BBC reply re Hickstead Derby

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SJFAN

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My message to BBC Sport on 17 June:
I was dismayed to learn that you will not be showing the Hickstead Derby this year. This is another "nail in the coffin" of your coverage of equestrian sport. My life-long interest in show jumping was largely fostered by your regular broadcasts of major national and international events. The same is true of many enthusiasts. It is so sad that the only show jumping you will be showing this year is Olympia, and I hope, the World Championship in Kentucky.
I am only too aware that the number of top quality competitors in the Derby has declined in recent years, but it is still a major event in the calendar. Why do you provide more coverage of eventing than of show jumping? I hasten to add that I don't want you to reduce your coverage of eventing.

Today I received this reply: Thank you for your email.

We appreciate your comments and understand your concerns, however as a public service broadcaster it is not in our remit to provide equal coverage of all events, but rather to reflect the national public interest.

Of course, we would like to cover many more sports like show jumping in much greater depth, but we simply don't have the resources available to do so. Having said that, we are constantly reviewing how best to spread our coverage, but we must always hold our commitment to use the majority of our limited resources on the sports which show the highest level of national interest.

I hope this helps.

Kind Regards,
BBC Sport Interactive
 
They've had the scope and resources to cover the Hickstead Derby for the last numerous years so why not this year (or next year?)

Although think it's the first time in a long time that it clashes with both Wimbledon and the World Cup.
 
Megan2006 said:
"Hotter Than My Daughter" isn't exactly in the national interest and yet the BBC has the resources to produce that tripe.
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yes I aggree Its high time the license fee was used for public service broadcasting and not to compete with the comercial stations in a race to the bottom.....
 
teapot said:
They've had the scope and resources to cover the Hickstead Derby for the last numerous years so why not this year (or next year?)

Although think it's the first time in a long time that it clashes with both Wimbledon and the World Cup.
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I hope it is simply a case of too many events to cover at one time-it owuld be great shame if the derby was gone form the BBC for good.
I have got Sky sports for a month to watch it and while I have to say the extra coverage looks to be good,it should not be the only way to watch top class jumping.
 
there is an announcement in NL that H&H will be providing a live written commentary as they did for Badmintom etc. Poor substitute I know but will keep those of us who dont have Sky Tv upto date with whats going on. Its also on FEI TV which has a small charge,about £10 for a month:D:D
 
It is ridiculous. We dropped the sports channels a while ago but have just added them back on. Is an extra £10 a month and you need to give a months notice to cancel. I think RIHS is also on sky sports so will wait a week then give a months notice. At least all of it is being shown in HD. I don't mind paying for sky but I do mind paying for TV licence seeing as the network signal here is rubbish and I only watch network via sky. We don't get cable here as we live in caves apparently. Or broadband from anyone but BT for that matter!
You would think that they (BBC) would still broadcast the main SJ events. I do wonder if they still broadcast the main eventing due to the 'royal' entry?? That and the danger element. Let's face it the non horsey types (and many non horsey) watch for the falls, and there's generally more XC than there is SJ. Unpleasant as it is, it is a fact.
 
Perhaps horse and county /rural TV are missing a trick here maybe its time they got their
cameras on the road a bit more ??? ATM it's more like repeat tv!!!!
 
suzysparkle said:
.I do mind paying for TV licence seeing as the network signal here is rubbish and I only watch network via sky. We don't get cable here as we live in caves apparently. Or broadband from anyone but BT for that matter!
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Well I live just outside the M25. We don't have cable, and we only have a poor broadband connection from BT so you are not alone.

Gutted about the Derby considering all the other rubbish they show.

They could divert some of their resources from football - nobody would ever notice considering the amount shown.
 
Its disappointing but I think the response is clearly a bog standard reply and I would have more sympathy for them if they weren't sending the world and his wife to the World Cup soccer at an astronomical cost.

I still do think the horse world has brought a lot of this on themselves though in that very few of the horsey owning population actually watch televised competition, and for those that do there are alternative viewing option ie Sky,FEitv etc etc.And when events have been shown there has been scathing reviews from us ie Hickstead last year citing dreadful poor quality commentary in the main and poor camera angles ( from what I remember ).

Use it or lose it as they say.
 
I have found it interesting that since I have had a horse I watch these things live much less..... mostly because at the weekend I am quite likely to be out a competition with my horse/at the yard/riding. hence it is recorded for later.

As many other horse people would be in the same situ I have often wondered if that has a direct effect of viewing figures.
 
Yes they do take into account the recorded programmes when counting up viewing figures. I should think a lot of people record things these days!

I have to say I'm a bit disappointed with the BBC, I know they are covering both Wimbledon & the World Cup so resources must be stretched but they could easily have bought the Sky coverage [as I'm pretty sure they use footage from the French broadcasters during the Arc meeting]. At least then they could have offered a highlights show!

On a more positive note, I have been absolutely thrilled with Sky's coverage of Hickstead over the last few days and feel very lucky that we have SkySportsHD. It's a shame that Hickstead has been bumped to a premium service but at least the coverage has been worth it: brilliant camerawork [stunning HD shots], insightful commentary & features, very slick production. Well done Sky!
 
If you could pay a one off fee to view hickstead I would be so bad.

We have sky but not sky sports and quite nearly all the other sports they show I have absolutely no interest in, so I am not going to pay 10 per month extra just for hickstead, and have all the bother of cancelling immediatly I pay the fee, if I could pay a one off fee to view hickstead only ( even £10 ) I would do it.

Though the post complaining we do get eventing televised , yes we do and no I do not think zara has anything to do with the fact, however we need to encourage the bbc to show any equestrian sport prefarably all, but definatly not bicker about which ones!
All is to be encouraged!
 
Recorded the SJ on sky but had to fast forward 45 mins before any SJing happened. Small amount of scurry driving and then endless drivelly interviews. Longs for the old days of Dorian Williams and Raymond Brooks Ward.
 
Ooo scurry! Cool

I've sent an email to h&c TV to ask them if they'll get to coverage at a later date. I do hope so! I have sky too but not sports. Have been looking all around the sky player hoping I could pay just to watch it but nope... :(
 
lannerch said:
Though the post complaining we do get eventing televised , yes we do and no I do not think zara has anything to do with the fact, however we need to encourage the bbc to show any equestrian sport prefarably all, but definatly not bicker about which ones!
All is to be encouraged!
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I guess that was in reply to my post. I wasn't complaining at all about eventing being televised!! I watched the whole 6hrs of Badminton on the red button. My comment re Royal entry was simply saying a possible reason for them broadcasting more eventing than showjumping. She does get more interest from the press as we know. Was just a thought I'd had.

I definately wasn't bickering and I'm sorry you feel I was.
 
I got this reply from H&C tv


Dear Catherine,

Thank you for writing to Horse & Country TV.

Sky Sports have the exclusive rights to show programming from Hickstead this year and we were therefore unfortunately unable to secure any rights to bring our viewers any programming from Hickstead 2010.

Please feel free to write to Sky Sports, if you'd like to, to tell them that you'd like to be able to see this on other channels too.

Best regards,

H&C TV Team


Infers that they tried to get it! lol Maybe we should all harass sky sports! lol
 
Andalusianlover said:
Does the national public interest really want to watch Argentina v Mexico etc etc etc, I for one dont.
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LOL I think i'm even less inclined to watch England v anyone at the moment.

I can't get sky as I live in the sticks and I wouldn't bother either cos of the cost for a few snippets of equestrian sport.
 
Andalusianlover said:
Does the national public interest really want to watch Argentina v Mexico etc etc etc, I for one dont.
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The response doesn't make it clear, but quite possibly Auntie were simply outbid for the rights, rather than not being interested in covering Hickstead - and they may be unable or unwilling to say so. To me, the late announcement re: no coverage suggests this is quite possibly the case. So it might be more productive for people to write to Hickstead and ask on what basis the rights were awarded to Sky!

It's been said before, but one major problem with the use of the licence fee these days is the culture of chasing ratings, not quality or public service, perhaps due to (justifiable) paranoia about government hostility to the BBC, perhaps simply due to decision makers within the organisation who come from a commercial background. This isn't to say the BBC has a duty to be boring, but rather that, self-evidently, as a public broadcaster, it isn't obliged to chase audience share in every slot of the schedule to generate ad revenue. It should be trying to serve the public as a whole, which will mean that some of the time it should end up covering things of interest to only a small proportion of the fee payers.

Whatever the reason, as a result, we have our licence fee used for coverage of sports and events which generate massive commercial revenues and don't need the public subsidy. Quite apart from the sheer cost to the fee payers of securing rights, there's no meaningful public service justification for the Beeb putting on coverage of events which will have no trouble securing ample coverage from other terrestrial broadcasters (C4, ITV, C5 etc). The football is a classic example, but the same could be said of golf, tennis, or Glastonbury.
 
See from one of the replies above Sky showed some of the celebrity scurry - did they show the lap of honour for the ex racehorses as that was immediately before the scurry?

Going back to the original post, show jumping seems to be generally dropping out of media coverage. I know it was a very busy sport weekend with world cup, tennis, the grand prix (thankfully back on BBC without the advert breaks) but in the Telegraph sports section today a very small write up on the derby with no picture when once upon a time the Telegraph was big on show jumping.
 
Sky sports did a bloody fantastic job and I told them so :)

Sod the BBC.

I do wonder whether this would have happened this year had the World Cup not been on.... hmmmm....
 
humblepie said:
See from one of the replies above Sky showed some of the celebrity scurry - did they show the lap of honour for the ex racehorses as that was immediately before the scurry?

Going back to the original post, show jumping seems to be generally dropping out of media coverage. I know it was a very busy sport weekend with world cup, tennis, the grand prix (thankfully back on BBC without the advert breaks) but in the Telegraph sports section today a very small write up on the derby with no picture when once upon a time the Telegraph was big on show jumping.
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I saw that but inside they had a big article on all the major sports fixtures over the weekend and Hickstead didn't even get a mention. It seems like with wimbledon, soccer, motor racing SJing didn't feature at all on their radar despite being a big event in our calender :(
 
I wrote to the BBC a few years back about some event or other... Badminton, I think, and was given almost a carbon copy of your reply.

It really angers me, because the whole point of paying a licence fee is to ensure that the BBC can offer top quality entertainment / coverage without having to compete with the others. There was a time when the BBC would have seen it as their remit to ensure good quality, albeit slightly niche viewing, rather than pandering to the masses.

I've actually been thinking about not paying my tv licence because of this - not just on equestrian sports, but across a whole range of issues. I think their drama production has dropped considerably too, and their news coverage is horribly biased. Watching Question Time makes me want to throw the telly out the window. I wouldn't pay for sky sports or films if i didn't rate their output, so i don't see why I should pay for the BBC's if I don't rate theirs.
 
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