Jubilee flotilla coverage - why did the BBC get it so wrong

Phoenix of Hamble said:
I could even have put up with the inane and shallow celebrities, but the boats seemed to be a bit of a side show for the BBC.... It was after all a 'Thames Pageant'....
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And you don't even need mobile cameras to do it. A shore-based camera holds a shot on a boat. Well informed presenter says "ah, yes, this is a Scottish Coastal Rowing project skiff, in particular the xxx. It's part of a relatively new project around the Scottish coast, where teams build their own boats and then come together to race them....etc etc."

Not exactly rocket science. You know who's turning up. You can ask each boat for some interesting stuff to have in your big book of facts you can call on as you broadcast. Similar-ish to the sort of thing they do for the London Marathon.
 
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Keen_Ed said:
And you don't even need mobile cameras to do it. A shore-based camera holds a shot on a boat. Well informed presenter says "ah, yes, this is a Scottish Coastal Rowing project skiff, in particular the xxx. It's part of a relatively new project around the Scottish coast, where teams build their own boats and then come together to race them....etc etc."

Not exactly rocket science. You know who's turning up. You can ask each boat for some interesting stuff to have in your big book of facts you can call on as you broadcast. Similar-ish to the sort of thing they do for the London Marathon.
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I agree about the commentary info, but as for the shots much of the london marathon course you wouldn't seen if it wasn't for the bikes linked by helicopters.

It is true though that every boat has to go through a fixed point and you can talk about them then.

So I do agree with you........
 
There's a time lapse video on the BBC website from a fixed camera that show ALL the boats sailing by, in order.

I would have been happy to have just watched that one camera position in real time, with a bit of sensible commentary about each of the boats passing. Sure they can't tell you about all the boats individually, there would not be time, but they could have picked out the most interesting from each group.

It was definitely meant to be "entertainment" and they were not at all interested in telling you anything about the boats, which for a boating pageant, is a BIG FAIL.

As other say, it would be like covering a F1 race, while chattering on about anything but F1, and cutting to completely unrelated stuff.

An re the concert, oh how inconvenient it was that it over ran. The credits running up the screen over the fireworks, and cut to finish on the last bang, they just couldn't wait to finish the program. A completely undignified end to it.

BBC you should be ashamed. Someone needs to be reprimanded over this.
 
Of course they can tell you about EVERY boat, it's easy.

They were all invited months in advance, it doesn't take a genius to ask each participant to supply a piccy & write a para or three about their craft & why it is special & then you have a "Guidebook" that can be sold at a fiver a throw to the public & used by the "reporters" to provide suitable commentary.

It's what they did for the parade of sail for the Tall Ships in Liverpool. I still have my souvenir guidebook & it is a great sumarry of most of the world's surviving tall ships.

They are just a bloody useless gang of plonkers. :mad:
 
Searush said:
Of course they can tell you about EVERY boat, it's easy.

They were all invited months in advance, it doesn't take a genius to ask each participant to supply a piccy & write a para or three about their craft & why it is special
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He was talking about the time it would take as the boats went past a fixed point, not a lack of information.

Pete
 
There was a lot of information on the Pageant website in advance, complete with pictures of most of the boats, yet the BBC said practically nothing about any of them. Most of the boats in the so-called Royal Squadron were neither seen nor mentioned, and at one time the commentator mis-identified a very small Thames slipper launch as a Dunkirk Little Ship... Then as others have said, there was nothing on the Avenue of Sail, one dozy commentator kept saying the boats were going up the river and another called the Queen Her Royal Highness... The whole coverage was a shambles.
 
Just a thought. Since the BBC plainly, including Tom Cunliffe, failed to do their homework, can they not be put into detention and made to do it all again with no pay? The video of the pageant still exists. Edit out the useless frivolous bits and make Baker, Rainworth, Cunliffe and Co. learn up about the most significant boats, commentate as Baxter or Dimbleby would have done and reissue as an apology to the public as a free DVD.
(Yes I was a schoolteacher in my former life!)
 
I don't regard Tom Cunliffe as a demi-god, but think he comes across as a decent, knowledgeable bloke; I don't think he was shown lacking, he just wasn't used enough / couldn't get a sensible word in !

The comment re. semaphore was spot on, it's only ever really been an old RN pastime, pity he didn't get to add that.
 
Seajet said:
I don't regard Tom Cunliffe as a demi-god, but think he comes across as a decent, knowledgeable bloke; I don't think he was shown lacking, he just wasn't used enough / couldn't get a sensible word in !

The comment re. semaphore was spot on, it's only ever really been an old RN pastime, pity he didn't get to add that.
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I had to learn it in the Scouts in the 50's! Picked out 2 "P's" so I think Happy was one of the words. Difficult to read because the flags were going beneath a wall and the signallers were too close together. Normally you would only have one, not a tribe.
 
I was sailing that day but in the evening my wife called me from Switzerland on Skype to enthuse about the German ARD, all-day coverage of the event, saying how I should have stayed in harbour to have watched (fat chance!).

Now my wife does know something about boats and was very impressed by the coverage. It seems the ARD commentators were Hamburg-based maritime experts who spent the bulk of the transmission time explaining all about the boats. So someone got it right.
 
Wonder what percentage of the viewers were 'boat' people? Dear ol' Beeb tried to cater for the masses, and got it hopelessly wrong, in my jaded opinion. The boats weren't all boringly mundane jelly mold bling-boats, there were many with a fascinating history that deserved to be told. There were also many boats with a cause, boats from charities, that also deserved a minute of fame. A historical moment that was completely wasted on the BBC.
 
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Well, we stode/sat on the Chelsea bridge and watched the procession and had a wonderful commentary from an informed fellow watcher who just read from the official guidebook, as to what was coming past, with appropriate comments from those of us around us who knew some of the boats/people and were just yards away from the BBC camera operator. I am sure if they turned their mikes up they could have heard the unofficial commentary back in the control room. Perhaps that is the problem. Control room.
Again we missed the bigger ships down the river as the crowds around the tube stations were horrendous, but we would have gone on down despite the inclement weather.
Appalled at the taped re run on our return, so switched off and went out for a meal instead.
Someone in the know should link the forum comments to the BBC.

Hurrumph.

PS we down loaded and printed out the boat details from the official website before the event and took them with us, and although it was not easy in the wind, it certainly added to the experience. BUT-- if we could do it, why not the BBC?
 
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This got a mention on the Today Programme (BBC R4). Apparently the production team from "The One Show" were in charge; says it all!
 
Gorf said:
This got a mention on the Today Programme (BBC R4). Apparently the production team from "The One Show" were in charge; says it all!
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The producer of the event, Ben Weston, summed up their approach nicely I thought..

In defending the editorial decisions he said he had a choice either to just 'point and shoot' the event or 'try and bring it to life..."


The arrogance of that statement is simply astounding... Thinking that we would rather watch his dog and bone show than the actual event.
 
Boomshanka said:
I don't think Grace Dent, writing in the Independent, liked it either [clicky]
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Ha Ha, well thats us told:

"The main problem with the BBC's coverage, and Sky's and CNN's, too, was that to relish the flotilla from the comfort of one's home rested on one being someone who really LOVES boats. I'm certain every single man-jack of that demographic was on the Thames already with the rest of their Rotary Club, chasing the Queen in 999 smaller, crappier, even-less-televisually-interesting boats, through choppy, effluent-laden, grey waters, chomping back picnic-basket pork fancies. Boats are quite a niche interest. One isn't unpatriotic for finding them bloody tedious."

Mind if everyone else is going to find it tedious anyway, it must be best just to tailor the coverage to those who don't?
 
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