A brand new studio dedicated to Nine Radio’s Olympic coverage has been built at the 2GB building in Pyrmont, Sydney.
Facing the main broadcast booths where Ben Fordham and Ray Hadley usually sit, 2GB’s head of content Luke Davis told Mediaweek that tech manager, Cameron Roberts, and his team have turned a general office space into a world-class Olympic studio.
“This space will not only service these Olympics but will be an interactive studio that we can use for our rugby league and other broadcasts into the future as well,” he said.
“It’s not just for a two-week event, it’s going to be something that holds us in good stead for many years to come.”
The studio has been fitted with four TVs to ensure there is complete coverage of all events at all times.
“There’s a total of 46 venues across the Olympics, and we have a view of 44. There’s never a time when all 46 are used at one time, but we’ve got the view to have a look at everything,” Roberts said.
“While we’ll have a schedule of what’s happening if we see something interesting that’s happening at a particular venue, we’re able to cut in, pop it on the preview TV, and then put it on the main TV and start commentating on it.
“With these feeds, they have the embedded audio that the IOC provides which means if the commentators aren’t specialists in a particular thing, we can cut into their commentary if we need. But most of the time, we’ll be doing our own commentary.”
Across the two-week period, 2GB will be on air for 150 odd hours commentating on the games. It will have a team in Paris and a team in Sydney, who will broadcast right across Nine Radio’s network.
Heading into his seventh Olympic Games, Hadley leads the commentary team in Paris, where he will be doing the swimming commentary with Libby Trickett and the athletics commentary with Jane Flemming as co-commentator.
18 people consisting of talent, producers, and journalists will be travelling to Paris for the games and Nine’s two radio breakfast shows, Ben Fordham at 2GB and Ross and Russ at 3AW will be taking their programs over to Paris for the first week of the games.
In terms of the actual Olympics studio, the room will be host to a number of general sport commentators who Davis says “are jacks of all trades that can call any sport.”
“The team in Sydney will be led by Mark Levy, followed by Karl Langdon, Bill McDonald and Bill Woods.
“We are on air from six o’clock each night, starting with a national edition of Wide World of Sports, which will be a daily preview of what to expect for the day’s coverage overnight.
“Then, our coverage will go right through until the breakfast shows the next morning at 5:30. There are always surprises at the games, and we’re ready to go for all surprises.”