Olympics

US TV presenter LaTonya Norton asked British athlete Mo Farah following his win in the New Orleans half marathon if he had run before, clearly oblivious to the fact he is a double Olympic gold medallist.

Farah won the 5000m and 10000m at last year’s London Olympics.

Rowing reigned supreme at last night’s Halberg Awards with Hamish Bond and Eric Murray claiming the top award following their dominant gold medal win at London 2012 last year.

The pair also claimed the team of the year award with Mahe Drysdale taking the Sportsman of the Year awards and Valerie Adams making it seven in a row in the Sportswoman of the Year category. Continue reading »

When we were deciding how best to allocate our budgets for this period we took a look at how the Paralympics had rated in previous years.

Having looked at that we made the call that the level of interest shown in the past meant that showing two by one hour documentaries on NZ Paraolympians on Prime in the run up to the games, the Opening Ceremony and the Closing Ceremony LIVE and then two by one hour highlights packages each day on SKY and a review show on Sunday morning on Prime would give most people the opportunity to satisfy their interest.

We should acknowledge that if the Paralympics is something you are passionate about then anything less than LIVE coverage could be a disappointment.

Just in case you were unaware, the International Paralympics Committee is streaming five channels of LIVE coverage, over 780 hours, on the internet at http://www.paralympic.org. This coverage is available to anyone in New Zealand with access to the internet.

I guess that means that the Paralympics coverage is on a par with the NBC’s Olympic Games coverage in the USA.

Here’s an interesting graphic for you.  The following shows the 5+ channel share from the 16th of July to the 16th of August.

There are a couple of interesting points from this graph.  Firstly, it’s rather obvious how beneficial the Olympics were for Prime’s ratings.  They typically hover around the 5% mark most days and yet drew approximately 4 times that amount during the London Olympics.  TV One were the biggest losers with their lowest day delivering only a 13.6% share. TV2 also dipped while the impact on TV3 and Four wasn’t as big.

However, the most interesting line in this graph is the Sky one.  With exclusive, live coverage of the games, and despite being in about half of all households, there really doesn’t appear to be any impact on their share of viewers at all.

Source: Nielsen Television Audience Measurement, All 5+ Daily Share

When it was revealed that Belarus shotputter Nadzeya Ostapchuk had been stripped of her gold medal due to doping, and due to the dramas that had plagued Valerie Adam’s Olympic campaign, there was an overwhelming sense of jubilation that there was some justice in the world.  And once we’d all gotten over the excitement of realising our over-achieving country was walking away with an impressive six gold medals, we hardened our gaze on the perpetrator and unleashed our wrath. Continue reading »

How is it that at just before 9am on a Monday morning, there are a bunch of people complaining about how Prime’s coverage of the Olympic Games Closing Ceremony is getting further behind being live due to the interruption of advertising?

Obviously those who were paying for the privilege of being able to watch it live and uninterrupted on Sky were too busy at work, earning enough money to pay for their subscription than tweet about it.

Continue reading »

London 2012 Olympics – Sunday August 12

MORNING:

Athletics:
Javelin final (Stuart Farquhar) 6.20am

London 2012 Olympics – Saturday August 11

MORNING:

Hockey:
Women’s bronze match v Great Britain 2.30am

BMX:
Men’s finals (Marc Willers) – semis 2am, final 3.30am
Women’s finals (Sarah Walker) – semis 2.08am, final 3.40am Continue reading »

London 2012 Olympics – Friday August 10

MORNING:

BMX:
Men’s quarterfinals – Kurt Pickard Heat 1 – 2am, Marc Willers heat 3 – 2.06am

EVENING:

Taekwondo:
men’s 80kg (Vaughn Scott), from 8pm Continue reading »

London 2012 Olympics – Thursday August 9

MORNING:

BMX:
Women’s seeding races (Sarah Walker) – 2am
Men’s seeding races (Marc Willers, Kurt Pickard) – 2.40am

Athletics:
Women’s 1500 semifinal (Lucy van Dalen) – 6.45am

Hockey:
Men’s semifinals, 2.30am. 7am Continue reading »