SPN puts

Micronesians on the map

By Giff Johnson

Koror, Palau - The live broadcasts from the Micronesian Games by SPN, Nauru’s newly launched sports television station,

provided unprecedented exposure to

island athletes used to competing before audiences limited to a couple of hundred people in the bleachers.

At the fourth Micro Games in Palau, they were playing before a television audience estimated in excess of eight million people in the Asia-Pacific

region.

From the first games of the day in the early morning hours until the final runner crossed the finish line at 10 p.m. in the evening, SPN crews were on hand, broad casting live. For the nine day Micro Game event, SPN virtually uprooted its entire Nauru-based studio and shipped it to Koror, the capital of Palau. It left only its

homebase broadcasting dish and a skeleton staff and minimal equipment back in Nauru, flying in tons of filming, broadcast equipment and staff.

Using the just-opened Outrigger Palasia Hotel in Koror as its editing and broadcasting base, SPN crews gave an unparal leled view of the games to people in the region. SPN broadcast 10-12 hours of sports daily from Palau, according to SPN officials.

It wasn’t only off-island viewers who benefited from SPN’s live coverage.

“Older people in the villages (in Palau) were very happy to have SPN here because they could watch the games without com ing into Koror,” said Baklai Temengil, the executive director of the Micronesian Games Organizing Committee.

Micronesian Games Council chairman Bill Sakovitch, who is based in Saipan, said that SPN’s involvement gave this fourth Micronesian Games a tremendous boost.

He was particularly happy with the exposure SPN provided for Micronesian athletes to viewing audiences in the South Pacific a people who otherwise wouldn’t normally have an opportunity to see com petitions helds north of the equator.

Sakovitch sees SPN filling a much needed void in connecting athletes and spectators in a region separated by vast stretches of ocean. ■