PA Announcers at Championships (Threads Merged)

[eurodance2001]

This seems like a silly question but how are they selected? I ask because there are some really bad ones at US Championships that get to do it year aftet year! In particular, there's this really bad lady announcers whom after butchering names in San Jose, was at Four Continents at it again. She's the one whom was saying 'Caroline Zang'! Lol.. With a gratty nails on chalkboard kind of voice. I'm just curious how someone like her gets asked to keep announcing..

[Skate Talker]

Nepotism in the USFSA?

[RD]

The same lady announcer who referred to Cynthia Phaneuf as "Cynthine" or something?

[overedge]

I'm not excusing bad announcing, because it's really annoying. But it's probably really hard to find someone who can correctly pronounce names from many different ethnic origins *and* who is enough of a broadcasting professional to know how to sound good on the PA system *and* who (ideally) knows something about the sport they are announcing. That's a pretty tall order.

[Finnice]

I'm not excusing bad announcing, because it's really annoying. But it's probably really hard to find someone who can correctly pronounce names from many different ethnic origins *and* who is enough of a broadcasting professional to know how to sound good on the PA system *and* who (ideally) knows something about the sport they are announcing. That's a pretty tall order.

We Finns have one, the guy who announced the 2009 Europeans in Helsinki. He is fluent in several languages and checks all the names. He has been the best announcer I have ever listened.

[JasperBoy]

pjKwong is the best!

[FSWer]

Say,I've been wondering about that. When Announcers (I presume they get a list of Skaters) get ready to announce the names of Skaters in Competition...for Skaters with uncommon last names,or names that don't sound in any way like there spelled (for example Lynn Kriengkrairut and Logan Giulietti-Schmitt)...do they translate names like that out into the way they would be spelled if written out the way they sound? So it can be easy for them to read? Or do Announcers just learn how to pronounce those kind of names?

[Nikki Lee]

One of my jobs as a monitor at competitions is to give the correct pronunciation of a name to the judges. I get a request to clarify a name. I find that skater and ask how they want their name pronounced; I write down what the skater tells me phonetically and say it back to be sure I am correct. Then I take that information back to the judges.

[FSWer]

Say,I'm glad this thread was posted. As please see my related thread about announcers and unusual spelling Skaters names.

[Yazmeen]

My husband serves as an announcer for our club's competitions and exhibitions, and he always runs through the names and checks with someone about pronunciations of any complicated ones (and will write out the name for himself phonetically, or how it sounds). These are small events, though.

[FSWer]

One of my jobs as a monitor at competitions is to give the correct pronunciation of a name to the judges. I get a request to clarify a name. I find that skater and ask how they want their name pronounced; I write down what the skater tells me phonetically and say it back to be sure I am correct. Then I take that information back to the judges.

cool!!! BTW. before we go on...DO you know how to pronounce Kriengkrairut and Giulietti-Schmitt? BTW. who gives it to the Announcer?

[FSWer]

My husband serves as an announcer for our club's competitions and exhibitions, and he always runs through the names and checks with someone about pronunciations of any complicated ones (and will write out the name for himself phonetically, or how it sounds). These are small events, though.

Does phonetically mean how a word or name sounds?

[Yazmeen]

Exactly, FSWer. For example, our last name is Weiner, but it's pronounced with and "i" sound, so someone can write it out as WINE-er to remind themselves of the correct pronuciation.

[leafygreens]

cool!!! BTW. before we go on...DO you know how to pronounce Kriengkrairut and Giulietti-Schmitt? BTW. who gives it to the Announcer?

I think on TV they pronounced it - Kring-care-root and Ju-letti-Schmitt but if that's correct or not, I don't know.

[Debbie S]

In the U.S., announcers and music coordinators (they train and are certified in both areas) go through similar training as judges and accountants. I believe there is some sort of formal training run by USFS, then they shadow/apprentice at competitions, starting at the club level and progressing all the way up to National level. After receiving an appointment at each level (regional, sectional, etc), they start training for the next level. It can take years, depending on how much time someone has to put into it, to get a national appointment. I don't believe there is an international or world-level appointment - I think once they reach the national level, they are eligible to work int'l events that the U.S. hosts (SA, 4CC, Worlds...).

They are volunteers who got into skating either as a participant or fan and most are not professional broadcasters. Scripts for events are usually written ahead of time, and then I guess the skaters' names get placed in based on start order. It is hard to pronounce unfamiliar names, particularly those based on another language, and I think most announcers do a good job. But yeah, that announcer at 4CC (who I believe also worked Nats) was somewhat off - I can understand mispronouncing names, but there were times she called for the next warm-up group where there was another skater to go, or said the wrong name for the event. And given that they are handed a script, it was all quite bizarre.

[kwanfan1818]

Some of the pronunciations I heard from the announcers at Nice on the BOLD broadcasts* were pretty . There were some that were strictly French pronunciation, some that were a hybrid -- the male announcer did not skip the "h" in "Donohue", but pronounced the "hue" as "hoo", both of which made perfect sense, and some which didn't make linguistic sense to me, like "Po-gee" for Poje, which I thought would be easy for a French announcer.

The hardest must be the North American names, because often you can't tell how the family pronounces their own.

I never know what syllable to emphasize with Slavic names. I love the Hungarian (general) rule to accent the first syllable.

*Because PJ stopped talking long enough to hear them, something that can't be said for the CBC teams.

[victorskid]

PJ Kwong has been an announcer for many events within Canada as well as at many international events, including two summer Olympics, three winter Olympics, as well as World Cup Soccer, etc. Check out her bio here: http://pjkwong.com/?page_id=14

I'm sure she cringes as she hears some of the announcers in the arena as she's doing the BOLD coverage

[allezfred]

The best one in Nice was Showban 'eekin Cannedy. Me and C_T_T had a good over that one last night.

[Skittl1321]

The hardest must be the North American names, because often you can't tell how the family pronounces their own.

They sometimes don't know! I have cousins who say their last name differently, both insisting they are correct.


Announcers have a very tough job. I've done it a few times for local competitions- and I imagine there is a lot of pressure on the national ones! At the local competitions the announcer also has to work with the ref to keep things on schedule (at a recent one I took an hour break to compete, and when I got back I got "oh good! We got behind with the other woman.") I don't know if timing is as much the duty of a high level announcer though.

[kwanfan1818]

They sometimes don't know! I have cousins who say their last name differently, both insisting they are correct.

-- I had forgotten about that, because my family went for alternate, pronunciation-specific spellings.