Media Coverage for Tenpin Bowling

[janm]

We are all aware that Michael Littles great win barely raised an eyebrow in the Australian media. There was a paragraph in the Herald Sun in Vic and that is all I have found so far.
We all whinge about this, BUT do we do anything about it.
TBA I am sure sent a press relaease to all major news outlets, but did anyone else email, fax or phone them.
If they don;t hear from the bowling community how do they know there is any interest.
The readers and watchers dictate the content for any media organisation.
If a newspaper of sports program had recieved several hundred emails about Micks win PERHAPS they might have listened.
When Cara won her first pro tournament I faxed, phoned and emailed (along with others) the Herald Sun, and there was quite good coverage achieved.
I did that this time too but like I said one paragraph.
News is only news when it happens, on the day, or hour so next time we have an achievment like Michaels perhaps WE can do something about getting well deserved coverage.
I know most tournament officals knock themselves out trying to get some publicity, but some don't give a hoot.
Several years ago I managed to get the interest of a National sporting program regarding a well known then Junior Bowler who was starting to make a name for himself.
He was coming to Melbourne to bowl a high profile tournament and they wanted to come in and shoot some footage and do a interview.
All that was needed was the organisers of the tournament to follow it through with the producer. (When and where etc)
I approached the "head honky" of the tournament and got the following response "you are wasting your time, they won't come, so and so (the producer) hates bowling, anyway we do our own media" After several approaches to different officials with similar response's the whole thing fizzled, and I was left with a large amount of egg on my face.
I am nobody in bowling, but if I can get this far surely with a concerted, UNITED combined effort from Organisations, Bowls and Bowlers we might get somewhere.
After all what is there to lose???

 

[Greig]

There was a very small paragraph in the Adelaide Advertiser about Michael's magnificient achievement.
"Very small" is better than none at all, so somebody's listening.

 

[josie]

TV

Michael Little and AMP were on our local the news last night but they only interviewed AMP the rest was voice over.
:cry:

 

[Forbesy]

Here in Orange our local paper were running small paragraghs of how Belmo and the rest of the Australian team were going, but that was largely because his parents kept them notified. When jason return they did a half page spread on the back page of the paper.

Maybe someone should asked the Media Officer of TBA if they approached any of the national news papers or in fact the TV stations to see if they couldn't at least do some sort of coverage of the event.

Here is the link to the news article on Belmo:
http://orange.yourguide.com.au/deta...amp;category=General+Sport&m=9&y=2003

 

[Forbesy]

I must apoligize for an error I made before. After talk to Belmo and his dad tonight I was informed that in fact the Central Western Daily in Orange actually looked up the results on the internet of there own accord.

If only other news papers and TV station would do the same.

 

[pinXbruiser]

i think there are several reasons for the low coverage.

-how many people that dont bowl in a league real care about bowling? i have never played cricket or afl but i watch every match on tv and read most articles in the paper that cover them. this only leaves us bowlers to promote the game and most bowlers (in my experience) rarely boast of their achievement to non-bowlers.

-its not a "glamour" sport. dont get me wrong, i love bowling, but basically you take a few steps and roll a heavy ball at some stationary pins. there isnt any element of danger (well, not much) or sense of "wow, did you see that?!" by the average person.

-most people only view bowling as a way to spend a few hours during school holidays, like watching a movie. you dont need practice, you can rent the shoes (if you bother at all), and you choose the ball to use based on the fact that you can pick it up with no consideration of how it will react on the lanes. anyone playing backyard cricket is going to be doing everything they can to knock down the stumps and take it a lot more seriously.

-lastly, much of this has to do with the fact that tenpin bowling isnt something most kids grow up with. it like an introduced species and can only do harm to native, more traditional sports. i would probably be guilty of this as well thoug. if i had a kid, i would buy them a football or cricket bat before i started giving them lessons in tenpin bowling. but hopefully the fact that i bowl in a league once a week and take it (moybe too) seriously has some effect on bringing respectability to the sport. thanks,
joe

 

['arvey]

I think it is up to all of us who love bowling to help promote it. Look it's probably not going to happen overnight, but if enough people push and shove, and let their local tv, radio and newspapers know about bowling events then it will improve.

Our local newspaper regularly prints stories on bowling events. A lot of sport stories seem to revolve around football, cricket, etc. but they also like to print stories that are different. They just need to be told.

The local Win TV news runs stories on bowling. Why? For the same reason - they are informed by bowlers about what is happening.

I have two daughters who have represented their state, and the local papers, tv and radio have covered their progress.

It has taken a few years, but they are more than happy to report on bowling stories. Originally the stories were fairly small, but they are now bigger. All because a few bowlers took the time to promote their sport.

So if you want to promote bowling it is up to all of us.

 

[Tiger]

Basically, it is up to us as consumers to pester the shite out the media for it to be given a run in the local papers.

Back in the early 80's the Hobart Mercury used to have a regular column in the paper every week titled TENPIN - with Peter Gourlay.

The column used to have all the results and a write up of tournaments as well as a write up of great performances during the week in League.

Nowdays all we have is the results from League in the sport section which is generally misspelt and incorrect anyway.

It is very difficult to get anything in the papers here when the Mercury is basically a newsletter for the AFL and Tasmania Devils VFL team - even local football can't get a decent write up.


As for TV coverage, I have seen Nathan Young interviewed on WIN Local News here last year after his performance at The Nationals but other than that - zilch.

The Launceston Examiner does a great job in promoting the sport, especially if you are from the North, I found it a little curious when bowling in a tournament in Launceston last year, the Examiner people turned up for a photo shoot in the Centre of Tasmania's Rachuig Representatives and it was only the Northern and North Western players that where pictured, despite two Southerners in the side being present at the time, being excluded from the photo - which I thought which was a bit rude.

I think we should be badgering the ABC for coverage - after all they do show Lawnbowls on TV - highly entertaining sport that that is and all :?

 

[Murderdoll]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but quite a number of years back, Channel 10 had bowling on saturday afternoons, something like the Coca Cola Classic or something like it. I'm pretty sure it was sponsored by Coke, and I remember seeing guys like Mick Little and Andrew Frawley bowling in it...

What I am getting at is that we need something like that again. And have any of the stations broadcast it or pester Channel 10 when ever a super six tournament is on or something big like the Brunswick Cup.

Also in WA, sometimes the local papers, The West Australian, Sunday Times and some of the Community Newspapers feature things about bowling. This year the Sunday times had a half page write up of the Perth Cup with a pic of Mike Muir and Tim Mack (I think there was another, not sure) And also a little paragraph of Toni Woodcock after she came back from Asian Schools.

But as I said, a tournament like the Coca Cola one would be great for TV.

Thats what I think anyway, but everyone has a different opinion.


Later

 

[GeorgeF]

That TV show was an AMF production with Coca-Cola being the main sponsor, correct me if I'm wrong but the production costs for that TV show was over $50000 which I think AMF would rather channel into a Super 6 series or some adds for bowling.

I for one want bowling back on TV more than anything but who's going to foot the bill?

If you can get a show made cheap I'm sure Foxtel or one of the smaller stations will run it for you for nothing. The only reason they don't run bowling shows now is that they foot the production costs.

I've seen it done in the USA, some local has a $10000 digital camera, takes heaps of footage of bowling over the course of the weekend including the finals. Ensures there is some decent lighting and then sits down and edits the stream to a 20 min highlight package. Sound seasier enough but it isn't.

I'm sure some people out there might know someone who could do this. With todays technology you could film, edit and burn and just present the footage to a TV station in DVD format. Nows the time we should be doing this. Anyone keen?

 

[AMF]

May I add my plea for more coverage of the Sport of Tenpin Bowling in Australia as being discussed on the TotalBowling forum?

I firstly must say that we have a number of people doing a great job of reporting to the press - from Lynne Clay from the TBA who keeps up a constant flow of information to the media generally to TotalBowling which provides a valuable service to the bowlers themselves and through a number of dedicated bowlers and proprietors who make contact with their local media.

However we no longer have the ABC televising the finals of the South Pacific Classic or the industry producing the Coke Classic or the old-time bowling writers who were regularly published in the major newspapers as we did in the eighties when we gained mass-distribution publicity for our sport.

I believe the answer is quite simple - it is all about advertising dollars - and we have been run over by the expenditure on the mainstream sports of football, cricket, tennis and golf where the really big dollars are for advertisers, the media and the players. And the sad truth is that we shall never reach the benchmarks set by these sports …… however I do not believe that we should give up …. we just have to accept that there is no instant solution, change tack somewhat and realise that we have to get to where we want to go in a series of small but continuous steps ……. In which everyone involved in the Sport of Tenpin Bowling must play their part - the TBA, the Bowling Industry and the individual bowlers.

Year 2004 looks like a good year to start - the work done by the TBA in gaining the inclusion of bowling in the 2004 Commonwealth Youth Games to be held in Bendigo is a great platform; we at AMF are working towards having the Bowling World Cup here again in 2004 or 2005; and we are trying to put a 10 week TV series together for Christmas 2004 - this is all top-end stuff which can be used to attract the attention of the mass media. And at the other end of the scale, if every Centre Association made the effort to contact their local free newspaper with stories and results of league, centre championships etc., we can rebuild a degree of publicity to put into portfolios to send to the mass media to attract their attention to the sport in a referral manner. Perhaps then we can encourage an "identity" to write a regular column again …. and around the circle we go!!

Nothing is easy in this world today - it all requires hard slog. However if we all follow the example of Lynne Clay from the TBA and just keep at it, the publicity will follow.

Peter Finlayson, CEO, AMF Bowling Centres

 

[sandor]

Bowling on TV

Can anyone tell me why the commercial stations or even cable (ESPN) cannot show the PBA Shows?

Are the rights to the telecast too expensive?

 

[Brenton_Davy]

Peter,

Sounds like AMF are trying their best to put together a good TV show, hope it all comes to fruition for the good of the sport, and the players. We could always do with more exposure, it has a trickle effect on all areas of the sport and can only be a good thing.

As they say "Any publicity is good publicity"

Good Luck