Watching the Games in the wee small hours
By Tzviel Blankchtein
(August 28) - Olympic aficionados can expect over 230 hours of broadcasting from Sydney,'the biggest operation that a TV station has ever produced from Israel,' promised Channel 1 chairman Yair Aloni on Friday.
A crew of more than 30 technicians is set to broadcast live every event in which one or more of the 40 Israeli athletes are involved.
'We're going to have two ENG crews that are going to focus on the biggest Israeli contingent ever,' Aloni said.
'I know that most of the live events which we're broadcasting are at awkward hours,' said Channel One's sport department head Yoash Alroi.
'We will start at 2 am, but we're going to have every night a summary from 8 to 8:30 and from 9:30 to 10:30 of all the Israeli events which took place that day.
'We expect to put the focus most days on swimming, athletics, gymnastics, and of course, the opening and closing ceremonies,' said Alroi.
'We care less about basketball, soccer, and volleyball, because they get their stage in the world and European championships. We prefer to emphasize sports that our audience doesn't get to see every day, like sailing and equestrianism. But don't worry, those who wants to watch basketball and soccercan see them in the summaries.'
Meir Einstein, Uri Levi, Zohir Bahalul, Moshe Gertel, Danny Levinstein, Oren Rosenstein and Shai Mugilner will lead the broadcasts.
The commentators are Gilad Vaingeren (athletics), Muli Epstein (general), Buki Dish (swimming), and Jacki Visnia (gymnastics).
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