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THE thousand of Filipino sports fans who had the misfortune to fall
for the pre-Olympics “Gateway to the Drama” hype of Solar Sports
and forked out good money for a so-called “Solar All Access”
subscription so as to watch the live action that really mattered
from Beijing—and on two unscrambled channels scheduled to show
simultaneous action from different venues as in the case of Sky
cable viewers—were in for a rude shock.
The spectacular opening ceremony of the Summer
Olympics got things off to a great start for the “Solar All
Access” subscribers since they were able to watch it live and in
full without the irritating interruption of bland commercials.
But after that adrenalin pumping start, and as
the fortnight of sporting action unfolded, the Solar Sport coverage
for its season pass holders was more like an event in the Winter
Olympics—downhill all the way!
While the unarguable star of the 2008 Beijing
Olympics, US swimmer Michael Phelps, was setting new standards in
the Water Cube and gathering world records and gold medals as easily
as if he was plucking them off from his local supermarket shelf,
Solar Sports coverage was focused elsewhere.
Not a single final event of the Phelps
phenomenon was shown live on either of the two Solar All Access
channels. While Phelps—and the other world record shattering
swimmers, for that matter—were involved in the only really
exciting action that mattered in the first week, Solar Sports was
fixated elsewhere.
So instead of Phelps live, subscribers were
treated to boxing unknowns from Africa, tae kwon do wannabees from
the Middle East and shooting hopefuls from Eastern Europe.
On one occasion Solar Sports was poised to show
live action from the Water Cube, but then quite mysteriously (and
annoyingly for subscribers) the coverage abruptly shifted to boxing.
But here’s the serious bone of contention for
the fee-paying subscribers. Some, if not most, of the Phelps action
could be seen live on the regular free Solar Sports channel on cable
TV operations like Destiny.
Solar All Access subscribers instead had to
scramble around trying to catch the swimming action (if they were
lucky) in “same day” or “same day delayed” telecasts that
involved much remote control surfing spread over several hours that
threatened serious wrist injuries.
If the Olympics motto is “Swifter, Higher
Stronger”, then the Solar Sports coverage in the first week could
be attributed the motto (to quote the International Herald Tribune
reporting in another Olympic context) “Slower, Lower, Weaker”!
As for the second week, it was more of the
dismal same from Solar Sports for, by now hapless, All Access
subscribers.
While the undisputed hero of the second week,
Jamaican Usain “Lightning” Bolt was exhibiting astonishing
sprint speeds in the Bird Cage athletic stadium, the exclusive fee
paying Solar Sports subscribers were subjected to synchronized
swimming—for real sports fans an event with the same entertaining
value as watching grass grow!
Needless to say, for Solar Sports subscribers
catching second week action of Bolt blazing his way to three gold
medals was another exercise in TV remote control futility.
Perhaps the most damning verdict of the Solar
Sports coverage was conveyed to us through-mail by an international
banker based presently in Manila. He has watched the past four
Olympics while based in four different countries, but he claimed the
Beijing coverage he specially subscribed for with Solar Sports
“was the worst ever.”
All in all, what can be said of the 2008 Beijing
Olympic Games performance of Solar Sports (and here we have to
declare an interest as one of the thousands of fee paying All Access
subscribers) is that while the sports content provider has shown to
be highly professional when covering fixed-time, fixed-venue
international sports events like boxing and basketball, when it came
to the multi-event, multi-venue Olympic Games spread over two weeks
the sporting entity came across as being decidedly amateurish.
bizzfizz_98@yahoo.com
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