\u201cWe\u2019re investing in building the capability and confidence of our Sky Sport talent in using te reo in our English language broadcasts,\u201d she told the Herald.<\/p>\n
The network has also invested in research to understand audience perception of te reo M\u0101ori commentaries.<\/p>\n
Sky TV’s Head of M\u0101ori Strategy Kirsten Te Wao-Edmonds said the broadcaster has a mission to normalise te reo M\u0101ori in mainstream sports broadcasting.<\/p>\n
\u201cSky Sport is one of the areas we have focused on early.\u201d<\/p>\n
Longtime rugby commentator Tony Johnson told the Herald he makes sure he knows how to pronounce names and places correctly to honour the many M\u0101ori and Pasifika friends and colleagues who have had an impact on his life.<\/p>\n
Codie Taylor of New Zealand leads the New Zealand All Blacks Haka;
\nPhoto: Marty Melville \/ Photosport<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a First XV coach in Picton, Monte Ohia, who instilled in me that names have deep meaning and if you don\u2019t pronounce them properly, you don\u2019t give them their true meaning and I always wanted to do the right thing by him,\u201d said Johnson, who has called between 40 and 50 matches per year over the past 20 years.<\/p>\n
It is also about respecting the te reo – the language of this country<\/p>\n
Tony Johnson<\/p>\n
\u201cThere have been a lot of M\u0101ori and Pasifika people through my career who I have gotten close to and part of my kaupapa is to do the right thing by them as well.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is also about respecting te reo – the language of this country.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have had really good sessions and been encouraged to use more te reo with different phrases and words and it has been embraced by all of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Johnson said, like the haka, te reo is \u201cunique to Aotearoa\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cSame with mana, everyone knows its meaning because it has been part of everyday usage.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said his job \u201cis a privilege but with privilege comes responsibility. It is something I take pretty seriously,\u201d Johnson said.<\/p>\n
Early signs are good for Sky\u2019s bilingual te reo strategy.<\/p>\n
The Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup is broadcast in English and te reo M\u0101ori and the te reo commentary viewership numbers have surpassed the target of 75,000 viewers for the entire tournament – yet the Black Ferns are still to play their semis and possible final.<\/p>\n
Sky Sports te reo M\u0101ori commentator Hemena Waaka.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur te reo coverage of the 2023 Men\u2019s Rugby World Cup reached 72,000 viewers on linear TV, across seven All Blacks Tests,\u201d Te Wao-Edmonds said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur te reo content at the current Women\u2019s Rugby World Cup has reached over 112,000 viewers in the first three Black Ferns tests, with te reo M\u0101ori Live, replays and highlights.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn FY25 te reo M\u0101ori coverage reached over 240,000 viewers across Sky Sport and Sky Open.\u201d<\/p>\n
Te Wao-Edmonds told the Herald that Sky is committed to both investing in te reo commentators, and empowering English-speaking talent to use te reo in their broadcasts.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a powerful tool for oratory,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Former All Black and Sky rugby commentator Justin Marshall.<\/p>\n
Specialist te reo speakers brought in by Sky to support its commentary teams have also talked about understanding the culture that accompanies the language.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we are not using te reo constantly, it\u2019s easy to forget and there\u2019s many of us guilty of that,\u201d Te Wao-Edmonds said.<\/p>\n
\u201cTe reo is not going to please everybody but we are clear that our responsibility as a Aotearoa media company means that te reo is important to us, tikanga is important to us and growing M\u0101ori leadership is important to us as a company.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we have seen and feedback from the teams is we want te reo on a regular basis and it\u2019s great to see our teams requesting and wanting more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sky rugby commentator and former All Black Jeff Wilson.<\/p>\n
Te Wao-Edmonds said critics of te reo were a minority.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe biggest challenge for non-reo speakers and for M\u0101ori speakers is fear of getting it wrong and during big games, you have a cast of millions who let you know if you get something wrong,\u201d she laughs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we have te reo and English commentaries side-by-side it provides options for our audiences.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have on-the-job te reo training for our commentators… not only [for] their mahi for Sky but… as we lean into our identity as a country it is important our presenters and commentators to have skill sets in their pockets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Te Wao-Edmonds said commentators work extremely hard on their pronunciation of M\u0101ori and English players\u2019 names – as mispronouncing names has been a main criticism aimed at sports commentators.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn M\u0101ori and Pasifika, they are tupuna (ancestral) names and we want to make sure we do them justice,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Joseph Los\u2019e is an award winning journalist and joined NZME in 2022 as the Kaupapa Maori Editor. Los\u2019e was chief reporter, news director at the Sunday News newspaper covering crime, justice and sport. He was also editor of the NZ Truth and before NZME worked for urban M\u0101ori organisation Wh\u0101nau Waipareira.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cWe\u2019re investing in building the capability and confidence of our Sky Sport talent in using te reo in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32346,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[68,192,13916,682,30726,130,2720,111,139,69,90,23125,8861,5815,213,8690,61,30727],"class_list":["post-32345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-air","tag-are","tag-asked","tag-being","tag-commentators","tag-more","tag-mori","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-reo","tag-sky","tag-speak","tag-sports","tag-te","tag-to","tag-trained"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}