TV Coverage (again)

[Talbot]

Beeb has just spent more than 2 hrs on someone fwho was expected to do well but has failed even to finish, (sympathies to Paula Radcliffe) but contrast this with the coverage (on analogue) of our sailing heroes - words fail me.

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[Sunnyseeker]

And you have to ask, does the marathon = good television its not really a spectator sport.
After the coverage this week (especially sailing) I've decided its time to ditch the telly, well the aerial, I may still watch the odd DVD but I have no need for a TV licence any more.

<hr width=100% size=1>Oh ye who have your eyeballs vexed and tired feast them upon the wideness of the sea

 

[BlueSkyNick]

There was several minutes of coverage and interviews with the medal winners on the late night highlights show on Saturday - if you didn't mind sitting up until about 1am! (Suzie Perry makes it worth the wait)

Also, on Radio Five Live there was a fair amount of discussion during the day, but as the commentator said herself - they can't see what is actually happening on the water so live coverage is virtually impossible.

(It is also virtually impossible to receive Radio Five in darkest Hampshire, especially in the car)


<hr width=100% size=1>It's frustrating when you know all the answers, but nobody bothers to ask you the questions.

 

[Chris_Robb]

Last night one commentator said to days marathon would be Britains first 'real medal of the games. so whats wrong with rowing -sailing- swimming......


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[BustinAround]

Why on earth don't they hire a RIB and get the hell out there then?!?!?
And why can't they get a commentator who has actually sailed before??

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[AlexL]

It appears that all the lottety millionaire glory boys and girls of track and field are going to win precisely zero medals (apart from the well earned bronze in the pentathlon) and our cylcing, rowing, sailing, archery, badminton etc keep going from strength to strength. It would be very interesting if the TV coverage was related to the success of the athletes!

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[halcyon]

Afraid it's a digital thing, BBC1 multiscreen has had around 1 or 2 hours a day sailing, interviews as they came ashore, in fact first class coverage. I have had to suffer all the 3 day event, swimmimg, cycling, shooting, archery, tennis,badmington, you name it SHMBO has had it, wake up to sailing, go to bed to the days highlites,
Oh well only another week ?


Brian


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[alldownwind]

I thought the commentator (Richard Simmonds) was a sailor but there's no doubt that he's no good at commentating! I tried watching one afternoon when they showed the Lasers live. He was evidently sitting ashore somewhere watching the same TV picture, they hadn't given him a RIB, and it was as dull as ditchwater. What didn't help was that he kept explaing what was happening for the benefit of non-sailing viewers. But it was so awful I can't imagine there were any! I really thought I could do better myself.

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[longjohnsilver]

Suzie (the bimbo) Perry

What a vacuous, pouting, self centred bimbo who knows nothing about sailing. She should stick to the glamour of superbikes.

Why oh why can't the BBC get some decent commentators for the so called minor sports, not over rated self loving publicists.

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[janie]

Keep complaining

I really feel that we can't EVER expect anything better if we don't all complain. However, Channel 4 have had a lot of sailing on recently, including Pete Goss last night.

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[Jeremy_W]

I thought Paul Goodison gave a very dignified interview to the bimbo this afternoon.

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[dralex]

Explnation of sailing and how the rules work is crucial to gaining more viewers and support for future events and hence more coverage. I do not object to that at all as sailing is potentially pretty dull to watch for lay people IMO.

<hr width=100% size=1>Life's too short- do it now./forums/images/icons/wink.gif

 

[ubuysa]

Yes, I agree. I think there are a several reasons why sailing gets less coverage than, say, track and field events:

1. You ned to know the rules to fully appreciate a sailing race. If you don't (and I don't) then it's just a bunch of people sailing, and worse than that, they don't seem to be moving very fast or doing very much (appologies to all those now fuming, I'm not a racing sailor).

2. Sailing races are long, and the vast majority of the viewing public has a short attention span. They just can't get into something that they don't understand and that happens (relatively) slowly.

3. Cost. I've no idea how the BBC is charged for the coverage it receives, but sailing races require helicopter cameras and they must be expensive to keep in the air, so I'd expect the cost of that coverage to be high. Most other sports would be much cheaper to cover, even the marathon requied only a truck full of media and half a dozen motorbike cameras.

Just my opinoin.......Tony C.

<hr width=100% size=1>There are 10 kinds of people, those who understand binary and those who don't.

 

[jimi]

Totally agree, personallly I find two of my main leisure activities, sailing & rockclimbing, marginally less interesting than watching paint dry as spectator sports.

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[BustinAround]

But then who understands the rules for synchronised diving? It looked to me like the judges were just making up scores.

The basic principles are very simple to understand from a spectator's point of view, and even the more advanced things should not be out of reach for most people to understand.

As for it being slow, yes, on light wind days its very very boring, but have you ever seen a 49er, or even a 470 in a force 4? They're pretty quick I tells ya!

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[alldownwind]

I don't disagree about the need to throw in some stuff to help non-sailors understand the action. (BTW I notice other sports like gymnastics have specialist commentators throwing in all sorts of technical terms, and they never explain those either). But there's got to be a balance in how it's done, and I (and, I would expect, others) can find it very irritating, especially if the same rule or situation is eplained every few minutes.
But the Beeb's commentator is just not the right man for the job, IMHO. Watching the (helicopter) coverage I felt that it could have been made to be exciting, but he just didn't, wasn't even trying either. Old Bob Fisher used to be good at this, I guess he's moved on.
Like a lot of other people I just find this all so frustrating.....

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[Oldhand]

Who was the commentator? He /she deserves a sacking campaign.

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[Chris_Robb]

don't know - just remember thinking it very strange.

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[alldownwind]

I take back some of what I've said....right now (1140 BST) the Tornado race is on BBCi, the wind's up, gripping stuff, GBR are in 3rd, and the commentary's not bad......

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[Romeo]

Re: Suzie (the bimbo) Perry

"Why oh why can't the BBC get some decent commentators for the so called minor sports, not over rated self loving publicists"

I suspect because the coverage of minority sports is so poor for the other 3 Years and 50 weeks of any olympic cycle. People who have an apptitude for commentating on cycling, sailing or diving don't get much of a chance to practice on the BBC, although I would have thought it would be better to try to bring in people who work for specialist independent production companies rather than draft in folk from BBC regions, in the stylee of woeful general election coverage when every junior hack has their 2 minutes of national fame. So the question is not why is commentating at teh olympics poor, the question should be why does the BBC not do more to cover minority sports at which Britain has success throughout the year.

The quality of Steve Ryder stands out to me. When he is put in any task, such as the 4- rowing, you can sit back and see how it should be done. Rather than commentators from a minority sport perhaps at this stage you just need people who are excellent at the job of commentating and reporting and willing to swat up on the subject matter. perhaps the huge resourse that has ben put into football could have been spread about a bit for these 2 weeks.

Incidentally I don't think the BBC would be allowed to have a RIB zooming about: seems that all spectators and commentators are kept at a distance, either for security reasons or to prevent interference with the racing. The Yngling coverage was more interesting as they had cameras on the boats. Perhaps cameras could be fitted to the racing marks too.

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