On the Scene in Daegu -- Host Broadcaster Irons Out Kinks

(ATR) Athletics is a challenge to televise under any circumstances, and it doesn't help that every two years a new host broadcaster must learn on the job at the World Championships.

Broadcasters have had almost daily meetings with KBS, the host broadcaster in Daegu. They have expressed concerns ranging from colors that didn't match from different camera angles to spectators encroaching on the camera positions to events appearing on the feed with no warning.

KBS officials have taken notes and fixed problems as they came to light, such as instructing a director to make sure he gave ample notice when he was switching events.

"Athletics is one of the hardest sports to produce," Grier Patterson, vice president of Sports Operation for TBS (Tokyo Broadcasting System) International, tells Around the Rings. "If you're covering soccer, the field is there and you have eight or 10 or 16 cameras and all you have to do is basically follow the ball. It's relatively set, but athletics has sometimes three or four different sports going on at the same time in a small field."

The host broadcaster has to cover every field event and race on the track, and then be able to mix them all together into the integrated feed as a complete show. On Thursday morning, for example, the women's javelin, men's shot put and men's 5,000 meters were going on simultaneously.Obeng

"It requires a lot of orchestration and it's not at all easy," said Patterson, an American based in New York. With TBS, he has been covering the World Championships since 1997 and was in the role of host broadcaster in 2007 for the Osaka event.

"There's so much going on and you've got to be able to do things like tell the starter at the 100 meters, hang on for a second because Koji Murofushi is about to make his last throw to win the gold medal in the hammer and you don't want to have to have him wait," he said.

"You have to figure out who you can make wait so you can get all these things in."

Patterson said keeping to the schedule is important for the broadcast as well as for the competition.

"A little bit late is OK," he said, but a race can never go off early.

Broadcasters from Japan, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, France and the U.S. have a bigger facility at the International Broadcast Center and produce much of their own content. Patterson said TBS has 16 of its own cameras at the stadium at night, so it mixes footage from the host broadcaster with its own material.

Smaller broadcasters, or broadcasters who are not on site, will take only the integrated feed.

And for the morning session, TBS is taking the integrated feed for the first time.

He said directors have their own philosophies for what to show and at what time.

"In athletics television, the basic philosophy is to show the track events live and to show as much live coverage of the field events as you can," Patterson said, "and then significant coverage of the field events that you can't show live, you show on tape."

He said one reason to show events live is to capture the feeling and the mood, which helps the announcers with their call.

"We understand, as intelligent broadcasters, the importance of having an enthusiastic crowd in the stadium, and a full stadium, because that looks so much better on television," he added. "And frankly, if people turn on the television and see a stadium full of cheering people, they get more interested in watching."

Despite sometimes going through a laundry list of problems, Patterson said KBS is doing a lot of good things.

Reinventing the wheel every time, IAAF director of broadcasting Ernest Obeng tells ATR, "it is always difficult to get everything right."

With Manolo Romero leading the Olympic Broadcasting unit, the Games broadcasts don't have some of the same concerns.

"Certainly it helps having experience, especially when it relates to athletics, because it's so challenging to cover," Patterson said.

Broadcasters can also help each other. One woman complained that in the television mixed zone, which is three levels, the crews on the lower levels were wearing the athletes out before they got to the top. She asked for some consideration for theirfellow broadcasters.

Skyrocketing Costs

Alex Gilady, the IOC member who chairs the IAAF television commission, sounded an alarm when he addressed the IAAF Congress last week.

Gilady called for "a very urgent creation of a new model to how we produce and integrate and manage the way the World Championships is televised."

He said it cost about $6 million to produce the World Championships in 2005 in Helskinki, but costs four times that amount today in Daegu.

Why? "Because in 2005 they knew exactly what they are doing and today they are afraid to fail," he said. "There is not enough knowledge and they are investing in protecting themselves against any failure."

He added that the cooperation between the host broadcaster and the host city and other telecommunications partners in bringing together the coverage of the World Championships "is very much lacking."

KBS is the host broadcaster in Daegu and Gilady, speaking before the start of competition, said the network had invested great effort and he hoped the "effort would match the expectation of the rights holders."

Gilady, who is a senior vice president for NBC, suggested the implementation of a professional model that will save a lot of money on production costs for the rights holders. "If we will not go this way," he said, "the system will collapse."

President Lamine Diack said the IAAF would look into it further after the Daegu meet concludes.

Viewing Around the World

The World Championships are being watched by viewers in more than 200 territories worldwide.

Dentsu, the IAAF Commercial Partner for media rights outside Europe and Africa, and IEC in Sports, the IAAF Media Agency for Europe and Africa, brokered the sale of broadcasting rights for the IAAF World Athletics Series of which the World Championships is the pinnacle.

A number of last minute deals were finalized for Daegu 2011, including a deal with Russian public broadcaster Rossija, with at least all evening sessions being shown live.

The IAAF said that given that Moscow will host the 2013 edition, a more comprehensive package was expected in the future.

Dentsu's highlights package with the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union, when combined with the individual agreements in each territory, ensures blanket coverage beyond Europe and Africa.

In addition, individual deals were attained in close to 30 territories in Europe including virtually all key territories. A previously announced deal with Eurosport guaranteed Pan-European coverage, while Dentsu had already confirmed virtually every single territory outside Europe and Africa.

Pierre Weiss, IAAF general secretary, told ATR that while the new contract with IEC in Sports is of a higher value than was offered by EBU, TV revenue has gone down for the IAAF World Athletics Series.

"But this can largely be put down to the fact that the previous EBU deal, which was in existence for a long duration (10 years) was an exceptionally good agreement when signed," he said. "The media world has changed substantially in the decade since and that level of contract is no longer available to virtually any international sport nowadays, outside football."

No Patience for Presenter

The transition from the BBC to Channel 4 in Great Britain has not gone as smoothly as the new broadcaster had hoped, with complaints from hundreds of viewers. Many griped about Ortis Deley, the lead presenter, who started out fumbling his lines and didn't get better with practice.

Channel 4 demoted Deley, who was described by Times critic Giles Smith as wearing an "expression that brings to mind furry creatures and headlamps."

He was replaced by Rick Edwards, who presented the world athletes highlights programs.

Viewers were also disturbed by the advertising, which was not part of the commercial-free broadcast on the BBC, which had aired the World Championships since 1983.

Written and reported in Daegu by Karen Rosen.

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