Free for educational use
Sport - a spectacular television event
Year of production - 1973
Duration - 0min 54sec
Tags - athletes, audiences, broadcasting, identity, media influence, media production, popular culture, sport, technology, television, see all tags
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How to Download the Video Clip
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This video clip, showing behind the scenes of a transmission from Wembley Stadium, is an excerpt from the series Australian Report, first produced in 1973. Australian Report is a Commonwealth Film Unit production. This video clip is on the website From Wireless to Web, produced in 2005.
The website is a selective history of broadcast media in Australia. Decade by decade, from radio and newsreels to TV and the internet, this history shows how the Australian broadcast media developed and shaped the way Australians see themselves.
From Wireless to Web is a Film Australia production in association with Roar Film.
Area of study 2. Technologies of representation
This area of study focuses on the production of representations by students in two or more media forms. Students then compare how the application of the different media technologies affects the meanings that can be created in the representations. The implications for the distribution and/or consumption of these representations are also discussed.
Different media technologies represent the world in different ways. Each, through its technology, materials, techniques, applications and processes, produces a particular representation of the world. While the different forms of media (for example, television, radio and the internet) have practices that are common, they also have features that result in the production of media products with characteristics that are unique. The use of codes and conventions to convey ideas and meaning in the representations is considered in the context of the media forms in which the technologies were applied and with reference to the specific forms and characteristics of the representations produced.
This material is an extract. Teachers and Students should consult the Victoria Curriculum and Assessment Authority website for more information.World Series Cricket – WSC – reinvented cricket as a spectacular television event. Its day-night games were designed for prime-time broadcasting. The players’ traditional cricket whites were replaced with bright clothes and dramatic night-lights imbued the game with a sense of theatre. Channel Nine’s marketing department developed the jingle, 'C’mon Aussie, c’mon, c’mon’. 50,000 spectators flocked to the Sydney Cricket Ground to watch the first WSC game of 1978 and the matches had brilliant ratings for the Nine Network.
Nine’s eight cameras vastly improved the television coverage with views of the game from a range of angles. This enhanced the quality of replays, and for the first time live coverage was combined with computerised statistics, plus player and expert interviews. The innovations in cricket broadcasting that occurred during the WSC era are still felt over twenty years later.
Answer the following questions from the Video Clip Context and the video clip:
- What difficulties do you see in covering the following sports?
- Australian Rules Football
- Netball
- Cricket
- Tennis
- Swimming
- What difficulties do you see in broadcasting sporting events from around the world? You may wish to consider things like time zones, technology/equipment, language and host nation facilities.
Go to From Wireless to Web for more about the history of broadcast media in Australia.