Ep 213: Winter Olympics coverage Peter Campbell [Foxtel] & Giaan Rooney [Channel 9]

It’s like going to the fights and having a hockey game break out this week on Boxcutters as we tie up the trans-Pacific phone lines, talking with Peter Campbell (Director of FOXTEL Sport and Olympic Games) and Giaan Rooney (former Australian Olympian and Channel 9 Winter Olympics 2010 commentator) live and direct from Vancouver, BC, Canada.

As we battle with international time-zones, we have some suddenly curtailed news, one thing to watch this week, some updates to things we’ve covered in the last week or two and some hilarious reality gossip.

Send us all your winter olympiad thoughts by sending us email or send us an SMS on 0458 288 837 (0458 CUTTER). And don’t forget to invite all your Facebook friends to become Boxcutters fans.

8 Comments

  1. My favourite quote from the Peter Campbell interview: “We have a special relationship with our customers – they pay us money every month.”

    Playing devil's advocate… Do Foxtel really deserve all this congratulations for their Olympics coverage? A free-to-air channel has to juggle sports coverage with their regular programs (with loyal viewers, and possibly existing sponsorship deals), which is a difficult task. Foxtel, on the other hand, can dedicate four new channels to only the Olympics, including picture and commentary feeds from other services – how hard can that be?

  2. I really enjoyed hearing the Peter Campbell interview, it for some reason made me happier with my decision to pay for my Foxtel. I'm 50/50 on the London coverage though, I think SBS nailed what we want the last few times out, so I hope that Foxtel (as the assisting broadcaster) can achieve that and higher. I know I'll be steering clear of 9 for the 2012 games and paying whatever Foxtel want for their coverage.

    @Daveaa, a very valid point, however it doesn't take a huge amount of organising and preparation for any FTA network to know that they'll have 2 weeks off from standard viewing and cater for that with sponsorship etc appropriately.
    I think that the real congratulations should be for doing all they can to show us all the live sports that they can, considering the number of events going on at the one time. This hands down beats any 'magazine-style' coverage of major sporting events that we've ever had, and I hope that this becomes the norm for us now, and if so, that would be thanks to Foxtel, because although yes, they are getting their monthly cash for it, they are giving us (I believe) what we want…. as opposed to FTA which continue to use these events as cross-promoting and lowest common denominator training (Aussie Aussie Aussie… ;(……

    The one point I got out of Giaan's interview was that they record up to 12 (or did she say 14) hours a day….. so how the hell is it that 9 actually show so little sport? Although she did come across as very nice, which did surprise me.

    Oh, and Brett, this time I'll take your silence during both phone ins as not an indication that you didn't want to be involved in the interviews. Although, I was surprised at the end, as the way you ride the other Channel 9 personality during their interviews and the stark difference in how you treated this one, did amuse me 😉 (wink wink).

  3. I loved both interviews, although it was a shame in some ways you (we? oh, this is confusing now) couldn't have a Channel 9 equivalent of Mr Foxtel to answer the questions of content/programming/homophobia/etc that have been asked of Channel 9. Giaan was obviously not the person to ask, as she's not the one making those decisions, but why does Channel 9 think we want more magazine pieces about Vancouver rather than actual sport? Surely you're either watching because you like sport or (like me) you're not watching because you don't like sport and all the Vancouver shopping footage isn't going to help anyone.

    I was interested in hearing Giaan talk about sports presentation as someone who'd been on both sides of the camera, especially those terrible “how do you feel?” post-event “interviews” that I wish everyone would drop. They're not informative, and they're not interesting.

    And I loved Nelly The Feminist Warrior at the end of the show – brilliant! (also, I want to start using “I don't do coins” in my everyday conversation).

  4. Not even gooolllldddssss dddarrrhhhhl.

  5. I also loved Nelly's rant. Yay!

  6. Devil's advocate: Google informs me that the Canadian Broadcasting Consortium contains all of the major networks, plus all of the public television providers, plus all of the cable channels held by the networks. This works out to, if my math is correct, slightly over 20 channels owned by 7 broadcasters. So, um, the comparison to a cable sports channel may be slightly inaccurate, as is comparing anything that is not NBC with NBC.

  7. eddieboxcutter says:

    Another great ep. Really love the show. Laugh? Do I? INformed? Am I? Love the question mark? Yessir.

  8. I really love Nelly. When she gets fired up about something, I just want to stand up and applaud. Great show guys.

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