Friday, August 10, 2012

5 Minutes or Less: Australian Coverage of the Olympics

It's that time again; the Olympic games.  And while I personally take little interest in the games (why do I have to pretend to care about a sport that I otherwise could care less for 3 years and 11 months out of a year?), others are enthralled and enlivened by it all.  As a result, procuring TV airing rights, licensing, and permission to the games has become an absolute mire fraught with litigation and scandal.  As a result, some TV networks are left by the wayside, and can only show still images, or limited coverage of certain events.  And while this may discourage some networks from even discussing the Games, it also inspires creativity, such as ABC News here in Australia (which has no affiliation with the American Broadcast Corporation, despite the shared moniker).  Because ABC did not have airing rights to the women's 100M finals (which apparently an Aussie won the gold), they staged a re-enactment. With Legos. Awesome:



While perhaps not quite as suspenseful as the actual event, I'd consider it a lot more amusing. Maybe if all of the events were re-enacted with Lego, I'd watch.  Bonus points if it's done in stop-motion.