Daniel Posted January 1, 2005 Share Posted January 1, 2005 Probably the reason why I ended up preferring Sportsnet News to Sportcentre. [:I] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachesl Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 She is attractive and smart, but I think that a lot of her attraction with the guys comes from her almost schoolmistress like nature...a sort of dominatrix for jocks, if you will. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BC supporter Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 Can't say the Lenscrafter Lady has ever done it for me. But to each his own, I guess. BTW, I'd say that "a lot of her attraction", like that of so many others, comes from the simple fact that she's on TV and has a degree of celebrity. But again, maybe that's just me... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Posted January 2, 2005 Author Share Posted January 2, 2005 I think it's a combination of beauty/hotness and sports . I'll also invoke the whole schoolmistress/teacher angle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 Talent or simply sex appeal? Is the increase in women sportscasters a tribute to their talent or their sex appeal? By STEVE BUFFERY -- Toronto Sun TSN thought it was on to something good when it hired Linda Freeman away from The Weather Network last year. The plan was to make the Toronto mom, who had zero experience as a sports broadcaster, the host of the NHL on TSN in the fall of 2002, the first female hockey host in history. Her job would be to introduce the analysts, Pierre McGuire, Bob McKenzie and Dave Hodge, conduct interviews, set up features and highlight packages -- basically everything that requires a solid knowledge of the players and the league. It was all new ground for Freeman, and for Canadian television, but the network was confident that after a crash course on hockey, the outgoing and "visibly appealing" Freeman would be able to move comfortably into the post. You know what they say about the best laid plans. As the launch date of the NHL on TSN approached, there were rumblings that Freeman was struggling in rehearsals and her bosses were getting nervous. Two days before the start of the show, Freeman asked to be relieved of her duties -- at least that was the official word -- and was appointed segment host. She was spotted infrequently on-air in the weeks after and soon resigned from TSN before returning to spin tales of cold fronts and lake-effect precipitation at TWN last fall. For TSN, the Freeman affair was a noble experiment. But for others, Freeman's hiring was just another example of television executives attempting to boost ratings by throwing an inexperienced but good-looking woman on air to do TV sports, thus creating a double standard: A man has to know sports to get a job on TV. A woman just has be good-looking and comfortable in front of the camera. "Put it this way," said veteran Toronto sports broadcaster Pat Marsden, who co-hosts the morning show on The Fan 590 with Don Landry. "As far as women go, I haven't seen a homely one yet. Let's not kid ourselves. I would think part of the qualifications to get in now is, they want somebody who is attractive looking." Switch on TSN or Rogers Sportsnet for your morning highlights, and whom do you see: Jennifer Hedger on one channel and Hazel Mae on the other. Neither had an extensive history in TV sports before signing on with the respective networks but both are attractive. Look who is on-air these days reading sports news or conducting interviews: Hedger, Mae, Kathryn Humphreys of City, Lori Belanger of Global, Lisa Hillary of TSN, Lisa Bowes and Patricia Boal of The Score, Christine Simpson and Jody Vance of Rogers Sportnet, Martine Gaillard of the Score and Hockey Night in Canada. There's not a Phyllis Diller among them. Caroline Frolic, a host at The Score, is not just a beauty, she's literally a former beauty queen, a Miss Toronto Universe 1998, a former Miss Southeastern Ontario. There seems to be a common theme here, yet TV sports executives cringe at suggestions that good-looking women are hired strictly as a means to attract more male viewers, talent and experience be damned. "The Number 1 priority (when your're hiring someone) is, without a doubt, broadcasting skills," TSN president Keith Pelley said. "Number 2, sports knowledge." Good looks, Pelley said, is a bonus. "If somebody was hired just for their looks and all of sudden you're pronouncing Nikolai Khabibulin, Nicolas Cab-i-bulin, then you immediately lose credibility," he said. Hodge believes women have been under-represented in television sports for far too long, but wonders what the networks look for when it comes time to hire. Network execs like use the word "presence" when discussing what they want in an anchor or reporter. But there seems to be a fine line between presence and beauty. "I think the point has to be made that if there is a female who is well trained and is able to perform that role on the air and is not necessarily good looking, she should be hired," Hodge said. "I believe that would certainly be a breakthrough. But that example, I don't think, is out there." So are women hired mainly for their looks? Hedger, for one, doesn't believe that to be so. "It's pretty simple," said Hedger, a self-confessed sports nut from London, Ont. "There are a lot of prettier girls than me not doing sports programs. "You have to love sports to do this job. I can't fake my knowledge of sports. I write my own introductions, I write the (voice-overs), you ad lib as you go ... you can't fake that stuff." Before her gig with Sportscentre, Hedger had little on-air sports experience and was best known for her time on the reality TV show The Lofters. But Pelley said Hedger's audition at TSN was one of the best he had ever witnessed. Even though she did not have a formal background in sports broadcasting, Pelley said it was clear she had a strong understanding of sport. When Mae and Vance were brought in to Sportsnet, they presented the day's highlights from behind a glass desk, apparently so the viewers could view their legs. Vance herself admitted that was the reason for the glass. Last summer, Humphreys, Mae and Vance posed for a photo spread in Urban Male Magazine dressed up in various provocative outfits. That caused a minor hue and cry. Some in the media accused the three anchors of setting back the cause of female sports broadcasting: You're looking for credibility and trying to rid the industry of stereotypes, why pose in a male magazine wearing sexy, leather garments? "That was so much about nothing," said Humphreys, who brings a wicked sense of humour and sense of fun to her broadcasts. "If I was covering the war in Afghanistan, would I pose for a magazine? Of course not. I would need to be taken seriously. But I cover men chasing balls around. For that, I don't think I need to be taken seriously. "We're in the same industry as the dancing bears at the circus," she added with a laugh. The credibility issue surfaced again this week when Sportsnet hired Jim Van Horne, a onetime TSN anchor, to work as co-host with Vance on the 6:30 p.m. show. While ratings have improved since Vance took the Sportsnet job more than two years ago, TSN pulls in twice as many viewers with its competing show with Rod Smith as host. "Jody does a great job, but Jim brings an extra bit of credibility," Sportsnet vice-president of production/operations Scott Moore said. Nancy Lee, the head of CBC Sports, despises the notion that more women have been hired in recent years for reasons of political correctness, or worse, as eye candy to attract more viewers. "In Canada, the media, all the media, should reflect the population, in terms of gender and visible minorities," she said. Added Gaillard: "When people ask me if I'm just another pretty face, do you honestly think that Hockey Night in Canada, one of the most revered sports properties in the country, in North America, would hire me for the sake of hiring a woman? I don't think that would happen. They would be fired for it." Lee said the fact the issue is still being discussed demonstrates that there is still a bias against women in the industry and that female sports broadcasters have to fight harder than men to earn credibility. Hedger said that when a female sports broadcaster mispronounces a name, there's the assumption that the cause of the mistake was her lack of knowledge, whereas if it's a man who butchers the name, it happened simply because of the slip of the tongue. "It comes down to this. When a man is hired and does his first show, people automatically give them the respect," Hedger said. "It's up to the man to lose that respect. Whereas a woman doesn't have that respect off the start. People assume that you don't know what you're doing, until you earn their respect." Whether women are hired based on looks will always be open for debate. But there is no question that women have been brought in to help with the ratings. Hedger was hired as a host for the 2 a.m. SportsCentre show (which is also aired in the morning) in July 2002. The average number of viewers for that show from July 2002 to January 2003 is 32,000. For the same period a year ago, it was 28,000, an increase of almost 15% since she was hired. "It's probably true that more guys will tune in because you've got some hot chick sitting at a glass desk," Humphreys said, adding that is has become "vogue" for every station to have a woman doing sports. "If I was a white male, do you think I'd be working? No way," she said. "I think your product is enhanced if you present a team that is diverse and brings out the different elements and a different perspective," Hodge said. "If I ran a television network and I had 12 people on the air, would I want them all to be six feet tall, white, with brown hair, Anglo-Saxon men? No. You want different people." Marsden agrees but, still, it irritates him that the Toronto-based networks and stations have hired so many inexperienced broadcasters, female and male, right out of broadcast school, wherein in the "olden days," a broadcaster really had to make his mark in a smaller market first. Before coming to CFTO, Marsden worked as a broadcaster in Fort William, Blind River and Ottawa. "It has gone totally to the entertainment side," said Marsden, who first began broadcasting sports at CFTO in 1967. "You're not talking about sports anymore, you're talking about entertainment. My feeling is, just give me the scores and show me the pictures. "I really don't think that the girls (in this market) do a great job. And my wife doesn't think so either, and I think that's important." What's important is that the women are finally starting to catch up to the men in terms of on-air representation in television sports. And at the end of the day, good or bad, it is about entertainment and attracting as many viewers as possible to the show. As long as you get rid of the glass desk. "Do you think the guys could show up and do the show in their sweat pants?" Gaillard said. "Of course not. They're dudes and they have to have their makeup done, too." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 Daniel, if I understand you correctly you have decided to switch your viewing habits from an all white Anglo-Saxon male intellectual analysis of the games to a gender inclusive politically correct version not because of an ethical and moral persuasion about the lofty goals of equality leading to an enlightened humanity but due to secret fantasies of Jody Vance whipping you while dressed in thigh high leather boots. Sounds like my kind of logic![] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grizzly Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 From Hazel Mae's bio: Most Embarrassing Moment on TV: When I called the “Gold Cup” soccer tournament the “Gold Club” Thread on Jennifer Hedges under the title: Jennifer Hedger: Sexy or Transvestite? at http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/archive/index.php/t-74691.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daniel Posted January 2, 2005 Author Share Posted January 2, 2005 quote:Originally posted by Grizzly Daniel, if I understand you correctly you have decided to switch your viewing habits from an all white Anglo-Saxon male intellectual analysis of the games to a gender inclusive politically correct version not because of an ethical and moral persuasion about the lofty goals of equality leading to an enlightened humanity but due to secret fantasies of Jody Vance whipping you while dressed in thigh high leather boots. Sounds like my kind of logic![] As long as she keeps the glasses on... [}] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachesl Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 If ya squint your eyes just the right way.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Massive Attack Posted January 2, 2005 Share Posted January 2, 2005 It's amazing what you can do with make-up and photoshop. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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