Olympics one of the biggest Internet gambling events ever, as TV war ends in no contest
At a dinner in Sydney last night held by the Lansdowne (Irish business) Club to honour some Irish Olympic officials, everyone stopped eating half way through to urge on Ian Thorpe and his team-mates as they surged towards gold in 4x200 metres freestyle relay on a giant TV screen.
The noise in the East League Rugby Club grew louder as the last Australian swimmer headed for home. But the biggest cheer arose when a pink electronic line on the screen followed him across the pool, showing how far the team was ahead of the world record.
This use of virtual technology is one of the major innovations in television coverage of the Sydney Olympics, said Mr Shane Wood, general manager for Olympics coverage for Channel Seven, which has the exclusive broadcasting rights in Australia. "The Olympic Games is the biggest thing Australian television has ever done - or ever will do," he said. "It has broken all viewing records. Including out-of-home viewing, 95 per cent of the Australian public watched the opening ceremony on Friday."
Channel Seven is wiping out rival TV programmes, with large crowds gathering at live centres around Sydney to watch the games - with the Australian swimmers making for the most thrilling viewing. It is on all day where people gather, in streets, squares, shops and restaurants.
The scale of the operation is huge, involving 500 production staff alone, said Mr Wood. Another, and very profitable, innovation, he said, is the introduction of two pay channels so that people can watch, for example, soccer matches from beginning to end; this has attracted 175,000 subscribers. With a massive viewing audience, advertisers have paid huge sums for slots. There was some criticism of the break in tradition of a commercial-free opening ceremony, especially the cutting away during Waltzing Matilda.
Channel Seven was also caught presenting events as live after they had finished: viewers in the UK saw a British cycling gold medal ceremony while Australians were watching the last five sprints, and Channel Seven was reporting a soccer score as 2-2 when it was 3-2 half an hour earlier on ABC radio.
For Australia's leading newspaper, which is a riot of colour, the Olympics have also set new goals and records. "The Olympic Games is the biggest event in the world come to our home town, and we have mounted a vast operation," said Mr Mark Scott, group news editor of the Sydney Morning Herald.
Planning for the daily's Olympic coverage began in 1993, the year the 2000 Games were awarded to Sydney, said Mr Scott. In addition to the usual morning edition, updated editions are on the streets at midday, 4.00 p.m. and 11.00 p.m., complete with special tabloid "lift-out" and full colour "wrap-around".
Circulation is well up on the 230,000 copies on a weekday and 400,000 on a Saturday, he said. A floor of the newspaper building has been devoted to the operation, with staff recruited from 30 regional newspapers in its group. There are so many reporters and photographers from different newspapers who don't know each other that they have been given colour-coded uniforms, he said.
The Herald's electronic publication has planned for 18 months and increased staff from 12 to 60 for the Games, said Mr Steven Hutcheon of the Internet edition. They expect to get 10 million "unique visitors" from home and abroad during the Olympics, with constant refreshing of news. "That means 10 million sets of eyeballs will see our site," he said. The Herald Internet site has the capacity to show video clips but is subject to the ban on broadcasting by the International Olympic Committee.
"The whole question of Inter net rights is still up in the air," Mr Hutcheon said. They can show action slides but not in sequential order as this would constitute a form of telebroadcasting. They provide live audio of reaction and comment, as well as subtext, but have to be careful about infringing broadcasting rights.
Readers accessing the Herald www.smh.com.au have often found results appearing more quickly than on the Olympic site, www.olympics.com.au .