Discussion: How to look good on TV

Yeah, I saw that.

I aslo sent the following to the guy that wrote it:

Regarding your article on the Orienteering Today website today:

Why not produce orienteering for TV as taped and edited, rather than live? In the USA, that is how adventure racing, triathlon, and most running is done, all sports that are not really that exciting to watch live, just like orienteering. Why not do the same for orienteering?

And why are there no good professional videos made? The Swedes put out a video after WOC 2004, and it was terrible (boring!).

It seems to me that there are many possibilities with the sport as it is now, just don’t try to do it live. One of the always popular shows in the USA is of the Ironman triathlon in Hawaii. They make a 90 minute video, lots of drama, good photography, interviews, even some attention to the ones who are not so good but have good stories, and it gets excellent ratings on one of the big networks. Orienteering could do the same.

Why don’t we?

Yes, I like the part about making sure the relay finishes on time by dynamically changing the length of the last leg. But, I think we can do better: to really make things TV compliant, we should just make sure we give the people the TV channel doesn't want to win the wrong map, and voila! Instant ratings coup.

I agree with Peter that exciting orienteering videos are the way to go. Running through the forest *is* exciting, just look at the movies; they love to show chase scenes through the forest. ESPN made poker one of the most popular fad shows on TV by showing just the big dramatic hands.

Kalevan Rasti coach Jukka Inkeri also thinks cutting is the way to go.
Jukka's blog. (It is mostly about micro-o).

I wonder if USOF could do more video producing as well. It seems to me that if they had a good video library of clips, networks could pick and choose from it when they want to do a section on Orienteering.

On a serious note, I think Peter's comments are spot on. Some of those short French videos really rock. If something like that can't generate excitement, I don't know what will.

Poker managed to become a huge spectator sport without head-mounted cameras. I think it is about the money and the "human interest story". Rather than spend money on medals, USOF should drop a huge bag of cash in the forest. The networks would jump over themselves to cover the fisticuffs at the site and the drama of deciding whether to ruin a good run to carry the thing out. Throw in a few bankrupt orienteers and "reality show" casting and scriptwriting and it can't miss.

The way a network chooses sports is different in Europe and in the US. In Europe they still maintain with the idea of providing information to the audience.

Swiss TV covers some sprints, since orienteering has gotten coverage in the other main stream media after the amazing recent success of the Swiss orienteers. This is a public TV station. They cover what they consider of a larger general interest.

In the US, events are covered, when they attract commercial investors. Adventure racing and other extreme sport use a lot of equipment and have a built in audience which is attractive for commercials: The young fashionable crowd, which they can't reach with family friendly programming.

It is interesting, how skiing has gotten more coverage, since Bode Miller appeared, or the Tour de France since Lemond and of course Armstrong are successful there. So it seems to be also the factor, that there is a personality who can be used as a "hero".

TV in the US, whether news, sports or shows, it always an unholy mix of drama und commerce. The drama serves the business, the business pays the drama/entertainment (maybe).

I don't think that European standards would apply to US networks. But I agree with Peter, editing some good footage into a (again dramatized) format would be the way to go. This is how the US network covers the Olympics. Although the coverage is often almost ridiculous, when the US athletes are highlighted, while we barely know who won the race.

The irony at this year's Swiss champs was, when Swiss TV mounted some major coverage after Sime's success in Japan, she was beaten by a team mate. Which of course messed up the planned golden girl story a little bit.

I do not think orienteering needs to be on TV, the internet video coverage from WOC in Sweden was the best, and enough for me to enjoy that event live.

Adventure racers need a lot of expensive gear compared to orienteers, but the sport still hasn't proven very attractive to television sponsors. A couple of reasons:

1) The general public is more familiar with orienteering than AR - yikes.
2) Like orienteering, it takes some creativity to cover an event that mostly takes place with people moving through the forest faster than the camera operator, and usually not taking the same route as other competitors.

The one big exception was EcoChallenge, which was a key reason for the growth of AR for a few years. So maybe we need Mark Burnett to get interested in orienteering, now that he's given up on AR? The mind boggles to think of how he might change the sport. E.g. Micro-O... That's the wrong control! You're fired!

I wouldn't worry much about orienteering's struggle getting on TV, except for the fact that the IOF has as it's primary goal to get into the Olympics, and it has determined that the way to try to do that is to make orienteering an "arena" sport, and that this will translate into TV coverage, and then that will get us in the Olympics. So they are quite happy to change the sport in the hope that this will lead to mecca #1 of TV coverage and then mecca #2 of the Olympics.

Even if you accept their premise (TV ---> Olympics = salvation), I still think, as I wrote earlier on this thread, that there are easier and better ways to get on TV than their quest for live TV.

One side effect of this is that we won't have to worry about putting on any more World Cup events in North America unless we suddenly get to be a whole lot bigger and richer sport. Among the requirements (published last month) are:

C) What is required of an existing event wishing to be part of the new World Cup?
1. TV coverage
2. Professional arena production
3. Special invitations to best runners
4. Prize money
5. Sanction fee to the IOF
Comments:
1. The organiser should have well established contacts with TV, agreement on TV coverage (production and broadcast) of the event, broadcast preferably on a national channel. The IOF has the TV rights for the World Cup but these can be negotiated.

2. A professional arena production is important to get a high profile for the event. Arena production means e.g. a big screen at the event centre, 3 or more cameras, a production management system and a speaker team (English speaking speaker, national speaker, speaker support software, a finish area interviewer and a speaker support team). The WCup organiser will get advice from the IOF Arena Production working group.

3. Special invitations sent to minimum the best 3 men and 3 women in 2007 (number may increase slightly for 2008). The special invitation should include the services needed for the
runner from check in to check out, i.e. free accommodation, food, start fee and local transport between events and accommodation.

4. Prize money consists of two parts, local prize money at the event and prize money to go to the overall prize sum of the World Cup. Local prize money could be of any size and is up to the organiser to decide. Prize money to go in the overall prize sum of the World Cup is € 1000 per race (excluding qualification races) and shall be paid to the IOF together with the sanction fee.

5. The IOF sanction fee is € 5,000 per competition (including a possible qualification race and a final race). If a Federation wishes to organise more than one competition (e.g. one sprint and one middle), the sanction fee is € 5,000 per competition (in this case € 10,000).


The full document.

That is absolutely brilliant. Actually, better - but Bono earned the ire of the FCC for saying what I think about this, so I'll bite my tongue.

But seriously - this is like fiddling while the house is burning. The whole "thought" process smacks of incoherence in many ways. My only new comment is that surely they have invested as much though in determining ways to promote grass roots O outside the half dozen prospective World Cup hosts. Because the IOC saviors will probably want to see the sport exist in some form somewhere else. With the sage diversion of resources this scheme will demand, I don't see what is going to make that happen. But, I suppose further segmenting the international O world into haves and have nots is probably part of the plan.

Why should we be unhappy that Federations that hold WOC/WC races will be fleeced to the tune of € 5,000 per competition? The IOF has to get its money somehow - better it raises it from Sweden and Switzerland than from higher entry fees / WRE sanctioning fees. It's not like the US was going to put on a WOC/WC event any time soon anyway.

I actually wasn't really bothered by the entry fee per se, but rather the whole suite of seemingly onerous requirements that don't seem to clearly advance the IOF's stated or implied goals.

Their strategy may be to circle the wagons and buttress the vitality of O in the core countries where the sport's growth has stalled. You have to protect your base after all. And there seems to be great participant and revenue potential in China. Maybe IOF can get some measure of credit for making that happen... or not.

Unfortunately I know nothing about IOF finances--I'm guessing these changes are at least revenue-neutral. If they are revenue enhancing, I'm just wondering where the incremental gains are going. How exactly is charging all this for putting on an IOF meet promoting the sport or improving competition? My aim would be to cast the nets wide and work to facilitate competitive Orienteering around the world rather than erect roadblocks of questionable worth that just seem to keep it cloistered, physically and psychically.

We have couple of TV O-events in Finland every summer, and usually there is a lot of drama, but it can not be seen on TV.

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In events (O-ringen and other o-weeks, Jukola etc.) there is a lot of controls very close each other. In those event you can not attack to a control every time you see one, you need to know that if a control is yours or not. If you do not know you are, you'll hope a control is yours, end up going to a wrong control checking code - not yours - trying to guess where you are. The penalty is "natural", lost time depends on how fast you understand where you are. Everyone who has participated O-ringen or Jukola knows what I mean. We are used to this, and we have silently accepted this as a part of our sport. In events like WOC there is no usually no such extra controls.

They tried to create the same effect in micro-o by putting extra controls and taking away codes and adding those penalty loops (loop idea from biathlon). That it was the mistake, they should not change it that much. All the necessary elements were already there, they should have used them just as they are. Only putting extra controls with wrong codes near the right control, all visible by the camera. Penalty loop was not good idea, they use it in biathlon only because there is no any natural penalty available.

There would be lot more drama to see your favorites going to a wrong control, checking code and they may have some panic and shouting few f-words. And spectators could see immediately how big the penalty is, no need for any loops. And then there comes somebody like Tero who would not even look at the direction of the wrong control, who would with great speed straight to the right one and spurt on.

In biathlon competitor can see if he does a miss, sometimes they panic and loose their self confidence in shooting - more misses. In micro-o format there was no need to panic, because competitor do not know is the control right or wrong. Seeing on TV competitor who knows he/she is having serious problems - there is the drama for TV. And this best part was avoided on purpose by taking away the codes! What they were thinking?

How much the sport would be changed? It depends on how close the extra controls are and are they located in real mapped features that might be used as real controls as well. If we already accept this Jukola/O-ringen style
control placing, the difference would not be big if any. This also could be easily practiced or used in normal o-events without TV-cameras. No need for new timing software etc. Just put some extra controls in some places.

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In TV we could also show first a "Follow me Gillerberget" style video made for each TV control, and show where are the right controls and wrong controls and explain how course setter is trying to lure competitors who are just running towards control without knowing exactly where they are. This way TV spectator would get some kind of idea what competitor is seeing and thinking when he/she enters the TV-screen.

A fine example of TV coverage of orienteering from Alternativet's julkalendar:


http://www.alternativet.nu/julkalender/2005/report...

Hmmm, watching the NHL the last few weeks I didn't think Swedes could throw a decent bodycheck. Sign that guy up to Sweden's Olympic Hockey team!

Per Forsberg, Sweden's answer to Don Cherry... Rock 'em Sock'em Orienteering Video Volume 1.

Orienteering Today follows up on the original article.

Certainly a taped programme would be better than live because of the many ideas mentioned above but at least in North America unless it is part of a multi-sport games you aren't going to get TV coverage unless you come to the broadcasting company with cash up front. So IOF would probably be better off finding a few sponsors with deep pockets that buys advertising space on a few major international broadcasting stations to show about 5 one hour taped shows of 'World Cup' races from around the World - rather than spending time tinkering with what is already a great sport.

For example, I recently watched the Ironman coverage on TV. 75% of the commercials were for Subaru. Clearly without Subaru the show would not have been on TV (and it certainly would be boring live).

So how much does it cost to get one hour on OLN?