Soccer host Schiller: Noisy stadium caused trainwreck but we don’t deserve Twitter lynch mob
The host of Wednesday night’s widely derided ABC coverage of the Sydney versus Liverpool match has addressed the controversy, saying fans should have treated the broadcast in the fun spirit it was intended.
Speaking on his drivetime show on ABC Radio Adelaide last night, Julian Schiller attacked the Twitter “lynch mob”, said he was not ashamed of the chaotic coverage, and that the stadium was unexpectedly noisy.
The broadcast – which was only watched by 174,000 metro viewers when it aired on Wednesday night – later created anger among soccer fans who felt it was disrespectful of the game featuring a visit from the English Premier League team.
A crestfallen sounding Schiller told listeners last night: “This was something the ABC picked up quite quickly. There wasn’t a lot of prep time for this, but the ABC thought it was a game worth broadcasting. I’m not sure they would have had a free-to-air broadcaster if they hadn’t done it.
“It was deemed cringeworthy at times. The A League has said it was unacceptable. Some people have said it was unforgivable.
“You get to the centre of a Twitter hate storm and it’s not a pleasant thing. I’ve been in it a couple of times because Twitter is like a roast without any of the funny lines. It’s just a stacks on. There are vile comments made about cancer and terrorism that come your way. It gets ugly.
“And the crime you have committed apparently. Yet the crimes that are committed on Twitter are far worse, but no-one really mentions those Tweets.
Citing technical issues, Schiller went on to say: “When you do live TV, it is extremely hard, even in a studio, and you see newsreaders stuff up all the time when things don’t roll, they have that shocked stare at a camera when things don’t work.
“We were doing it outside where it’s even harder. And what happened was the ABC2 team did a rehearsal which was kind of fine and when we went live to air there were speakers in the stadium which were extremely loud, which meant that any communication I was trying to get with the producer, I couldn’t really hear that well. And the panellists who were trying to talk to each other couldn’t really hear each other well.
“It’s like trying to land a plane in the dark without your instruments. You’re just massaging the joystick and hoping for the best.
“I tried to keep it on track as much as I could with that noise pollution and it definitely affected the quality of the broadcast. That was unexpected.”
Schiller also argued that criticism of the the playful tone of the broadcast was unfair, given that it was an exhibition game, with little at stake.
One of Schiller’s links to soccer come through a regular comedic slot created by him and Sam Mac for Fox Sports called The B League.
He said: “A lot of people have said it was disrespectful because it had a comedic bent to it. I would never have done a broadcast like that if it was a game that meant something, for points.
“This was a mixture of an exhibition game and a slowdown. It was a celebration of football – there was never a lot of point of going through lineups and tactics.
“What happened last night was an attempt to maybe make it fun. Football is not only to be revered, it’s also to be enjoyed. It’s not a religion, it’s entertainment.”
He conceded: “I don’t think we got it completely right, definitely.”
He added: “The bizarre thing is, this interview has gone viral. Even though there were some big problems with the broadcast, it wasn’t a vital game and it’s got attention.”
Schiller challenged football fans who had attacked him on social media, saying: “Some of it was just a little unfair. Yes it was cringeworthy in parts because things went wrong but everyone had a great spirit and a great love of football.
“I ask football fans what’s your end game in this? You turn on people who are trying to do the best job they can to promote football with little resources and just really mucking around. I don’t see where your end game is.
“I understand you get angry when people call you hooligans. To turn on each other with the hatred that we have today. I say to football fans that the next time somebody sticks their head above the parapet and does something positive and funny about football, maybe put down your baseball bats and maybe put down your nooses, back the lynch mob off and let football enjoy itself, even if it’s a trainwreck like last night.
“But cut out the anger and cut out the insults.”
He concluded: “I’m not ashamed to have been part of it.”
It is not the first time the ABC has been slammed when it has tried to bring humour to a live event. In 2015, the ABC’s broadcast of the build up to the New Year’s Eve fireworks was widely ridiculed.
Fans don’t want to see or hear “comedians” mock their game and stars. They want commentators who know the game. Schiller doesn’t seem to get it.
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As a huge football fan, and Sydney fc fan, this game was a light hearted exhibition match to please Liverpool fans. No biggie. So the ABC lightened it up. Based on that clip I thought it was pretty funny. Cringeworthty funny like the NYE coverage, but it’s a little bit of authentic Aussie at the same time. The anger does seem a little misdirected.
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Julian Schiller, (edited under Mumbrella’s moderation policy) on Aus TV. Reallly don’t understand how he gets so much airtime?!!!?
“The stadium was too noisy” “We did our best with limited preparation” Give me a break! The lesson here don’t ever give ABC any live TV.
Look what did with NYE broadcast. They are a shambles
When this goes viral, people think this is a normal Australian broadcast. We become an international laughing stock
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ummm, Roy & HG didn’t mock games and stars for 25 years did they?
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Julian is right – as much as i hated the broadcast and the fact that the national broadcaster couldn’t broadcast live throughout the country, someone else decided to put that mess to air.
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ABCTV has covered live sports throughout its history though in recent years through budgetary restrictions sport has become a minor genre. Obviously the expertise has been lost over this time as any experienced operator knows the sound will be completely different in a full stadium rather than an empty one during rehearsals. Secondly the ABC seems to make much of its entertainment programming hosted by comedians in an effort to appeal to the missing younger audiences. Sport skews very old demographically on TV and so fails to attract the younger audience and is losing the traditional older audiences as is being seen in news and current affairs. Finally I watched the coverage of the game and the hosting was a disgrace.
Could this be a result of tensions between ABC and FFA? ABC were the only FTA network to submit a bid for the Saturday night A-League games. ABC’s Sunday afternoon coverage of the W-League is actually quite good. Was this really an accident?
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Schiller’s responses show how little he understands about football, the audience, and what it takes to accept responsibility when you stuff up.
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It’s unfortunate that Schiller and Co are getting slammed (though they were very poor) but the ABC program executives deserve the real heat. Sarah Walsh (the only actual talent on display during the broadcast) was criminally under-used – case in point, she got an interview with Steven Gerrard at half-time and whoever was in charge chose to broadcast a cringeworthy fan interview segment instead. Just embarrassing.
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100% correct
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You are comparing oranges to apples.
A) people have the choice to watch a proper broadcast whenever HG and Roy do a game, soccer fans did not on Wednesday night
B) HG and Roy are smart and funny, the fools used by the ABC on Wednesday night are not
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I don’t understand the ‘noisy venue’ thing: this is a professional broadcaster and if anyone should know how to operate a microphone in a high noise location it’s the abc who have a research group. It’s not rocket surgery, you either close-up mic the speaker, use a highly directional gain microphone, use some kind of active noise cancelling or all three. Even just turning the audio inputs to point away from the noise source can work wonders. A booth perhaps? There is a reason race callers used to have microphones with lip-bars… The only basis for this excuse is because they wanted some faux ambient experience and stuffed it up. Where was the producer and head O.B. in this?
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