should call nines coverage of the Olympics, ‘The Footy Show on Ice’ disgusting appalling, sexist, homophobic, uneducated, uninformed.
Absolutely pathetic! Obviously just a jaunt for the “Team” in Canada because we see more of them talking to each other than watching actual events. Why can’t we see every ice skater perform, not just the “select” or “Token” 3 who randomly appear in between “Eddie” appearances…For a channel that doesn’t seem to be doing well in the ratings anyway, it must have cost a fortune.
I have been struggling to watch nines appalling coverage of the games and last night was disgusted in the comments made by Mick Molloy and Eddie McGuire. Their comments on the figure skating showed how rude and how little background knowledge they have of the sports they are attempting to commentate on. Perhaps they should really look into what it takes to make it to the games in any of the olympic sports and the sacrifices these people make to make their dreams come true before making lame jokes and innuendo’s. A person’s sexuality should not be commented on it should be the athelticisim that is commented on.
As a watcher of every Olympic games – summer or winter I find myself turning off the telly or recording the measly amount that 9 has of actual events because I seriously want to throw a brick at smirking eddie. Just wanna know who died and made him God in the eyes of 9. His ego is not required at such an event. Interviews are shallow and the so called comic segments are just a outright embarrasment – that was just one evenings viewing. I think its a campaign to get the aussie public to get foxtel !!!! The coverage has never been so poor and I for one am upset !!
Channel 9 Suck.
Please, can I add one more thing? I don’t want to appear as spamming, but….
We get a measly 3 hours of “live” telecast, why in the world did channel 9 decide today to include at that time a story by the ” female swimmer ” about a Tea shop in Vancouver?
That’s it for me, I’m not bothering anymore. It just isn’t worth it.
Again, pathetic.
Pathetic, absolutely pathetic.
I wish TV would get rid of the want to be movie makers so we don’t have to sit through/change stations while some “want to be” tries to make an epic creation of sight and sound.
Just show us the games please.
And please don’t try to manufacture humor ie. Mick Molloy. Has he ever been funny? Maybe in the ’80s. Did you see his side splitting chat with Leila McKinnon? Mick asks how does she feel about him being on the channel 9 team, Leila replies, well in my time at A Current Affair I dealt with con men and the homeless. Hilarious-not.
Leila stick at what you do so well- bland. Boring, dull and bland.
Eddie McGuire? What a no talent nob.
Wouldn’t it be great to have an Olympics coverage hosted by sporting experts
( ie. no “stars” , or “personalities” – and without all the fake bells and whistles
( queue classical music and endless slow motion replays ). Dream on….
Channel 9’s coverage of the winter games has been pathetic and embarrassing to the station. I’m sick of all the interviews and lack of coverage. I want to see the games!! I don’t want see Eddie McGuire’s face or be taken for a ‘tourist’ view of Vancouver. There used to be Olympic coverage in the morning, afternoon and all evening, to get 3 hours of ‘highlights’ is shameful.
The games coverage should Never Ever go to channel 9 again!
I wish someone could explain to me, my family and our friends what we obviously can’t see in Eddie McGuire…….. What on earth does he bring to the Winter Olympic Coverage? We don’t even get what is so special about him on Millionaire etc but in our opinions he is completely hopeless on this. His interview with Dale Begg Smith was pathetic tring and trying to get hin to say the Canadian had stuffed it. Fortunately DBS was never goibg to head down that path. Love to hear others views on E McG.