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Sports neglected on television, says broadcasting fund

Sports on Taiwanese TV has been neglected and the quality of sports news is poor, media watchers said yesterday.

"Compared to other types of news, sports news is `minority' programming. Except for August when the Olympic Games was held, on average sports news is only about 4 percent of the total news presented," said Chuang Po-chung (莊伯仲), an assistant professor at Chinese Culture University's department of journalism.

The Broadcasting Development Fund yesterday released a program observation report conducted in August on 1,240 news stories broadcast by 12 major news channels. Because of the Olympic Games, the quantity of sports news included in news programs increased to 10.2 percent of overall news stories.

However, between March and July, among 12 different kinds of news stories, sports news was ranked eighth in the amount of coverage given. Furthermore, during that period, sports news was never among the leading stories of the day.

"Normally, sports news only appeared at the very end of news programs or acted as program frills," said Chuang.

Nor were all available sports being reported.

The media observation report also showed that Taiwan's media focused more on baseball, basketball and billiards while other sports, such as taekwondo and archery were virtual outcasts.

The situation took a drastic turn during the Athens Olympics.

"By August, the ranking of sports news rose to fifth place, thanks to the Olympic Games. And many sports events in which our national teams had participated, such as taekwondo, were able to make headlines," Chuang said.

However, Chuang said that sports news had been turned into entertainment news in the way it was presented.

"There was a female news anchor who wore a taekwondo outfit during a news program, which was a strange sight," Chuang said.

In addition, Chuang pointed out, a news station even hired a former professional basket player to "read" news at the anchor desk.

"This former player chose a very entertaining way to present sports news. Sometimes she dressed up as an Olympic mascot and misused sports terminology," said Chuang.

The fund urged for a diverse but serious way of presenting news.

"A line needs to be drawn between television news and entertainment programs," the fund said in its report.
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