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From: haapanen@watdcsu.UUCP (Tom Haapanen [DCS])
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: American sportscasting sucks!
Message-ID: <336@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 3-Aug-84 12:45:31 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.336
Posted: Fri Aug  3 12:45:31 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 3-Aug-84 23:48:15 EDT
References: <361@oddjob.UChicago.UUCP>
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 29

Here in southwestern Ontario we receive CBC, CTV and the three U.S.
networks.  The Olympics are carried by ABC and CBC.  Some of my
observations:

- CBC provides much more total coverage:  11 am - 2 am with two
one-hour breaks.  total: 13 hours/day.  It seems ABC is only
broadcasting about 7-8 hours/day, but I'm not sure (reason follows).

- CBC commentators are less biased.  I generally like U.S. athletes,
but with the ABC commentators' praise oozing out of the TV, I find
myself cheering for Romania/Germany/whoever.  Talk about poor losers
(especially in gymnastics)!  And Howard Cosell's boxing commentary
makes me puke.  He never finds any good points about the opposition,
but the American is always the best and the most beautiful...

- CBC shows events where there are no Canadians competing.  I'd
estimate that of all coverage, maybe 50% has Canadians, and 60%
Americans (note: lots of overlap).  By no means is CBC restricted to
Canadian-only sports.  For example, we see matches like NZ-Australia,
Korea-China, etc.  CBC seems to be trying to strike a balance between
showing the best and showing the Canadians.

- ABC's coverage doesn't seem even technically better, despite a MUCH
larger budget.

Maybe I'm biased too...

	Tom "I'm already Finnish" Haapanen
	{allegra,decvax,ihnp4}!watmath!watdcsu!haapanen