It looks like contrary to what I said before, that Martin Tyler has been specifically signed by ESPN for this World Cup. In the UK, as I say, he's the lead commentator on Sky who have the biggest Premier League TV package, so he is considered one of the best commentators in the world.
The pictures are supplied locally, although I doubt that there are many South African camera operators being employed. They'll almost certainly mostly be European teams. They have strict rules to supply a specific style of coverage. The match directors tend to be mostly European too. A company called Host Broadcast Services put the package together and build the International Broadcast Centre. Many more teams broadcast their commentaries from inside this building rather than at the grounds. Individual networks around the world are able to supplement this coverage with their own cameras - perhaps to focus on individual players or get extra reaction. But it's hard to cleanly edit this into the live coverage and so tends to take place during pre- and post-match segments. Steve McManaman, Ruud Gullitt, and Jurgen Klinsmann are all experienced broadcast pundits as well as leading ex-pros. Indeed Klinsmann has showed up on the BBC a bit too (In the UK, coverage is shared between the BBC and ITV who split the coverage between them so that - until the final anyway - they don't cover the same games at the same time). Graphics packages are very clever too, with a centralised system feeding the graphics, which can be personalised for different networks to keep a house style. So someone from ESPN doesn't have to recognise which Nam Chol Pak in the North Korean team is being substituted, but it still comes up on-screen in their graphic style. Adam On Mon, Jun 21, 2010 at 3:16 AM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: > On Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 4:35 PM, David Lynch <[email protected]> wrote: >> Actually, I get the impression that ESPN has a team in each venue. As >> far as I can remember, I've always heard two voices and never the same >> one twice in a day on TV. On the radio and for the streaming audio for >> ESPN's iPhone app, JP Dellacamera (American) and Tommy Smyth (Irish) >> are doing every match; I usually think of them as ESPN's "A" team for >> soccer, so I'm surprised that they aren't doing TV commentary. > > ESPN have live coverage of every game so they might keep their > announcing teams in the same city. The camera work and directing are > done by South Africans so the camera tends to stay on the action and > they only rarely show fans or benches, unlike US TV sports. Martin > Tyler and Efan Eloku are a team and they called today's Brazil-Ivory > Coast game on ABC. >> >> What I've noticed that seems odd is that the third person in the >> studio alongside Chris Fowler and Alexi Lalas during the segments >> before and after the game and at half time seems to change from day to >> day. > > The main third persons are Steve McManaman, Ruud Gullitt, and Jurgen > Klinsmen. They don't seem to have great broadcasting chops, but they > were top players in international games for England, Netherlands, and > Germany, respectively. They certainly know the game; I think they have > a bit of difficulty explaining it to casual viewers. > > I have been watching, on average, a game a day and I really enjoy the > coverage. I'm going to write a longer piece about all the thing > they're doing right on TV, especially compared to US sports coverage. > > As for the noise of the vuvuzelas, I think the sound engineers have > changed the audio mix to dampen them somewhat. They were much louder > and more annoying in the first games that were broadcast. They seem to > be much less intrusive now. > > -- > TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "TV or Not TV" group. > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
