A SENIOR SABC producer admitted yesterday that the quality of the corporation's world Twenty20 cricket championship broadcast was "not good enough", but claimed many of the problems were caused by ESPN Star Sports, the company chosen by the ICC to film the series.
The SABC insider told The Times that "every day should be perfect".
"We should not wait for the final to get it right. It's not good enough."
Attempts to obtain comment from SABC spokesman Kaizer Kganyago were unsuccessful.
The producer referred to frequent technical errors during the broadcast of the Twenty20 cricket. SABC3's coverage has been dogged by serious technical flaws, including the loss of the satellite feed during the epic encounter between Australia and Zimbabwe. SABC3 only managed to broadcast the last few deliveries of the match.
"That was an SABC problem," the insider confirmed. "SuperSport managed to broadcast the match without any difficulty."
However, SuperSport, which televises the same ESS feed, has apparently not suffered from such problems.
ICC communications chief Brian Murgatroyd said the ESS feed "is being broadcast in 100 countries, including China. Good cricket TV is one of our key products and we've had not a single complaint from anywhere in the world about the quality of the broadcast".
The troubles continue for the national broadcaster. The SABC's radio right to the Premier Soccer League matches expired on Monday, and the PSL and SABC are yet to come to an agreement on the issue of a renewal.
The SABC will present its proposal to the PSL tomorrow and it will be up to the executives to decide whether to accept the proposal. They are hoping to have the issue sorted out before the weekend.
.SABC stumped - See Alex Parker's column on Page 30
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