Commonwealth Games broadcast centre: behind the scenes

“If there’s one big difference about the Commonwealth Games compared to an Olympics, it’s how busy it is to make sure we capture each of those Australian athletes stories,” says Seven’s Head of Sport, Lewis Martin.

“Those athletes have taken 10 years to get to that moment and it could be a once in a lifetime moment,” he tells TV Tonght.

“There’s also a really deep engagement with Australian audiences about the post-event experience for the participant, the family and the coach as we saw through Tokyo. There’s emotion, whether it be triumph or tragedy.”

If Australians love their Sport, then the Commonwealth Games is a feast of glory and achievements, beaming Live from Birmingham across Seven, 7mate and 30 channels on 7plus. Traditionally, Australia dominates at these Games, meaning Seven has an abundance of events to cram into its broadcast schedule.

“We’ve got live events all the way from 7:00 at night to 7am in the morning. The biggest issue we’ve got with primetime, to be honest, is making sure we do every story justice, because we’ve got well over 200 medal attempts,” he continues.

“We start the day at 3:30 in the morning with Matt Shirvington & Emma Freedman , live out of Birmingham. At 5:30, they will be handing over to Sunrise who cover all the key moments and meanwhile, Matt & Emma will continue on 7mate.

“Kochie and Nat will cross live for those critical Gold Medal Moments of which there are many during that time.”

Normal programming continues during the daytime while Birmingham is asleep until 3pm AEST.

“Joh Griggs will be doing an afternoon show, capturing all the highlights and previewing everything that’s going to happen that night.”

Following The Chase and Seven News live action resumes at 7pm with hosts Hamish McLachlan and Abbey Gelmi with events continuing overnight.

While Seven had 30 staff on the ground in Tokyo, there are 65 in Birmingham including Bruce McAvaney, Jason Richardson, Cate Campbell, Mel McLaughlin. Another 200 are working in Sydney to bring viewers all the action.

Martin stresses that with an embarrassment of medal riches, there will be more alerts for viewers to switch to 7plus to follow events than ever before.

“We really built this seamless viewing experience from the linear to the digital,” he explains.

“The reason why that’s so important now is because we do have so many events to cover. We will be calling upon 7plus more often, and most likely to cover Australian gold medal events, where the only place you’ll be able to see it will be on 7plus. That means that we can make sure that every Gold medal is seen live. Then we can bring back the story if need be, to linear.”

Commonwealth Games continues on Seven, 7mate, 7plus until Tuesday August 9.

2022 Commonwealth Games: guide