Coverage of Beijing Olympics 2008 - DD leaves viewers high & angry

A scroll indicating the schedule of daily events starts four days after the coverage of the Beijing Olympics begins. The visual moves to another sport while the audio continues about the previous sport. DD commentator announces wrestler Sushil Kumar as a bronze medal winner even before the repechage round. Argentina's soccer captain, Riquleme, is referred to by his first name, Jose, by which no football fan identifies him.

These are just some of the instances when sports followers, who had tuned in to Doordarshan to watch the Beijing Olympics, sat up and cringed. The most memorable part of the 2008 Games coverage was that it was forgettable. All thanks to DD.

If out of sorts commentators and shoddy coverage of the Olympics by Doordarshan took your mind back to those early days of terrestrial coverage, the reason is that despite all the competition in these covergance era, our national broadcaster just don't believe in professionalism.

Hence you got the commentary that tested your patience, you missed crucial moments to advertisements and were forced to watch some unimportant match or even worse recording of highlights in between live action of key events.

When viewers cursed DD for showing a handball classification match while the engrossing US vs Russia volleyball semifinal got into the fifth and deciding set, the culprit was a DD official sitting in the capital. "The man in charge at the Central Production Centre at Khel Gaon had 18 live feeds to choose from," sources said wondering how DD managed to mess up some of the most anticipated moments including Abhinav Bindra's chat with reporters after he won the historic gold, AL Lakra's boxing bout and Anju Bobby George's first two attempts at the Bird's Nest. Prasar Bharati initially drew up a team of 130 people to be sent to Beijing that was later pruned by the I&B ministry to 74. Of these, 56 are DD staff, including commentators, cameramen, producers and engineers, while the rest are from AIR.

With 27 million viewers (according to TAM) tuned in and an expenditure of Rs 22 crore, including Rs 13 crore for the exclusive coverage rights, the public broadcaster was seen to be squandering public money and floundering its way through the greatest sports extravaganza. Besides, it is learnt that DD even messed up marketing the mega show and is set to end up losing crores.

Industry professionals are critical of the indifference that has been shown by the I&B ministry and Prasar Bharati towards the Games. Instead of seeing it as an opportunity that comes once in four years, insiders say that people were busy ensuring their acolytes managed a berth on the foreign tour.

Says a disgruntled Prasar Bharati official, "The people who are involved in sports coverage on a day-to-day basis have been left behind while those who know nothing about it have managed to go."

The official said that no time had been spent on planning how the event would be covered and marketed. For instance, as the exclusive rights holder for India, DD should be getting about 16 feeds but there has been little planning on how best to use these feeds.

Sports commentator Charu Sharma says that the pubcaster suffers the constraints of any government department. "While there is no standard basis for what should be shown, there are certain critical decisions based on timing. The decisions taken by DD are inexplicable at times," he says.

A simple solution Sharma says is to hire professional producers and commentators whose expertise lies in handling multidiscipline sports for the event. "If you are spending crores on the feed, it makes sense to get pros," he said.

According to industry sources, a little tweaking in the presentation could have made a world of difference. "I did not see a timer counting down boxer Vijender Kumar's bout. He was India's last medal hope and there was tremendous interest in that. Nor were there expert opinions from say a Prakash Padukone while Saina Nehwal was playing," one source says.

Former DD DG Bhaskar Ghose says that the Olympic fiasco could be because the decision makers have no knowledge or desire to know the sport. "This very often leads to cut-aways at the wrong time."

How will they manage the coverage of the 2010 Commonwealth Games in New Delhi is anyone's guess.

Even I felt why DD took interview of the Indian Boxers at the Beijing DD studio,they should have let them concentrate on their bouts.After they have won medals after that DD could have took the inteview.