Wednesday August 27, 2008
Poor coverage
Air Raves:By ANTHONY THANASAYAN
Majority of the radio stations were not up to the mark in their coverage of the Olympics.
THE 29th Olympics Games in China is finally over. Now we can all go back to our lives to what it was before the games of all games started in Beijing on Aug 8.
But before we actually get to doing that, allow me a few lines to let off some steam.
I must express how disappointed I was – and probably many of you too – with most of our radio stations for not making the Olympics truly a heartfelt occasion for listeners.
To put it in a nutshell, I felt that all our radio stations could – and should have - centred their programming from Aug 8 onwards around the Olympics.
There was so much that they could have done other than just dishing out results.
They could have had interviews with our sportsmen, celebrities and politicians on what they thought about Beijing 2008 and general knowledge quizzes with prizes on the event.
To my knowledge, there appeared to be only two broadcasters that stood out delivering updates on the Olympics.
The first was news broadcaster Radio24 with live coverage of some of the events.
The second was 988, the Chinese language broadcaster operated by The Star.
Sports lovers were treated to an evening special called 988 Global Sports Club. For one hour on Saturdays, listeners got to hear a mix of Olympics and local sports news. This was aired in between some of the latest Chinese pop songs featured in the top music charts of several Asian nations.
Other features included weekend shows Weekly News (weekly round-up of the Games) and Weekly Sports Star, which delves further into the Olympic Games.
Listeners got to hear interviews with some of the athletes and their families, friends and even the coaches and fans to find out what it takes to make an Olympic star.
In yet another programme special called 988 Olympic Strategy, the 988 DJs invited several relevant personalities to talk about our athletes taking part in Beijing.
The guests included representatives from Beijing’s radio station as well as sport critics to present their analysis on a particular activity. Well done, 988! Elsewhere, Red FM, also operated by The Star, had an interesting guest in their studio last Friday. He was feng shui consultant Philip Lim.
The one-hour morning session from 7.30am was filled with interesting facts about what listeners could do to spice up their romance in their bedrooms.
Never have an untidy bedroom if you want romance to blossom, clean it up once a year and never put up pictures of others, were among the scores of treasured advice that Lim disclosed to a very amused Shaz and Will in their Red Breakfast show (weekdays, 6am - 10am on Red FM.
