Do you have any comments you'd like to pass on...

burtondog

burtondog

Well-Known Member
Joined
2 December 2002
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902
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SE London/Kent, UK and Devon
www.michellehudson.co.uk
.....to the BBC regarding their coverage of the Equestrian Olympics events ?

I'm one the participants of a market reseach / focus group the BBC asked to comment on their coverage of Beijing, specifically their digital coverage of the equestrian events.

I'm just putting the finishing touches to my video diaries and am running out of things to say, so if anyone has any comments they'd like to pass on to the BBC post them here and I'll do a segment about the HHO members and their views.

I'm supposed to do at least 60 mins of commentary but so far I've only managed about 45 mins plus I think I've repeated myself quite a bit !
 
I think the coverage on interactive was great. However, a couple of points to note were:

1. It would have been good if it could have been put on iplayer given that most folkies were at work when it was on and you can't record on interactive.

2. Commentators (particular Mr Tucker and Ms Loriston Clark) were verging on the boring side some times. This does nothing for improving the public appeal of the sport.

Otherwise, the coverage was fab!
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I thought the coverage of the SJ on interactive was fab. The coverage of the dressage on the internet was also fab. Can't comment on the eventing as I missed it ALL - I work 8am-6pm when I do a full day and cannot justify getting out of bed at stupid o'clock to watch TV. I was very disappointed to find out that you can't record interactive, and the iPlayer coverage was stingy.
I love listening to Jennie L-C and TBH it must be difficult to commentate on dressage, but I have to agree with scotsmare, I'm afraid she will do nothing to pull in new crowds. Mike Tucker just needs a kick up the backside... he says the most idiotic things sometimes, such as calling a stallion a "nice mare", saying Satchmo was playing up in the changes in the special, and speculating that Peppermill's stiffness may have been azoturia... half the time he hasn't a clue what he's saying (although he does make me laugh
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Overall it was far better than I expected, even though I missed a third of it and had to watch another third on the internet!
 
It would have been nice to have full coverage of the eventing on the TV at later times as well as on the computer. I was away on holiday at the time so couldn't watch it live and had no access to a computer. I found it really frustrating that when i was at the B&B in the evening I couldn't watch it on the red button because that only seems to show live sport
 
YES - we got one hour of dressage to music highlights on freeview and Mike Tucker rabbited non-stop, very loudly in his horrible whiny voice over the first half hour.

Whats the point of having music if you can't hear it? by all means introduce the competitor, tell us where they are in the placings etc, then SHUT UP and let us watch!!!!

sorry, I seem to have ranted a bit. but it really annoyed me at the time.
 
I thought it was fantastic. In the eventing, to see all of the dressage and cross country live and the vast majority of the show jumping live as well was much more than I expected. Yes, it did rely on you having digital but having it available online was was helpful to some of us digitally challenged people
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Thought Ian Stark was great and Mike Tucker was same as ever
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It would have been nice to see more of it on the main BBC channels but I do understand that juggling that many sports they can't show them all and there was a fair of coverage shown in the highlights. Thought J L-C was obviously very knowledgeable in the dressage but was not the most interesting commentator and was a little monotonous at times. I know that's possibly an unfair criticism but she wasn't as 'fun' as the eventing commentators.
 
I do have digital so managed to record the SJ eventing etc BUT I do think it would be nice if the BBC could have shown more of the equestrian stuff on the terrestrial channels even if they'd done it very late at night. It's always the same with the horse events though, they just get shoved to the side don't they! SOOO much swimming though (and I like swimming but even I was getting bored of it esp when we weren't in a fair few of the heats etc shown!)

Wonder how much (if any) of Burghley will be on......?!
 
I want to echo the comments about Tucker. A good commentator knows when to speak & when to shut up. Tucker has no idea about this & just prattles on with his inane gibberish. Additionally many of the comments he made were blatantly wrong & he rarely corrected these. Steven Hadley is so much better, he's a mine of information & really knows what he's talking about & is a pleasure to listen to..... but he knows when to sit quietly, unlike Tucker.
 
Slightly off topic but the synchronised swimming (a sport I know nothing about) had a superb commentator (from Canada I think and nothing to do with the BBC as such) who did a brilliant job of explaining what we were seeing, why it was good and doing it all without getting in the way of enjoying the performance with music, so perhaps the equestrian commentators could take a leaf out of her book?
 
But we won gold medals in the swimming! To be fair, swimming heats tend to be short and there are lots of different events that can be easily switched between. The BBC couldn't really have shown 4 solid hours of one sport and would people have been happy to see a few minutes of cross country only to have them then switch over to a different sport where something more exciting is happening?
 
Couple of points I would like to mention are:

1. Interactive coverage was good.
2. Modern pentathalon. Riding (especially men) was apalling and a lot of us HHOers were shocked at how the BBC normalised the bad treatment of the horses mouths by terrible riders. (loads of previous posts on this) Although I think commentary was better when Clare Balding took over.

thanks
 
[ QUOTE ]
YES - we got one hour of dressage to music highlights on freeview and Mike Tucker rabbited non-stop, very loudly in his horrible whiny voice over the first half hour.

Whats the point of having music if you can't hear it? by all means introduce the competitor, tell us where they are in the placings etc, then SHUT UP and let us watch!!!!

sorry, I seem to have ranted a bit. but it really annoyed me at the time.

[/ QUOTE ]


Yeah this did my head in big time
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I thought Ian Stark was fabulous!! Interesting and informative and I really liked his patrioism (is that a word?). You could hear him practically riding round with the British team, and praying for other nations to have poles down. Not strictly speaking unbiased but basically what we are all thinking!!
 
Red Button coveage was good for those wiht satellite dish

Horrifed by the joke made of the Men;s Pentathalon. Horses and riders were not up to it. And i wonder what happens to those horses now.
An issue for the organisers but BBC treated them as a joke.
 
Agree with the comment about the freestyle to music, they even made reference to the fact that they were talking over the music. It seemed that they were merely justifying their existance.
 
Unfortunately, due to my shifts I missed most of the coverage, but was really glad to be able to catch up on line
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Smashing coverage of the eventing. BBC got it just right, Ian Tucker could be the Murray Walker of the Equestrian world, a bit of a buffon, but worked really well with Ian Stark keeping him straight. Ian Stark was a natural, knowledgeable without being patronising or too dry. A great choice.

On the subject of dry. JLC during the dressage. Her commentary was too specialist. I knew what she was talking about, but I felt that fuller explanations of some of her comments would have helped the comprehension of less knowledgeable viewers. Her use of technical terms when describing some movements, coupled with her crusty accent I feel would have excluded many viewers. They need to find someone who knows their onions as well as JLC, but who can add some sparkle to the dressage. The amount of coverage was superb and I was delighted.

SJ - I was on hols and missed the lot.

Have to say, on the whole I barely watched anything but BBC for the 7 days I was around. Really pleased.
 
As someone that doesn't have freeview (we are in digital darkness down here!!) The coverage was really bad!

I searched high and low every day to see if i could find a time that the various equine events were being aired and could find nothing - All i wanted was to be told for example that the showjumping would be shown from 1-2 on wednesday - instead we get told that on wednesday the program runs from 12 - 6.30 and at some point there will be showjumping.

Surely it must be possible to narrow it down a bit? At least them we would have been able to set a video and watch it when we are home - instead i managed to see a little bit of dressage (1 1/2 tests) and half an hour of the XC (and on the xc day we were told in the previous days coverage it would be on at a certain time, but it was actually shown at a different time!!

All in all it was very dissapointing
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