Television (TV) has long been considered as one of the most important media for many people due to its notorious easy access (Selby & Cowdery, 1995, p. 1). The medium offers an enormous source of different genres that almost everyone could identify himself/herself with (a favourite one) (Lury, 2005, p. 6). Among these genres, TV sport is considered as a "major" category in terms of audience size (Dayan & Katz, 1992). In New Zealand, TV sport broadcast has developed to be a very successful industry due to the country's passion for sports. Among multiple programmes, there are two that stand out and are considered to be New Zealand's most favourite sport shows: The Crowd Goes Wild from PRIME (owned by SKY TV) and Code from Maori Television (owned by the government) (Sky TV, 2011). Although the two share some similarities in the presentations, each still manage to deliver its own uniqueness in terms of style and contents. The essay will compare and contrast The Crowd Goes Wild to Code through their specific episodes aired on 10th of July 2014. It will firstly identify each program's target audiences, and then there will be a detailed analysis defining how their style and contents appeal to these specific publics.
The Crowd Goes Wild is a famous evening sport entertainment show, airs for half an hour at 7 pm weekdays on New Zealand nationwide free-to-air TV channel- RPIME TV (Prime TV, 2006). It is a "locally made" show, first aired on Monday 26th of June 2006 and hosted by two main presenters: Andrew Mulligan and Mark Richardson. The episode aired on 10th July provided sport news in New Zealand and around the world. Notable events at the time (July) like the Football World Cup 2014, Holden State of Origins 2014, Le Tour de France etc. were updated among with special stories from Japan and Johannesburg. .
The other TV show- Code is considered to be a "flagship" sports entertainment program of Maori Television.