Don’t like the commentary on the national Olympic broadcaster? Then broadcast your own as one rogue Aussie commentating team have done.
A group of Australian skiers, frustrated by their take on the alpine and mogul ski commentary broadcast on Network Ten, have put together their own commentary team and launched online tonight with the Aussieskier Start Hut.
The premise is simple. Tune in to tenplay.com.au for the live stream or watch on Ten or ONE on digital television, mute the sound and turn up the commentary from Aussieskier’s MIXLR account or follow commentary on #starthut hashtag which they are hoping will trend. You can also follow on their Facebook page.
They’ve pulled in former Australian Alpine National Team Member and current Alpine Racing Coach, Anthony Hill for their first audio broadcast tonight with other ‘experts’ offering their own voices throughout the week ahead.
We’ve had a listen to the rogue broadcast and it’s not bad at all, though it really is for those that ‘get’ the sport and understand the racing terms involved. Which is the whole point, who wants commentators that don’t understand? The mainstream public but not the tight knit community of true snow sports lovers who live and breathe it all year, not just every four.
Though I have to say that Steve Lee, former alpine racer, world cup winner and previous Nine alpine commentator is one of the more impressive of the commentary team on Ten. His experience and Brad McEwan’s impressive sport journalism presentation in the Sochi studio are leading the sometimes flailing Ten programming pack whose broadcast programming decisions are at times questionable.
What Ten (and their lawyers) who paid $20million for all broadcast rights including digital spectrum will think of the StartHut only time will tell. But as they say down under, you’ve gotta have a crack and hats off to these guys for having just that.
As they’ve put on their Facebook page:
“This is very experimental – it could be awesome, or not, but we’ll have some fun and see what happens!”
Let’s hope ‘what happens’ doesn’t involve a broadcast shut down and the Russian mafia on the front door.
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