Games telecast rant

What a disgrace channel 9’s coverage of the Opening Ceremony last night turned out to be. That horrid logo, no longer an out-of-the-way watermark in the bottom corner of the screen such as ABC and SBS insist on persisting with, is more prominent than ever and a distraction to the proceedings on screen. The advertisement breaks (3 in total) when there was no break in the ceremony demonstrating a lack of respect and out-and-out rudeness to the athletes marching in to the stadium and the countries they represent. And finally those patronising, ill informed, ignorant out-of-towners, Ray Martin and Liz Hayes, “commentating” the ceremony to “our” games : “haven’t they done it well … don’t they always do it well in Melbourne.” Finally, after returning from an ad. break Ray said to viewers : “and we thought you might like to see the athletes you missed entering the stadium,” as channel 9 showed edited highlights for a minute while they played catch-up. Like we had a choice when you took us to an ad. break ! Like we wouldn’t want to see the ceremony in full ? You horrible, horrible people. While no great of fan of channel 7, they are looking like the very saint of all things good by comparison with their telecasts of previous Games.