Earlier today we received a barrage of text messages from Alex Boxcutter complaining about the poor Winter Olympics coverage on Channel 9:
No aussies in event means 9 don’t think we care. God forbid we’d enjoy something other than the summer swimming. Fucking disgaceful! I wish i had fox!
-Alex b
On Twitter we saw @mollyfud hitting his head on a virtual brick wall with anger.
The other night I saw what was neither worthy of being called an advertisement nor a faux-Getaway piece about shopping in one particular street in Vancouver.
So, tell us. Have you been trying to watch the Winter Olympics on TV? Have you been happy what Channel 9 have provided in terms of coverage? Has anybody out there bought the Foxtel package for the duration?
Let us know in the comments or through the contact form.
We’ll try to get some answers from Channel 9 in the meantime.
9 Comments
Mike Beckham says:
I got Foxtel's Olympics package for free for being a 'valued customer', after I phoned up and pushed for it and it's been quite good. 4 SD Channels 4HD, (No HD here though). Coverage has been good, quite a bit Live.
Tristan Reimann says:
it seems to be all over the shop, i really hope they show the hockey finals but i seriously doubt it
Bolden says:
Agree, 9 in this case (and 7 for all their past transgressions) are terrible, if it wasn't for Foxtel (and SBS in recent summer games) the coverage would be a complete joke.
I was happy to pay my $50 to Foxtel, the HD channels are beautiful to watch, and the 'interactiveness' has been great.
A little alert pops up in the right hand corner saying that there is a medal event going on on one of the other channels, and will also pop up an 'Aussie Alert' as well, which is cool, and you just switch to the channel if you want.
They also have medal tally's, suggestions for what to watch today and the like, not the true interactiveness I crave, but it's a great start. Plus, I haven't seen Gian Rooney shop once! 😉
It's really just another example of how FTA don't get it, won't get it and are just dinosaurs that don't know it….
Shane says:
Dont even get me started about Eddie's terrible hosting job on 9. An interview he did with Dale Begg-Smith after he won silver was a disgrace. He basically badgered Dale to try and get him to say he was robbed, and then made a back-handed comment about him not being a real Aussie.
That's not the only exmaple of his poor hosting, but its the worst.
kerrie says:
I confess I haven't watched much of the coverage, but I switched on the other night and saw Eddie interviewing someone and went 'Eww!' and hit the remote. Eddie Maguire hosting? Why? Why? Why? I couldn't watch.
Sophie says:
I have a deep and irrational love and passion for the Olympics, which I suspect places me just one step above crazed Eurovision fans. Also, can I just add that I find it amusing that teevee networks would assume that Australians don't care about the Winter Olympics, because it seems a bit like a Canadian broadcster assuming that nobody in half the country cares about the Summer Olympics, which is clearly mad.
Gabby says:
Loving foxtel's coverage of the winter olympics. I've be able to catch pretty much all the sports at one time or another which has been great the only thing that i have complaints about it the hosts, I find my self with a (perhaps Irrational) hatred for Tracey Holmes i find her extremely irritating. Glad that I have another three channels to flick over to when ever she comes on screen. Other wise great job foxtel.
Ian Nicholls says:
I'm quite disappointed with Nine's coverage (I don't have Foxtel), for a couple of reasons.
One actually speeds my viewing. If Eddie McGuire is hosting, I know that his show will be repeats of events I've already fast-forwarded through, or interviews I don't really care about. I can skip his whole show.
The other is that cross-country and biathlon events apparently only exist in the 'news update' segments. After eight days of fast-forwarding through hours of downhill, ice dancing, and luge, at last they showed a cross-country event. Six minutes later, they went back to downhill.
I have the same complaint about sport in normal news. I don't care to watch tennis, golf, football, cricket, which means I can skip 98% of televised sports.
Tristan Reimann says:
I was really surprised to see that nine were playing some of the hockey games in full. surprised that was until i saw their coverage of the Canada vs Russia game; their supposed game in full involved a number of jumps off in the middle of the game to go to some Australian running down the luge. this was especially notable when they moved away for the length of a power play in which Russia scored, leaving the viewer wondering. considering their obvious problems filling the breaks between periods and the Aussies no hope for medals, i cant see why that couldn't have waited till the break between periods.
i was also surprised that they weren't taking the cues from CTV who were the canadian station broadcasting the game and taking add breaks when they were, rather the breaks were shoe horned in over the action.
atleast the games can still be watched on the CTV website unmolested