Pretty sure that NBC’s influence means the same thing is happening in Tokyo this year.
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That means switmming finals won’t be in prime time viewing for us Australian viewers 
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Interesting article about the Ten and ABC television network for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.
Source: SMH 16 July 1984.
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It was known on air as The Australian Olympic Network and includes STW 9 in Perth.
Here seen in some caps from a telethon run to support sending athletes to the games.
Logo
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How were the 1988 Seoul Olympics broadcast in regional WA (NEW10 began transmission in May 1988 so covering the Games in Perth was no issue)? Did the regional stations have to choose the Olympics over the VFL finals?
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All regional stations would have been in a similar predicament then, especially in Victoria and SA as well as WA. They probably opted out of the Olympics for a few hours to make room for football.
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VFL Grand Final Day 1988 our family (who’d been holidaying in the Grampians) took a drive out to Minyip, the town used as the exterior set for Coopers Crossing in The Flying Doctors. I remember vividly the real life owner of Violet Carnegie’s general store being most annoyed that all he had to watch that afternoon was football or the Olympics, I don’t think he was much of a sports fan. I guess that was BTV’s option.
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Not only the VFL final, but the Victorian regionals had to contend with a State election and Bathurst concurrent with the Olympics. There was a tremendous who-hah over the clash between the Olympic marathon concurrent with Bathurst, as Ballarat’s Stephen Moneghetti felt that he deserved the air time, whilst the more petrol-head inclined thought that, after 2 weeks of Olympics, it was their turn. The fuss was covered in the national press, and with Ray Martin and Derrin Hinch weighing in.
BTV did what they said they were going to do all along, have a live hosted coverage switching between the two events as the activity of the events dictated. Moneghetti did quite well in the marathon and got a fair bit of coverage, including live coverage of himself saying that he was disappointed that people in Ballarat couldn’t see him, even though we were watching. BTV received a fair amount of praise for how they handled the day.
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Olympic Channel has uploaded the entire Sydney 2000 Opening Ceremony.
Hard to believe it’ll be 20 years ago in September.
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A bit of a shame we can’t get the original Seven commentary. I know it’s probably impossible for copyright reasons…
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How tremendous. That stuff still gives me goosebumps. In these current times of crisis looking back at those games is so uplifting. The opening ceremony made so many of us proud to be Australian and those two weeks were such a great tome in Sydney.
A humorous anecdote from those times… Alan Jones was in such a lather about the secretive nature of the opening ceremony and was attacking the ceremonies director Ric Birch about how he wouldn’t revel what was involved in the ceremony. It was hilarious to hear Alan question the credentials of Ric and how dare he not reveal elements of the ceremony. Nothing has changed really when it comes to Gloria.
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The entire spectacle was kept under wraps until the day. Ric Birch didn’t want to spoil the surprise or give out any details of what the Opening Ceremony would feature
Would’ve loved to see the entire 7 coverage but this is what the Sydney Olympic Broadcast Organisation filmed on the night to the world.
Is there anyway to get a copy of the full commonwealth games 2018 opening ceremony?
Oh yes I completely understand that. My comment was highlighting that Alan jones couldn’t accept that and he wanted to know and he kept rubbing commentary against Ric Birch on his 2UE program. Again it was just totally unreasonable from Alan who expected ric to come on and justify everything to Alan.
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In many respects there’ll never be a better time in Sydney’s history than the immediate lead-up to and during the 2000 Olympics, even if I was a bit too young to really appreciate everything that was going on at the time.
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Yes - you can watch it in full on 7plus. Just search “Commonwealth Games” and it should be there.
2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. It was a tremendous way to put on a show in Sydney. Just over 10 000 athletes from around the world competed in the Games. I find it hard to believe that it was almost 20 years since the Olympics in Sydney. Channel 7 scored fantastic audience numbers with more than 6 million Australians tuning in to watch the opening Ceremony. Channel 7 used Bruce McAvaney, Sandy Roberts and another female commentator for the OPening Ceremony (If I remember correctly).
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And Kathy Freeman’s 400m gold medal race got up to 10 million viewers in the ratings. Numbers were astronomical.
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Cathy
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The year 2000 was a very mammoth year for Channel Seven with the Olympics. I watched a some bits of the Olympic games. The primetime shares were mammoth with around 60% on Channel Seven. In addition to this, Channel Seven won 4 ratings week in 2000.