I don’t mind if it’s a studio call. Just don’t bloody well pretend they’re there! Taylor was saying all the nice stuff he was going to do in Townsville whilst commentating with Brayshaw, who magically appeared at the Docklands 2 hours later for 7. Treating the listeners like absolute morons.
The AFL have previously voiced their displeasure at studio calls though, that’s kinda my point.
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Quentin Hull and Brett Sprigg were at Townsville for ABC, so don’t see why MMM couldn’t, maybe because JB was at Docklands 2 hours later for 7.
There’s a match in Alice Springs this year. Maybe 3AW takes 6PR’s call for that. Given that it’s a Sunday, but maybe 3AW would take the 2 Melb matches that day.
Would cost less to have a team at the match, like when 3AW takes 6PR’s calls from Perth, or using he “Interactive Studio”?
I think radio broadcasters should be at the ground. They should either do it properly or not at all.
If FOX and Seven can send teams to venues to commentate, so can radio.
Though I imagine radio stations pay a fee to TV broadcasters to use their footage to do studio calls?
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I’m not sure AFL Nation were in Townsville either to be fair, KB rarely flies but somehow called that game. The difference is that the ABC have a nationwide presence, most of the others are fly in/fly out.
JB rarely calls on a Saturday arvo for Triple M nowadays due to his Ch7 duties, they usually use JB for the Rub and Barry Denner calls.
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Exactly. It may be wrong but at least they’re admitting to it. Something AFL radio broadcasters could learn to do.
The AFL should say something to them and tell them, no, it’s not on.
I do wonder if there’s any bias when 3AW takes 6PR’s calls. ABC is usually even handed, very rarely do you hear any bias from them. MMM in Perth, maybe but Dennis Cometti is usally even handed, but Lachy Reid and Andrew Embley might be a bit biased. Not sure about the SA crew, but Dittmar is even handed for the most part.
Nothing stopping Taylor from being in Townsville but JB being back in Melbourne. SEN does this quite often, Crunch Time especially can have 4 different people in 4 different locations.
Yes, nothing stopping that at all. Except for BT being in Melbourne with the rest of them. Triple M did exactly the same thing yesterday pretending they were in Hobart. Funny thing is, when Triple M call a game live my radio is about a second ahead of TV, instead the 2 studio calls were about 5 seconds behind.
Having 4 people in 4 different places is part of the reason why Crunch Time has become unlistenable tripe but that’s another story altogether. SEN (via AFL Nation) are just another broadcaster doing way too many studio calls pretending to be there.
They could have used a local caller like Richard Champion with BT.
When I was listening to SEN’s call of North Melbourne V GWS yesterday, there was a moment when the atmospheric noise from the ground (which is on an additional audio channel of the TV feed sent to the radio broadcasters) was replaced with tone and the commentators paused and ummed and ahhed for a few moments, then resumed commentary and the atmospheric noise was faded up again shortly after.
It sounded like the TV feed dropped out to bars and tone momentarily, leaving the commentators in the lurch.
In addition, some of the regional grounds may not have the space for multiple commentary boxes
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Bellerive is newly renovated, there’s plenty of space there, could cover the game from any of the 3 media spaces. There’s a picture online of the space ABC used yesterday with multiple empty spots behind them. So there’s no need for them to be doing a studio call there. Or York Park either for that matter.
Granted, Townsville may not (ABC said they were in a temporary building).
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Do they do it actually call games though? How on earth would they communicate with each other? The commentators usually tap each other to give a cue to take over the call or add a comment. It’d be terribly disjointed.
Only excuse not to attend a ground is the China match, lack of an enclosed booth is not a reasonable excuse, even the MCG has a couple of open air booths used for overflow commentary teams, usually from interstate until the redevelopment. Heck, Melbourne stations broadcast VFL finals in the open at North Port.
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7/Fox, ABC and 3AW do every game from the ground, though, for the China match, Quentin Hull, Corbin Middlemas and Lauren Arnell were in ABC studios rather than at the ground. Hull had called Brisbane’s win over Hawthorn at The Gabba the night before, so couldn’t go to China anyways.
SEN’s coverage of tonight’s AFL game appears to not be available through the AFL app. Wonder if they’ve finally discovered what exclusive means!
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No. SEN have had massive technical problems all day due to a fire a few floors below them this morning. Half of their streaming infrastructure seems to still be being recovered.
No.
The AFL coverage was running just fine through their app when I checked earlier. And they constantly advertise that their AFL coverage is exclusive to the app despite, until this weekend, it not being the case.
I’m well aware of their technical difficulties/ineptitude today, highlights how cheap an operation they’re running currently that they appear not to have a back up in place at all.
Not sure how their streaming difficulties have anything at all to do with their AFL coverage at the SCG (not Crocmedia) through the AFL app (again, not Crocmedia).
Sorry Glennc, I hadn’t noticed the promos for the coverage being exclusive to their app, but then I don’t really listen during the week and usually listen to their coverage via AFL Nation, or sometimes SEN via the AFL website. And usually my mind wanders during the commercial breaks…there’s more than enough commercials to keep me entertained during the matches!
What I noticed tonight is that the shoutcast servers for AFL Nation were unreachable for much of the first half and when they came online had silence instead of coverage. It seems more than coincidental that Crocmedia have some of their own streaming equipment not working correctly on a night when their feeds (both SEN and AFL Nation) disappeared from the AFL website.
As far as I know it is up to each broadcaster to provide a feed to the AFL (or Telstra, or whoever looks after the AFL website these days) for distribution on the AFL website. All I’m saying is that if Crocmedia had problems getting their own stuff online, they may have prioritised getting their own SEN transmission and app right and been unable to provide the feeds to the AFL.
In principle I’d agree that it seems cheap to not have backup equipment or a good disaster recovery plan for a day like this one, but at the same time I wouldn’t be surprised if a heap of equipment got fried by whatever interruptions to power and/or air conditioning occurred as a result of the fire. I’ve seen plenty of equipment not handle brief power interruptions or fluctuations, and even UPSes cause incredible damage when they themselves fail. Of course, I have no real insight in to what happened behind closed doors with equipment there, but I can imagine based on personal experience elsewhere.
But, if the feeds don’t return this week or next week, then yes I would agree with you that they’re making “exclusive” mean something, in which case I’ll be interested to see if 6PR and FiveAA’s frequent relays of the SEN and AFL Nation calls (which on Friday night and various other times are the same thing) also disappear from the AFL website as they didn’t tonight.