Here is what the CBC says:
Considered the dean of Canadian sports commentators, with more than a quarter of a century of broadcast experience, Brian Williams maintains a youthful exuberance that is appreciated by fans of every sport he covers.I have never met a human who shares this impression so the CBC must rely on surveys amongst small tree-based mammals for its gathering of opinions on its hosts. In a longish thread over at Ruk's, DJ RP makes a good observation about the CBC's Olympic coverage: "I am hating the CBC coverage which seems to avoid showing the action of the Olympics and focus instead on interviewing inanely." I blame Brian Williams and his phoney baloney news authority approach to sports reporting.
Show the play, shut yer cakehole, I say. Every four years I am glad I never learned French so I can watch the CBC French channel's superior sport selection without having a clue what the talking heads a blabbling on about.
Later: Good Lord. He's interviewing Lennox Lewis and asking questions that start with "you remember..." like Chris Farley used to on SNL:
Chris Farley: You remember when you were with the Beatles?
Paul McCartney: Yes.
Chris Farley: That was awesome.
Comments
Wayne - August 18, 2004 10:24 PM
Don't forget those moments with Don Cherry after the World Junior fiasco. Someone in his position should never be seen in such a heated exchange on-air, even if you think he was right.
Ben - August 18, 2004 11:05 PM
Who would have thought I'd find myself voluntarily watching NBC's coverage instead of CBC's?
Nils Ling - August 19, 2004 12:57 AM
Aw, come on. Dontcha just love profiles of 13 year old ribbon twirlers who rose from the slums of Oakville and think being at the Olympics is "Totally awesome"? The soft guitar bg as we pan across the shrine the parents have erected in her bedroom to hold all her trophies from competitions in Outer East Bumblefuck ... the shots of her being a "normal kid" in school (albeit a normal kid with a camera crew in tow) ... the shots of her practicing ... the voice-overs ... the *BLAM* (thank you, please clean my brains off the wall).
Matt F. - August 19, 2004 1:02 AM
I work in the evening so I haven't seen any of CBC's prime time coverage or Williams (thankfully). However, the day-time coverage with Ron Maclean has been excellent. There has been lots of live coverage with quick movement from one event to another. Also a bearable level of interviews, which I think Maclean handles better, and not many boring athlete profiles.
Alan - August 19, 2004 8:16 AM
I say bring back Ernie Afaghanis. He was great. Remember when he and Don Chevrolet would cover bowling? That was awesome.<p>Matt is right. For all his pre-planned puns and the weird eyebrow thing he is much better. With the amount of non-sporting being presented in favour of presenting presenters, however, you still get the feeling that there is not really much athleticism happening at the Olympics.
Rusty - August 19, 2004 10:25 AM
Its not all Brian Williams fault. He is terrible, but for years, the CBC coverage of the Olympics has been terrible: long boring pre-produced features of the nobody Canadian athletes that we are supposed to care about every four years; whimsical travelogues of the host countrye; lengthy interviews with Canadians who had just competed. This time, they've added the nightly agony session with Mark Tewkesbury, slamming the Canadian swim team. One almost gets the impression that CBC is gunning for the swim team coach or, at the very least, is fuelling a controversy. At any rate, there is far too much talk and glitz and not nearly enough of the sports themselves. I have no problem with a focus on Canadian athletes but, for god's sake, show them competing, not yakking with Brian Williams.
I happily turned to NBC last night, saw a few events and rather than coyly questioning what has "gone wrong" for Canada this Olympics, the commentator provided useful analysis of the swim strokes, indicating why one athlete was better than the others. Wow! I thought, imagine watching a sport and gaining insight into it at the same time! I don't care if they're Canadian, American or Tongolese, but this sports stuff can be fun to watch if shown properly.
Alan - August 19, 2004 10:35 AM
On the up side, they actually covered a large part of badminton game at 7:00 am between China and Holland. The host, however, had to point out what a rare thing is was to have the time provided by the sportsheads...presumably rather than repeating (again) that key Rocky Rolletti piece about pretending he was a gymnist. Hillarity ensured.
SayNay? - August 19, 2004 3:25 PM
This guy should have an "L" tatooed to his forehead. I suppose there might be more for this chump to do if any Canadian athletes actually finished in the medals. The length of our coverage should be linked the performance of our country’s athletes - how much air time does one bronze medal warrant?
Alan - August 20, 2004 1:29 PM
Apparently Olympics TV broadcasts suck in the UK as well as well as in the USA according to domestic viewers. Why is this subject matter so badly done.<p>On another aside, interesting to hear Donovan Bailey say the Olympics themselves "have no pop". From his perspective on the ground in Athens they are a bit dud-ly. Damn, I just said a Brian Williams interview was interesting for a few seconds.
Wayne - August 21, 2004 12:04 PM
I hope Jeff Gowan has not retired. He was excellent as color commentator in Athletics. Looks like Michael Smith, another famous Canadian underachiever in Olympic competition has taken over Jeff`s job.
RK Chevrolet - May 22, 2005 2:30 AM
Jeff Gowan has not retired.