Olympics Coverage - History

It is all a bit archaic isn’t it?

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7 was not the “host broadcaster” … that was SOBO (Sydney Olympic Broadcasting Organisation) … 7 was/is the Australian rightsholder …

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Exactly right. SOBO delivered the broadcast around the world and here in Australia.

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Credit YouTube/Genadi Weightlifting

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The Making of SOBO … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xy4yrlBoAyw

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I’m just having a look through The Dream and something struck me about one segment where they staged a ‘bombing’ competition between the Olympic mascots + Fatso.

They clearly used an absolutely identical graphics package to what SOBO were putting out for these, but what strikes me is that they used Univers font on the graphics instead of Helvetica…and that makes sense if you think about it.

Channel 7 probably couldn’t get SOBO to modify the relevant production graphics from SOBO’s own facilities, but I think SOBO must have snuck the relevant source Chyron file out to Channel 7’s own generator for their own post-production purposes. Channel 7’s default font for their own graphics package during the 2000 Olympics was…Univers.

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Interesting observation there!

Same typeface family was also heavily used on Seven News & Today Tonight at the time, along with the shortlived but very good 1999 general channel On-Air Presentation package which was the last to use the “split 7 circle” logo.

On this day 20 years ago, Cathy Freeman won gold in the 400-metre final of the Sydney 2000 Olympics.

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Screenshot_20200925-205503~2

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Seven News Sydney replayed the race in full in tonights bulletin

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Great piece of Australian history. The full race with original commentary, post lap and victory ceremony can be watched on YouTube

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I watched some Olympic stuff back in August when the games would have been taking place and videos from London and Rio have commentary over them which is good for longer events. Its video from Bejing and earlier that lack the commentary which makes it a hard watch though I can tolerate it with the swimming since the events are generally short in length.

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NBC Today filmed from Sydney during the Sydney Olympics. Who’s the Aussie voiceover

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No idea but it sounds like someone trying to bung on an Aussie accent, badly :stuck_out_tongue:

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It’s probably what they did.

The Opening Ceremony tends to draw the most interest, but in the words of the song “It was twenty years ago today” (Sunday 1 October 2000) that the Sydney Olympic Broadcast Organisation (SOBO) fired up the control rooms in the Transit Building of the International Broadcast Centre in Homebush for the last time to cover the Closing Ceremony of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games.

Working closely with SOCOG’s event producer Ric Birch and his team, the Closing Ceremony, like the Opening, was directed for SOBO by Australia’s leading live television entertainment director, Peter Faiman and you can watch it again (or for the first time) in glorious 4:3 with no commentary or commercials now that the IOC’s Olympic Channel has uploaded it to

Sydney 2000 - Closing Ceremony | Sydney 2000 Replays - YouTube

And if you would like to watch the behind-the-scenes story, the Making of SOBO is at

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Never knew C7 aired some of the Sydney Paralympics which the ABC aired here in Australia.

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How many can you guess?
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That’s a great find… endless amounts of money back then!

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Photoshop has advanced in twenty years!

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