On a rant now - why cant channel 4 get to grips with a decent coverage of the championship?

An excuse like 2 stages cancelled today mean 30 minutes less to show!!! baloney, they hardly show any driving as it is IMHO and is vey frustrating. Only a couple of minutes real coverage in 30mins show, i think they really have to rethink and improve their approach to this or viewing will drop.

Rant over, anyone else feel as if it just isn't good enough?

And it's a bloody repeat - Booooooorrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiinnnnnngggggggg

Hmm the ford fiesta and the Jazz wonderfull!!!!!!
Surely they could have got more footage from the other stages, what would have been wrong with half an hour from in-car?

Agree - see my post next to yours....

Free T, I agree mate. Their sentiments are there but the coverage is cr@p. Are they on a tight budget ? Judging by the amount of people there to witness WRC live its looking like it maybe getting F1 appeal at last (probably thanks to all those playstation games et al).

750,000 there from all over Europe.

Lets get some F1 style coverage now that its getting popular;)

Yorkie

Doomed to the bottom of the pile, got to keep head above water... kick harder come on ....... respond (heading towards muppet forum nowwww... aaaarrrrrgghh.....

Try mentioning that Tony Mason should replace the mallory Bird. Worked on another thread, seems he is just as hated :D

Maybe Clarkson should front a Rally coverage program on BBC2 (and then we don't have to put up with the barrage of adverts).

I'd rather watch the 2mins of repeat than the film my girlfriend has stuck on: Moulin Rouge, in my opinion a pile of wank! Might have to go and get even more pissed to make it though the night :D

Channel 4 don't film it, they merely buy the rights to show what local producers/filmers decide is worthy of viewing - same as F1. If producers had planned to make up 30% of footage from first 2 stages, but can't as thy were cancelled, then they have far less to distribute and there is sod all C4 can do other than 'pad' the material with even more discussion. If you want better coverage, speak to Dave Richards (yes same one as Prodrive), he is in charge of the coverage/media/TV rights - a la Bernie Ecclestone.

Personally I wish everyone would stop whinging about the coverage. Last year we got nothing. One 30 minute program about the Rally of GB (or rather rally of a bit of wales), this year we get 4 programs from the rally itself and a preview program a week before.

C4 have already increased the coverage since the beginning of the year by making some of the daily review programme an hour rather than 30 minutes. They arn't stupid :rolleyes: Rallying is a poorly watched sport at present, they arn't going to commit to massive coverage when it could still fall flat on its arse, yet they still give it c3.5 hours a week (when rally on).

What would you rather they did with 30 minutes of unplanned dead air? test card? non car related programme?

I think C4 ought to be congratulated for putting together the first comprehensive terrestial WRC coverage we have ever seen, and increasing the coverage so early in their tenure/the season.

What do you want? 24 hr coverage? 100% live action? 8 hours per day? They have promised some live stages later in the season, but no TV station can afford to regularly devote massive scheduling time to one (currently) poorly watched sport.

Same with F1. ITVs coverage is 10, 20 times better than the crap we used to get on the BBC (most GPs not live, just a 50 minutes highlight prog.) Now we get all GPs live, qualifying, extra behind the scenes programmes etc...yet people still whinge about the coverage :rolleyes:

I know this country is full of whinging arses..but bloody hell, I'd assumed a modicum of rationale on here!

Rant off [img]images/smilies/mad.gif[/img]

[Edited by GaryC - 3/24/2002 7:54:12 AM]

Didn't BBC showed live GP on Sunday? I remember when I first came over to UK to study when I was 12 (that was 1989), I watched live GP for every race. Qualifying sessions weren't shown then by BBC, but Eurosport had the full works on free practice & the 2 days of qualifying.
BBC only showed qualifying live one year b4 ITV won the rights.

RALLY
Penny Mallory, cr4p. Tiff Needell, where are you m8, wot happend to BBC coverage? Glad I've got Eurosport on digital, if you miss one there's repeats.
If Clarkson is coming back to Top Gear, get rid of Barlow, keep Tiff and Vicks. Sort the format out again - fancy telling you whats 'coming up' every 5mins on a half hour program.

Skoobidude

[Edited by skoobidude - 3/24/2002 6:31:34 PM]

Gary

>>> If producers had planned to make up 30% of footage from first 2 stages, but can't as thy were cancelled, then they have far less to distribute and there is sod all C4 can do other than 'pad' the material with even more discussion.

Strange that, because Eurosport managed to do it so the footage clearly exsists. I think the C4 producers just couldn’t be arsed to do anything about it. I wasn’t suggesting padding the programme with more discussion but more footage.

>>> Personally I wish everyone would stop whinging about the coverage.

There’s a difference between ‘whinging‘ and having a legitimate complaint you know. (or do you work in customer services?) Clearly I’m not the only one who realises that C4’s coverage is poor quality either.

>>> Last year we got nothing. One 30 minute program about the Rally of GB (or rather rally of a bit of wales), this year we get 4 programs from the rally itself and a preview program a week before.

Ah yes, the school of ‘You’ve never had it so good’. Well I don’t subscribe to that one I’m afraid.

>>> Rallying is a poorly watched sport at present, they arn't going to commit to massive coverage when it could still fall flat on its arse.

There are 750,000 people in Catalunya right now who would disagree with that.

>>> I think C4 ought to be congratulated for putting together the first comprehensive terrestial WRC coverage we have ever seen.

Why? They cut the programmes, and have p1ss poor presenters. So what’s to congratulate? It’s that kind of bland acceptance that allows people to get away with providing poor service.

>>> I know this country is full of whinging arses..but bloody hell, I'd assumed a modicum of rationale on here!

Yep, we’re all ‘moaning minnies’ we’ve never had it so good and it is just disgracful that people are so ungrateful isn’t it? ;)

robin ledger : Well said again

GaryC (Moderator) : how many cars were entered into WRC, and how many were shown. Is it not the case that more than 2 cars have cameras fitted. Theres a lot of things starting to not add up, they even have helicopters following some stages wheres that footage, do they only carry 10 second films???

I dunno, it may be the British culture that ppl don't complain enough when it is necessary. Sometimes maybe ppl are just too tolerant.
Imagine someone from America, they'll just complain until u really do sth. Maybe we all ought to send C4 emails or call them up to talk to the programme controller or sth.
Btw, it seems that Eurosport has more time devoted to cars & less to interviews than C4.