That seems to be the message of CFL fans after the broadcast of a few announcer-less CFL games.
An excerpt from a Globe and Mail column by William Houston:
The CBC's no-audio football telecasts have been producing unusually large audiences. What's more, the feedback has been favourable.
Despite the Canadian Football League's criticism of the product, viewers seem to enjoy hearing stadium sounds that convey the sense of being there. They don't mind the absence of play-by-play announcers.
Reader Bob Stoddart's e-mail on Tuesday reflects the response we've received. "To a person, we did not miss the vacuous, repetitive, redundant and whiney talk from announcers and analysts."
Does this mean Mark Lee and Chris Walby should be using their time off during the CBC lockout to find another job? No, but several people in sports television believe viewers are sending a message.
The lesson seems to be: There's too much talk on game broadcasts and it is unnecessary.
King Kauffman also wrote about this phenomenon for Salon on Wednesday (thanks PD!):
I can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this. I just wish it hadn't taken a nasty labor battle and a lockout to prove that people don't tune into games because of announcers, they tune into games to watch the games.
Now if the TV networks would only learn to show us the freaking games, to tone down the "interesting" camera angles and have the announcers and sideline reporters pipe down their incessant prattling once in a while, we'd really have something.
CFL telecasts average 408,000 viewers. The first no-announcers game, between the Toronto Argonauts and the Edmonton Eskimos on Aug. 20, drew 449,000. So, OK, novelty. People were curious.
This Saturday the B.C. Lions beat the Saskatchewan Roughriders. The audience: 580,000. That wasn't just the biggest audience of the season, it was the biggest by a ton. The most-watched game this year had been the season opener between the Lions and the Argos, with an audience of 492,000. The Lions-Roughriders game, sans commentary, beat it in the ratings by almost 18 percent.
And people didn't just tune in. They stayed tuned in. And more people joined them. By the fourth quarter of the Lions' 19-15 win Saturday, the audience had swelled to 746,000.
You don't watch a game for three hours because you're curious to hear what it sounds like. You watch because you're interested and involved in the game.
In defence of broadcasters, good ones help get you into the game. At their best, it's like watching a game with a knowledgeable, enthusiastic, witty friend. And at their worst? Well, find the antonyms for those words. :)
As I said in an comments exchange with PD, if future TV technology allows for an option with no announcers and just enhanced stadium sound, it would be interesting to see which option would win.