A while back I was going through some old stories I had kept from the newspaper. I came across a wonderful piece of advice for TV play-by-play broadcasters from Jim Nantz. It is from John Maffei’s column in the February 1, 2013, edition of U-T San Diego.
Nantz said the late Dick Enberg – longtime network announcer and former Padres TV voice – taught him a valuable lesson.
“Dick and Merlin Olson were calling the Super Bowl in 1983,” Nantz said. “The entire first quarter, they had feedback in their headsets. So they talked in short sentences. After the game, Dick said people came up to him and said he had never been better. Dick told me he used that as a learning tool. He learned less is better.”
[Tweet “On radio PBP, describe the pictures. On TV, provide captions to the pictures.”]Remember that in radio, you are describing the pictures — creating images on a blank canvas.
In TV, you are simply providing captions to the pictures.
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Wow! This is really interesting advice. I’ll try this out next time!