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Despite the astronomic editorial failure of the team behind the SEA Games booklet (that's why you need editorial teams, people), despite a bus crash, and a frickin' case of food poisoning, the SEA Games has conquered the collective consciousness of the 11 countries participating in the events.


The pagentry and drama of the games has affected us all and with 404 events spread out across 38 sports over 17 days, the amount of content that has to be reported is a lot.


To tackle this problem, the nations have joined forces for the first time ever to cover as many events as possible. Teams of reporters from Malaysia, Brunei, Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand have converged at the Malaysian International Trade and Exhibition Centre


Lead broadcasters Astro Arena invited Rojak Daily over to MITEC to see this 'joint-venture' between the nations in action and what we found was quite a feat. Employing over 73 cameras and 538 staff working 16-hour days, 28 sports are covered live and are sent to a central hub called the Control Distribution Transmission here at MITEC. Then individual teams from countries pick which feeds to push to their respective channels.


Ahmad Khawari, Mohd. Isa the Managing Editor of Astro Arena says that this consortium of broadcasters in the region sharing coverage is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia.

"Because we use all the help from all our friends – broadcasters in the region – we've managed for the first time, to have the highest amount of sports covered, live," says Ahmad Khawari.


Since all sports run simultaneously, if a sport is not covered, Astro Arena reporters perform a post-match coverage which is also fed into the live coverage so that no sport gets left out. Each country can choose which sports they'd like to feature live through the CDT and this way, there is comprehensive but differentiated coverage of sports that is given to all participating nations.

For example, Malaysians love our badminton, but if a country like Thailand doesn't have a stake in the match, they might choose to air another sport like Muay Thai, for instance.


In tandem with this partnership is the sharing of knowledge that has happened between the French broadcasters who were brought in to manage the CDT. The introduction of the CDT allows the local sports coverage industry to gain some international exposure which helps Malaysia to grow.

If you're curious about what goes on in the room of a local broadcaster, we stepped into Astro Arena's broadcast centre to see where all the action happens.

Every single live feed comes here and editorial decisions are made every day and sports that are covered are decided here. Changes are also made here depending on our athletes' progression in the games.

This is also where graphics are updated (medals, etc.) and where highlight reels and replays are immediately cut.

Amidst the hullabaloo (yes, that's a real word) of mistaken flags, broadcastors in Southeast Asia at least are forming deeper bonds. With more sharing of knowledge and technology, who knows, maybe we'll be the ones sharing our sports coverage know-how to other nations in the future.

For constant up-to-date coverage of local sports in English and Malay, head over to www.stadiumastro.com.