My Games
As we get ready for the Olympics starting in Beijing, the games pose us a bit of a problem. A global event like this should be a gift to a news channel with an audience around the world. All those countries participating, all that action to report on. The trouble is, we can only show tiny snapshots of that action.
The broadcasting rights are tightly restricted by the , who've sold the rights to individual broadcasters in dozens of countries. Channels like ±«Óãtv World News, beamed across the world, are therefore confined to showing a total of just one minute's worth of pictures within our bulletins - and even then not until after midnight of the day that the events took place.
Our answer is - a live interactive TV and online show hosted by Adnan Nawaz from Beijing that taps into the views and passions of fans from all over the world, and cunningly avoids the need to show any official Olympics pictures.
Instead it's about the stories behind the events. We'll be hearing first hand from our audience on how the games are being viewed, experienced and regarded around the world. Who, for example, are Gambians, Finns, Turks and Sri Lankans cheering on and why?
Adnan presented a similar show last year with My Cricket World Cup. Once again we couldn't show any of the actual cricket but the enthusiasm and passion for the game generated a huge response from fans in the participating countries.
The Olympics, of course, is far bigger. Global excitement about dressage or archery may be more diffuse than say, the men's 100 metres, but it will be interesting to explore the world's common reference points.
To kick off our coverage, we've been asking people what three words sum up the Olympics to them. The Chinese and the IOC will be delighted that upbeat words such as peace, togetherness, glory and hope crop up across the world. And, from one disgruntled Londoner: "a waste of money".
Let the fun begin.
Comment number 1.
At 7th Aug 2008, sumithar wrote:"we've been asking people what three words sum up the Olympics to them"
Over The Top
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Comment number 2.
At 7th Aug 2008, Xie_Ming wrote:Good going!
Piracy and advertising go together.
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Comment number 3.
At 7th Aug 2008, dennisjunior1 wrote:Mary,
thanks for your interesting blog....
i have a question: why didn't the bbc didn't put in a bid for the olympics games.!
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Comment number 4.
At 7th Aug 2008, pandorasfox wrote:Overanalyzed and underappreciated.
People seem to forget that its a sporting event first, political statement second. I always thought the point of the games is to put aside differences to simply compete, because its entertaining.
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Comment number 5.
At 7th Aug 2008, haufdeed wrote:"Global excitement about dressage or archery may be more diffuse than say, the men's 100 metres----".
Please look at this appalling sentence again, as an "editor", and consider both the meaning of words, eg diffuse, and the sentence's general construction (believe me, it's meaningless), before ever again writing an article to be published for millions to read.
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Comment number 6.
At 8th Aug 2008, Boring_username wrote:Or, instead, you could simply not bother and save the taxpayer's money for something more substantial than 3 weeks of drug-fueled cheating.
My suggestion would be live coverage of the tiddlywinks world cup.
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Comment number 7.
At 8th Aug 2008, jon112uk wrote:I hope you can stick to the sport - the current obsession with the 'human rights' of the Chinese/Tibetans/Uighers/battery-chickens etc etc is getting monotonous. Many of us would like 'free speech' to be restored back here in England, so my interest in the right to protest of obscure groups thousands of miles away is limited.
It would also be nice to see a more balanced approach to the coverage. With hundreds of hours to be broadcast it would be refreshing to see a bit more of the 'minority' sports (archery, shooting, judo etc), some of which we do well in and actually have a substantial following.
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Comment number 8.
At 8th Aug 2008, zillakilla wrote:All Chinese people suffer under the effects of a regime that subverts freedom of religion, association, speech, fair trial, and is the world's leading executioner!
I am not Chinese... I am 100% english
I have 3 words, but I guess if I use them here... my comment will probably be removed!!
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Comment number 9.
At 9th Aug 2008, haufdeed wrote:Here are my three Olympic words: Drugs, Politics, Money.
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Comment number 10.
At 10th Aug 2008, MarcusAureliusII wrote:haufdeed #9, you are correct. The winners will be...those athletes from countries whose pharmaceutical chemists are most clever at hiding the steroids they are fed.
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Comment number 11.
At 11th Aug 2008, Peter_Sym wrote:#10. As a scientist there's no way you can hide steroids. By giving them the body halts production of its own steroids and the artificial steroid IS different from the natural form. You can always tell if you look hard enough. The rules for testing are a lot weaker than the tests themselves however and people who the scientists know are cheating do escape the legal side of the procedure.
What you can't detect is genetic manipulation to ensure the athlete makes more of their own steroids, growth hormones etc. Theoretically we could have GM athletes competing who's genes have been manipulated to ensure they overproduce hormones.
I attended a seminar on this last year and in an anonymous survey 95% of athletes said they'd take drugs to win an olympic gold medal if they knew they wouldn't be caught. 45% said they'd take those drugs to get a gold knowing that the drugs would kill them in 5 years. Seeing the fate of some of the east German team from the 80's thats not unlikely.
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Comment number 12.
At 13th Aug 2008, Pancha Chandra wrote:We can only hope that the Olympic Spirit will hold pride of place. It is about winning honourably. Cheating has absolutely no place in this noble competition and athletes who use drug-enhancing drugs should be banned for life. There are no two ways about this.
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Comment number 13.
At 16th Aug 2008, Darosa wrote:In Athens the ±«Óãtv made almost nothing of the fact that Team GB had a potential medal winner in the Windsurfing event, even when Nick Dempsey got Bronze he had little coverage.
This time we have two potential Windsurfing GB medal potentials in both the men's and women's fleets with Nick Dempsey at his third Olympics and Bryony Shaw at her first.
Nick is currently in third place with every chance of a podium position!
Bryony is in 5th following a bad start yesterday but could just still come up with a result
DO WE HERE ANYTHING ABOUT THEM???
NO !!!
We hear plenty about Ainsley and the GB dinghy team but once again the ±«Óãtv are letting us windsurfers down by forgetting we exist.....
Most people in GB do not even realise windsurfing has been in the Olympics for 20 years, why?
THE ±«Óãtv GIVE US ALMOST NO COVERAGE AT THE OLYMPICS!
COME ON ±«Óãtv GIVE OUR TWO WINDSURFERS THEIR JUST DESERTS.
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