switch between the primary
channel and the digital secondary
channel with sports coverage when
we go to news etc.
We make TV for an acquired
Australian taste. You have to make
the TV for your audience. Knowing
your audience becomes the most
important thing, and listening to
them. We have learned a lot from
interaction with our audience.
Unfortunately there is a lot of
negative response in social media.
It becomes very personal
sometimes and there are elements
of it that I donʹt like.
What's your strategy in the run-up
to the next Olympics?
The Olympics is a very interesting
situation here. The IOC have
always sold Winter and Summer
together. Three FTA networks had
an interest in Rio and Sochi but as
the IOC couldnʹt get the money that
they thought Rio was worth, they
have taken the unprecedented step
of awarding next yearʹs winter
Olympics to Network 10 and theyʹll
do Rio at a later date. The ABC
hasnʹt got the funding to worry the
traditional bigger funded FTA
networks. It gets the radio rights to
the Olympics regardless.
The Olympics is a tough sell. We
did the London Olympics and the
network lost around $20m on the
exercise. Itʹs a challenging time for
those one‐off events. Even if we all
love covering them and watching
them, itʹs a business decision now.
What's the outlook?
We got pretty excited when we did
State of Origin in 3D a couple of
years ago, now thatʹs old hat. You
can get a big head in our business
very easily. Itʹs beautiful to win
international awards for what we
do but we donʹt get ahead of
ourselves in that area. How long
are we going to be smart enough to
lead the way? Technology is going
to be the big mover in what we do.
Staying abreast of that and leading
that will become very important. I
think that every producer worth his
salt in TV is planning on what the
next big thing is.
Steve Crawley, thank you.
learn from one another. Every now
and then we send cameras out to
shoot into the crowd so that I can
remind our commentators and our
producers thatʹs their audience.
Donʹt ever underrate them, they
know their sport, donʹt try and trick
them but celebrate the greatness of
the event.
What role do graphics play?
Very important because it is a
visual exercise we are talking
about. Itʹs exciting all the different
things we are learning now. Weʹre
talking about 4K where you put a
studio in a truck, and we are going
to be sitting over a table and the
game will be played in Rio in front
of you on that table.
Graphics and the look are so
important that we dedicate a
creative director to that all year
round. On the cricket, weʹll have
400 different graphics in one
broadcast. We might not use them
all but they are available to us.
More people are coming from other
forms of media into TV with skills
that TV didnʹt know it needed.
Do you still have everything in-
house?
At Nine Network we do but thatʹs
because we have sport for 50 weeks
of the year so we have the volume
of work to be able to keep our
cameramen and cable hands. All
the OB trucks used to belong to
Nine, they have now got new
owners. You know, at the cricket
the camera 5 is the follow camera
so it runs in with the bowler, and
then follows the batsman ‐ this is a
really hard thing to do. There are
only two cameramen in the world
that are outstanding at that and we
have got one of them. Because we
can employ that person all year
round we know who is going to be
on camera 5. If you have a different
person on that camera every week
it is hard to put out the same
standard.
How are you supporting your
audience on other devices?
We are trying to keep up with
something that just seems to move
so fast. We have a couple of digital
channels to back us up and weʹll
SPORT
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THE CHANNEL
THE CHANNEL
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ISSUE 2 2013
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23
More
people are
coming
from other
forms of
media
into TV
with skills
that TV
didn't
know it
needed
“
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Top State of
Origin;
BelowNine
Network’sHomeof
NRL commentary
team
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