On foreign broadcast coverage

The history of foreign sports broadcast coverage in the Philippines always starts with radio. Sporadic coverage of special events like the 1964 Olympics are major milestones, with Joe Cantada calling Anthony Villanueva’s silver-medal finish from Tokyo, for example. This was part of DZHP’s magnificent run covering challenging events like the Tour of Luzon live, and winning numerous awards in the 1960’s. On television, RPN 9’s pioneering broadcasts of the historic 1976 Olympics from Montreal was another first. Close to two dozen countries boycotted the Games because of other countries’ involvement with South Africa, which still upheld apartheid. The Games made the news in so many ways.

As late as 1989, networks would still opt out of covering special multi-sport events like the Southeast Asian Games. Only a news crew from ABS-CBN was on the ground reporting all of the cheating in Kuala Lumpur. From 1991 in Manila onwards, the SEA Games have been covered in full. This, of course, opened up the idea of sending commentators, writers and producers to similar large events. Networks would pay for the rights along with international sound, and choose whether or not to pay for the host country’s English commentary, or have Filipino announcers do it either onsite or off-tube (which is obviously much cheaper).

When it comes to international sports news, however, no Philippine network has dedicated an entire team to consistent coverage. At best, local broadcast news agencies use third-party news subscription services. Those that have set up news bureaus overseas have employed incredibly versatile reporters / producers who try to cover anything from politics to fashion to sports. The Filipino Channel has some of the best broadcast journalists in the world, like TJ Manotoc, Don Tagala and Steve Angeles. All of their material is edited in a central location before being transmitted to the Philippines. But so far, nobody from the country has a full-time production team devoted solely to international sports. Basically, if it’s not a Filipino athlete competing abroad, they just borrow or pay for material from an American or European news service.

For many, it doesn’t make sense to set up shop in other countries, more so since the pandemic has made interviewing remotely more acceptable. However, at its core, you are looking for personal access and face to face interaction. That’s what builds credibility. The question is whether the athlete or sport in question generates enough news or events to warrant embedding a crew in a foreign country. That’s why we use catch-all reporters with beats defined more by geographic area than field of expertise. To a great extent, it works for us.

But if, say, a sport is of interest to Filipinos and is played twice a week or more in another country, it would actually cost less to house a team in that country full-time instead of flying them back and forth three to four times a month. They can also do behind the scenes stories and personality profiles of the athletes involved. No one has ever done it yet, but it will very soon become a reality.

More details in a future column.