|
Liz Rivers reviews the TV coverage of The Federation Parade
What is it about special events in Australia that brings about less-than-spectacular coverage from media organizations?
The levels of criticism endured both by Channel 7 over their Olympics coverage and the ABC for their telecast of the Paralympics opening ceremony should have been enough to send these media organisations into damage control.
On New Year’s Day these same media organizations came head-to-head in providing coverage of the Centenary of Federation celebrations.
But if we had expected that, in the meanwhile, they had gone back to the drawing board in an attempt to salvage public face and lift their game, then the coverage of the Journey of a Nation parade told us otherwise.
Aunty’s coverage was the superior. Geraldine Doogue and George Negus added an entertaining flavour to what could have been a very droll history lesson. The producers and researchers had obviously done their homework, as both commentators were well armed with interesting facts and figures.
Unfortunately, however, the ABC still failed to give us some of the tasty little tidbits that make coverage of this style of event memorable. There was scant detailed information on each of the floats and parade entrants. Some of the information was “out of sync” with what was being shown on the screen. And the logistics behind the parade were dismissed.
These facts would have given the public an indication of the mammoth exercise undertaken to coordinate this event. This oversight meant that the event was trivialized, reducing it in the public’s eye to little more than a show of colour and glitter.
But Aunty has learnt from the errors of the past. The commentary was in no way offensive and it did not leave their audience believing that the ABC held low expectations for their level of intelligence.
On the other hand Channel 7, whose telecast of the Olympics was better than the ABC’s Paralympics coverage but none-the-less left much to be desired, made a mockery of the Journey-of-a-Nation coverage.
This is not a solitary viewpoint. It is shared with at least hundreds of spectators who went to Centennial Park to watch the parade on one of the two giant screens erected for that purpose. Disillusioned and frustrated with Channel 7 they began to “boo” the coverage!
It seems obvious that when someone turns on their TV to watch an event, that they in fact want to see that event. If Channel 7’s coverage of the parade is anything to go on, then they seem to be confused about this simple fact.
Channel 7 had a number of detracting mechanisms.
For example, interviews with well-known Australians for whom each segment of the parade held special interest detracted from the coverage. A worthy idea, but its application left much to be desired because these in-studio interviews were, at more times than seemed necessary, given priority over the parade. Who wants to watch two people talking in a studio when they turned on the TV to see a parade?
And I wonder how many people found it a tough choice in deciding whether to watch an interview with the likes of Archbishop Peter Hollingsworth or Ian Keirnan on Channel 7, or switch channels to watch the ABC’s footage of a one-in-one-hundred-year event?
And when Channel 7 did show us the parade, there were many occasions when the audience had to guess what it was they were seeing because Channel 7’s format meant that the commentator was interviewing the special guest, rather than explaining the parade.
Such interviews would have been better conducted before the parade started, as the ABC did, or contained in length so that they complemented the parade footage, again as the ABC did.
In fact, if the time Channel 7 spent on in-studio interviews, on-the-spot interviews with parade participants (which were quite good) and advertisements was calculated, then the time they had left to dedicate to explaining what was happening in the parade was sadly insufficient.
When will the Australian public feel confident that they can turn on the TV to watch a special event and not be treated to inappropriate black, adult humour or dialogue suitable only for a seven-year-old?
Maybe it’s time the events industry set up a media advisory body. How about it? I’m in.
|
