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Olympics ad check

Viewers are already taking to social media to share their reactions to Nine's Olympic coverage and the amount of ads.

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Reactions to the first night of the Olympics on social media was volatile, with viewers already vocal about the amount of coverage they were seeing.

As we saw with Beijing, this is the challenge for any Free to Air broadcaster: how to cover multiple sports via one signal yet not be accused of limited coverage.

Viewers whose sport is interrupted to whiz across to another are quick to express their anger via Twitter and last night there was plenty of that.

Others were sarcastically accusing Nine of interrupting their commercials and promos with Olympic sports.

Certainly the scheduling of ads seemed to vary greatly, with some breaks feeling very short while others were much longer. This, no doubt was in response to working around live events.

I timed the breaks across three hours and you can see these below. Despite some  segments feeling very brief, it still works out at about 4 ad breaks per hour, and in reality some of them were actually very short. But it does feel like we are fleeting across events like a highlights snapshot rather than extensive coverage.

8pm
Cycling
Swimming
8:17 (break begins)

8:18 (break ends)
Rowing
8:22

8:25
Cycling
8:32

8:35
Swimming
Cycling
8:54

8:56
Shooting
Rowing
Swimming
9:02

9:05
Swimming
9:10

9:11
Cycling
Swimming
Cycling
9:28

9:30
Cycling
9:44

9:46
Update: Swimming, Judo, Shooting
Rowing
Cycling
9:56

9:59
Cycling
10:11

10:14
Equestrian
Cycling
10:34

10:36
Athlete profile
Rowing
Swimming updates
10:54

1058 (break ends)

And if you Australian coverage was tough, NBC is under fire in the US for delaying the Opening Ceremony live and waiting until primetime to screen it.

35 Responses

  1. @Guy – Where did you find the information on only 1 Channel allowed for FTA Coverage…… id love to read up on it.
    BBC is a FTA Broadcaster and they have more than 1 Channel (Minimum of 2 Channels and 24 Channels Online)

  3. Well I’ve been watching GEM for 2 hours so far tonight and I’ve seen a half of hockey and a few swimming races. Now we’re on an ad break and are coming back to highlights from Day 1. Really? Nothing else going on at the moment?

    Bit disappointed with the coverage so far.

  4. Wow. I have no idea why people don’t like the Nine coverage. I think it’s fine so far. I like the fact that they swap between the sports because you get to see all the important things rather than relying on yourself to switch between 8 channels (I have foxtel as well).

    I do agree however, that some of the ads should have more variety. But this is the advertiser’s fault, not Nine’s. A big company like McDonald’s for example should have realised that they would need more than one ad for the whole Olympics when they have bought many advertising spots.

    Another thing that I found slightly disappointing was that they have their personalities in a studio and we as the audience don’t get to see any of the london scenery. This is a major mistake. And if they are not going to change it, perhaps they need to show the london city on that massive screen behind the presenters.

    Apart from these two things, I have no major problems with the Olympic coverage. All good so far.

  5. Was at the in laws last night and they have chosen not to subscribe to Foxtel so had to sit through the nine ads with the occasional break for the olympics. And for the brief moments they had sport coverage, i had motion sickness from all the chopping and changing of sports …. rowing then cylclying then back to rowing then back to cycling then ……..

    Great to be back home and foxtel and their 8 HD channnels. No more nine rubbish. Bring on the Boomers tonight!!

  6. David – you forgot to mention that NBC didn’t show the segment honoring the fallen and instead showed an interview between Ryan Seacrest and Michael Phelps!

    Yep – During the opening ceremony – NBC showed a pre-recorded interview!

    It would have been better to just go to an ad break!

  7. Well all i can say is thank god for Foxtel. Its so much better. I only watched Nine for the Opening Ceremony and even then i wasn’t happy with Eddie or Leila. They were both very poor in commentating the ceremony. There was one good thing about Seven and that was their commentary team and presentation team is much better than Nines. I truly hope they get it back for Rio 2016.

    Oh BTW for those saying the IOC only allow 1 channel for FTA is right this time around because when Nine bid they only asked for one channel, all well knowing that there would be more than one option available. So i blame both Nine and the Govt on this one. Also the reason the delay of who broadcasts Rio is because the Govt has delayed the anti-siphoning list. The IOC want who ever gets the next FTA rights to use multi-channeling so lets hope that happens.

  8. I, for one, am already sick of the repeated advertisements. Seeing the same ads over and over actually becomes quite irritating. Almost as irritating as the ACA promos on-air with scantily clad young girls parading around the streets. I actually found it offensive in family viewing periods and have voiced my complaint to Nine (who won’t give a damn I’m sure).

  9. @Kathy, I believe the channel that was taking the basketball, the event before it ran long, thus foxtel started the coverage, it wasn’t live (and it wasn’t stated as being live… the watermark in the top right hand corner did not indicate it was live). However, when (I assume when it was half time.. switched to the volleyball), they were able to catch up, and thus indicated it was live.

    @Jezza, I read on another site, that apparently the IOC demand a FTA broadcaster can only use 1 channel to show the olympics, so it wouldn’t matter if nine was given an exemption by our government, although if this is the case, whats doing with the 3d channel then?

  11. I think Nines coverage so far is quite good. Certainly no worse than Sevens coverage of the 2008 Games, and no annoying Bruce McAvaney. I guess you have to put up with the ad breaks as Nine has to pay for the huge cost of the rights to telecast the Games. As for all the promotion of Nines upcoming shows, well this happens on all networks all of the time. Seven made an art form of this at the last Olympics and every year during the Australian Tennis Open.

  12. The same repetitious ads and promos are the big turn off. The Opening Ceremony was scheduled for 4hrs with no ads. ran 4.25hrs. The replay was scheduled 4hrs with 1hrs of comms & promos. Don’t have to be Einstein to figure either more than 1hr will be chopped from the replay, or no one figured the replay should have been scheduled from 1pm to fit in all of the comms?
    The replay was autrocious. Speeches were chopped off. The main speech was interrupted mid-stream for a break. So rude. Cover of many countries entering the stadium was chopped. Most were not seen in the replay.
    As for “HD”. As I posted yesterday, I switched from WIN/GEM HD to WIN/SD for a better picture. The WIN/GEM picture as terrible, with weird artifacts all over it. Fine as long as there wasn’t any movement.
    Commentators – “And here comes the green and gold of Australia”. Actually, Eddie, they were wearing green and white.

  13. btw not only did NBC show the ceremony on delay, they also didn’t show its entirety. And it’s not the parade of nations they cut, instead they randomly played pre-recorded interviews over the top of certain sections. For example, the taking of the oaths was replaced by an interview with Michael Phelps.

    So really we have nothing to complain about.

  14. ch9 have had years to plan for this, I still do not understand why they do not use all 3 digi channels to provide better coverage. They have had years to request an exemption from the anti siphoning laws so that is no excuse.
    Agree with many of the comments, a studio in London…wtf is that about

    One comment about one of the ads for Comm Bank, I so want to keep the T and replace the A with a U, that is the only thing I think about when I see this tediously repeated ad.

    Lastly is Big Brother a dance show?

  15. It seems like the only ads they play are either official Olympics sponsors, or Nine’s own sponsors for their coverage. Nothing else. But those amount to only about five different products, so it’s very very samey.

    I did appreciate the lack of ad breaks during the Opening Ceremony, though. There were a few at the start, a couple at the end, but the main event was almost unbroken.

    Overall, it’s okay. I’m just annoyed that no matter what time of day I tune in, there’s swimming on. Happens every time.

  16. The constant switching between the same few sports would have been less annoying if they didn’t change and find that the rowing race was 3/4 over, or the Aquatic Centre feed was simply the slow-motion replay of two races ago. They need to sit down with a schedule and pick the events they want to show an then stay with them for the whole duration, with ads at appropriate moments. The Olympic news update parts need to be exclusively on the medal tally and sports that 9 has no intention of broadcasting at all (e.g. archery, judo, taekwando, fencing, shooting, handball, badminton etc.) so people know what’s going on outside Channel 9’s tunnel vision coverage of a few sports. Athlete profiles and other colour pieces should only be used if there is time between one event and the next. If they have world class commentators like Phil Liggett they need to also let them talk for more than 2 minutes at a time – as the night went on they started showing more of the road race uninterrupted, which was good but overall their coverage has been less than impressive so far.

  17. should have learnt from 7s abysmal coverage of the last games. why they need to parade today show hosts on their coverage is beyond me. only thing bad about foxtels coverage is rebecca wilson. god nails on a chalk board sound better then her

  18. Watching the coverage on Foxtel. Just brilliant, with the Men’s road race last night from start to finish with no ad breaks and a free sightseeing tour of London 🙂

  19. The worst thing about the ads breaks was the extreme repetition of the major sponsor ads. Coles, Comm Bank, McDonalds etc were all flogged to death. Surely these big companies could afford different versions, knowing the high usage during the games?
    Worst grammar medal to the Coles graphic at the start of the Cathy F ad. ‘Coles are pleased to support…’ – try ‘Coles is pleased..’ How many clever people let that slip through?

  20. I thought having Foxtel would be great as coverage would be ad free – and thankfully it is.

    What is disappointing though is that it appears not everything is actually Live on Foxtel – even when they state it is.

    Watching the Live Foxtel Basketball coverage this morning, Nine are two minutes ahead of the Foxtel coverage yet if I tune into the Beach Volley Ball Nine and Foxtel are both covering Live. Why the delay in Live coverage on Foxtel? I don’t get it.

  22. And we thought Nine was bad, NBC should have done likewise, show the opening live then re-run it later, maybe in prime time. With YouTube and the like people will quickly go elsewhere to get their Olympics fix.

    As for Nine well it hasn’t been a problem for me, 8 channels to choose from, well worth the $18 to get sports back for the month.

    One thing I’m getting sick of on Nine (more than the ads) are to promo for shows coming ‘after the Olympics’ only 2-3 weeks away and they still won’t give dates for these shows, unlike say Puberty Blues on TEN which we know starts Aug 15. I’ve always hated the ‘coming soon’ promos on Nine ever since they promised Smallville many years ago and never delivered!

  23. There are other sources for Olympic content. I like finding an interesting sport going on and following it then and there. There were also other events on at the same time as those mentioned in the article, such as Handball, Beach Volleyball, Basketball, among many others. Even though I wouldn’t expect Nine to show every sport, they should at least report on every event. Australia can’t inspire future athletes in other sports they don’t know about if they are not at least reported about, even if Australians didn’t win or compete in them.

  24. I was pretty happy with the coverage actually (maybe because I was expecting a disaster??). I was expecting a lot of ads and blanket coverage of swimming. Thankfully that wasn’t the case in both cases. 4 ad breaks per hour is OK, particularly when there was nothing really important happening – it was all just heats and the first hour of a six hour bike race.

  25. Well after what felt like a hugely dissapointing night watching the Channel 9 coverage, I thought I would pop online to see if others shared my thoughts… and from what I’ve seen it seems they do

    I completely understand and accept the fact that the ads are what allows me to watch these Olympics for free… and I agree with you David that when you time them there’s not as many as you think and some breaks are quite short.
    I think what’s making them Feel longer is that it’s the Same ads over and over and over… so you feel like all you’re seeing is ads and it has a negative impact on the viewing experience in my opionion.
    The saturation of the Channel 9 shows in particular is annoyingly excessive, and if anything, makes me NOT want to watch the shows they’re advertising at all.

    However for me the main problem is the commentry/presenters… so horribly bad bad bad… I didn’t think it would bother me with it being on 9… but my gosh I was wrong… wishing someone else had it…

    and as a side-bit… does it bother anyone else when a channel spends millions of dollars flying their crew and presenters to the olympic city, and then sits them in a studio with no windows or scenery showing??? It takes away from the “feel” of things I think… they might aswell be back in Melbourne… we wouldn’t know the difference

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