June 1993 saw the most extensive coverage of a TV event by SBC. It was the 17th SEA Games. Out of the three Games held in Singapore ( Singapore hosted in 1973 and 1983 as well) this was the most challenging and exciting. The number of sports was 29 (including Wushu) as compared to 18 in 1983. Singapore came in 4th in medal tally.. 50 gold against the winner Indonesia’s 88. More than 300 staff were involved in the operation with over 80hours of live TV coverage to stations all over the 8 countries. Radio reported all the games in the four language streams, Teletext (rebranded to inTV then) expanded pages to viewers with direct feed from Sports Council computers.RTM from Malaysia, TPT and NBC from Thailand and Indonesia’s TVRI brought in equipment such OB Vans , microwave links . ENG cameras to boost resources. Thailand and Indonesia also transported uplink satellite stations to beam back signals to their respective countries. The nerve centre ie International Broadcast Centre(IBC) was set up at the multi-purpose hall at Caldecott Hill. The games were transmitted to the IBC and then beamed live back or edited with stand-uppers.
PM Goh Chok Tong lighted the SEA Games Torch. SBC also covered the closing ceremony at the National Stadium which was one of the most entertaining and exciting shows Singaoreans had ever seen.According to one of the officers from Channel 13 Phillipines….”The Philipines people are very happy . Even President Ramos praised the coverage. Channel 13 has the lowest viewership in the Philipines but during the SEA Games we managed to lure the Channel 4 sports viewers to Channel 13…”.
The event t was a marvelous piece of teamwork among the countries and a good example of how neighbouring countries could stage such event enjoyable successful .
There was a sense of fulfillment and happiness by all the staff after the event. Many of us (including me) were glad to be associated with this event.
Selected info from R Kumar and T H Yew.
Email me if you have memories to share of this event: tay.philip@gmail.com
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1 comment:
........ I must say the blog is very well done and it does bring back memories. For me the SEA games coverage in 1993 gave me good memories as I was assigned to do underwater camera by you. Anyway, my family is doing very well. In case you are not aware, I have a newborn baby girl, Breanna Tang who is 8 months old. My eldest son, Bryan is in Sec 1 in Anderson Sec School while my 2nd daughter, Brenda is in P5 with Pei Ying Primary school.
Anyway, hope all is well with you. Do keep in touch and I will certainly visit your blog from now on.
Michael
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