ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Now we have something / quite-a-lot to discuss and celebrate.
jochta
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by jochta »

You could play TdF ITV4 commentary bingo with Paul Sherwen. He has an obsession with the word "this". Drives me crackers. Count how many times he says one of these...

"on a day like this"
"on a stage like this"
"in a situation like this"
"on this day"

Oh and his other two favourite words...

"attentive"
"nervousness"

I know it must be hard to talk non-stop for several hours but it makes my stomach knot.
old_windbag
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by old_windbag »

"grippy"
thirdcrank
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by thirdcrank »

A couple of things I omitted from my earlier posts when I was called away:-

Yesterday evening, I was watching my recording of the live broadcast from the afternoon when it ended a few minutes short of the line. I was :evil: :evil: :evil: but OTOH, it does mean that the coverage was extended beyond the published finishing time when the racing overran - so much better than "that's all we've got time for."

Also, within the last few days there's been an article on this very subject in the sport supplement of the Daily Telegraph. The author was saying that cycling was unusual in that the knowledgeable viewers didn't criticise the commentators. :lol: He also described Jens Voigt as "excitable" but perhaps that was predictive spelling ( estimable?)
old_windbag
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by old_windbag »

Jens Voight is pretty good and its always good to see people performing and beating 23yr olds when 40+ as he was doing. It throws the rules on age out of the window even for non competitive cyclists who can still put in high average speeds into the September of life and beyond. Peter Elliott was excellent in the mid week tour series criteriums at 48! I was encouraged by the centenarian who put in a world record, think it was 14.5mph average for 62mls if memory serves me right.... there's probably a lot of people half that age who'd be happy to do that.
Jens Voight reminds me audibly on ITV4 of henning wehn the comedian who appears on QI etc.
Bicycler
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by Bicycler »

I agree about the F1. Phil and Paul don't use any word or phrase half as frequently as the BBC F1 team use "dominating". It's like 50 Shades Of Grey at times :wink:
ITV 4 at least have the luxury of catering to cycling fans. One problem is that on BBC 1 at weekends you have to appeal to a wide non-expert audience. If you ever watch/listen to the practice or 5-Live coverage they do use the opportunity to go into technical details and you hear a lot less about Lewis Hamilton's dogs :roll:

Yes, it would be good to see more background features in the TDF highlights but there's little more they could do within the 1-hour slot without detracting from the coverage of the main event
old_windbag
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by old_windbag »

Regarding the F1, off topic but still interesting to many, I was one of the 1/4 million who filled in the fan survey :o . I wish I hadn't when I started it took about an hour to complete and didn't get to the reason why I find it's lost the appeal it had in the days of hunt, lauda or even schumacher, hill. It was a tragedy what happened to michael schumacher, I liked him, a very skilled driver but many did not and his comeback, though criticised, he did start beating rosberg... so he must have been able to match hamilton if given the same car. He was still better than most on the grid even at 43. Sadly electronic technology ( I'm an electronics engineer ) has pervaded the cars and taken away a lot of the old skills of car control, they are trying to rein it back now. But theres a conflict as we need to push technology forward with F1 as the showcase yet the technology is taking away the driving skill. When there was an outcry of hybrid engines being too quiet I put my head in my hands.... how stupid people can be, anyway the sound is wasted energy :) . Fortunately the response to the electric TT bikes has been the opposite the riders love them.
I worked on a project at lotus and when you went into the reception there was Andrettis 1978 lotus F1 car and... the carbon fibre lotus track bike, also on a wednesday night they had a cycling club using their test track for crit style laps. For anyone interested in engineering matters it was a great place to be, bikes, motorbikes and cars.
Bicycler
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by Bicycler »

Agree with all that. The excessive technology in F1 is a point I bore others about regularly. I'd also look at track design, too much tarmac runoff with little penalty for a mistake leads to people pushing limits as if they don't exist. Gravel traps were a happy medium between having safe runoff and penalising misadventure. Another issue is the obsessive punishments for drivers almost every time there is a collision. Sometimes collisions happen in motor racing. We shouldn't be penalising people for simple racing incidents.

Trying to link this back to cycling coverage, people have suggested that cycling ProTour races ought to adopt F1's idea of broadcasting team radio communications. Whilst these are sometimes interesting I feel that cycling should take heed of the negatives from the F1 experience of broadcasting radios. IMO nothing has done more to lower the audience's opinion of drivers than the broadcasting of their whinging complaints and the teams' constant instructions to the driver which make the drivers seem more like machine operators following procedures than instinctive sportsmen. Will my enjoyment of cycling be helped by hearing my cycling heroes' unguarded comments and emotional outbursts or by learning the extent to which their great moves are decided by directeurs sportifs in the team cars? I really don't know.
old_windbag
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by old_windbag »

Theres big debate over team radios in cycling, again I can see the benefits but they can also lead to that professionally managed team strategy that is seen in F1 and leads to team orders and reduced racing excitement for viewers. In cycling we see similar large sponsored bodies using science and technology to its limit to be at the front. Thats the idea we know but it can make for a sterile sporting environment for those teams with huge finance behind them. F1 takes this further in its clinical precision at every level, pit crews, tyre temperature, tyre compounds being manufactured to limit laps etc.... its artificial. I heard one driver saying "we can't have contact at the high speeds we do its too dangerous".... well in that case reduce the speed of the cars or man up and accept you get paid a lot of money not to be risk averse. One area I feel needs a serious rethink and that is designing front wings sharp enough to slice a tyre wall... this causes too many petty punctures, they should be rounded with no sharp edges and tyre sidewalls reinforced, make all teams forfeit some aero for contact survivability. F1 needs more contact... like touring cars.
Moneywise F1 always bleats about the budgets being too high etc etc. Well why not restrict teams to one driver, one reserve/test driver( in case main driver injured ) and one main car this would then allow more teams, smaller budgets and avoid the stupidity of having two drivers with ego's thinking they're both number one and jeopardising any outcome and driver morale. One has to be second or its tears at bedtime.... better to have a retiring mature driver and a new apprentice to learn from them and move into their shoes on their retirement.... but even 17yr olds can drive those cars as has been demonstrated.
I've been listening to Jens voight again and I think he sounds like bob mortimers son in house of fools, more than henning wehn. An excellent comedy for anyone similarly warped like myself.
One overused phrase F1 has "the undercut" used in two different senses.. track position on maneouvre or track position after a stop... Arrrgh :evil: . Paul sherwen is talking about F1 camera views being introduced to cycle racing as I type... must be reading these posts!
old_windbag
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by old_windbag »

Is anyone having an issue with the finish time of ITV4's programmes when recording the live race and highlights? My PVR ( humax 9200t ) records programmes on true start and end time, its working on other TV channels but the last two ITV4 live stages have ended abruptly as if the code to end was sent too early( at its tv guide time ) when they overran,,, this also happened on tonights highlights programme but only by a couple of min's( yet it extended the over-run highlights a few nights back ok ). I don't want issues like this on the mountain stages as they do tend to over-run but are the best part of the tour.
If its ITV4 they need to get it sorted but if its my kit then I've a nuisance problem on my hands, but as it records ok on other channels it seems broadcast related.
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mjr
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by mjr »

old_windbag wrote:If its ITV4 they need to get it sorted but if its my kit then I've a nuisance problem on my hands, but as it records ok on other channels it seems broadcast related.

It's not just you - it's itv4 or SDN or Freeview. They didn't update the Freeview EPG quickly enough yesterday and the end of the broadcast claimed to be Pawn Stars - I didn't check Freesat. Can you override the recording time on the Humax? Failing that, select the following programme or two for recording too.

It could be worse. It could be Eurosport, with three listing guides (EPG, Teletext and web) and sometimes none of them reflect what's actually broadcast!
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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old_windbag
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by old_windbag »

Well thats good news..... and bad. I like to series record but recording the next programme will mean single record due to every day having a different following programme. But at least its sortable to some extent... the hummy is pretty flexible in it's recording options.

What could be worse for all of us would be to record the live programme and then find something like escape to the country :evil: . Boy do those smug couples put my BP up, I'm wanting a gun just thinking about them :) .

On the subject of sports coverage in general I wrote an email of complaint to the BBC about their constant placing of sports results in their digital text news headlines. They would and still do put things like "Froome in yellow jersey", "Hamilton wins in monaco", "Arsenal 3- Man utd 0" etc on main news headlines section. I advised them not to spoil viewers entertainment by doing this and to put those in Sports Headlines so people can view the news but avoid sports headlines until they viewed their event, common courtesy. With F1 they put the headline up within a minute of the result... pretty disrespectful in these days of delayed viewing. To me its common sense to keep news ( i.e. man shot in kebab shop ) and sports news separate. The BBC responded that they have a duty to report news events whatever category they fall into... which was not in question so I knew I wasn't dealing with a full deck, common sense is no longer common.... unfortunately.

A couple of years back Matt Baker announced on the One Show "brilliant news that Chris Froome is in yellow" yet the highlights hadn't been broadcast, thoughtless and selfish. But he is an over excitable fool at times.... or all of the time :D .
Last edited by old_windbag on 10 Jul 2015, 4:28pm, edited 1 time in total.
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

jochta wrote:Oh and his other two favourite words...

"attentive"
"nervousness"


And "years of age". No-one is ever 25 years old, they're "just 25 years of age".

But I still have fond childhood memories of "Charly Mottet's in all sorts of trouble" and "Laurent Fignon has sprouted wings", which dates me. ;)
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mjr
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by mjr »

old_windbag wrote:A couple of years back Matt Baker announced on the One Show "brilliant news that Chris Froome is in yellow" yet the highlights hadn't been broadcast, thoughtless and selfish. But he is an over exitable fool at times.... or all of the time :D .

And working for a rival broadcaster... all's fair when it comes to trashing others' viewing figures.

I see BBC Radio 5 Live Sports Xtra is YET AGAIN preferring to simulcast Radio 4 Long Wave's Test Match Special instead of the Tour de France commentary. :roll: If they really must have TMS on digital services, why don't they put one broadcast on whatever channel they used for the short-term Eurovision channel? Or maybe actually use 5 Live for live sport instead of film reviews and other not-really-time-sensitive shows?

So I'm using a pico-transmitter to put itv4's audio onto FM around the house. Thanks again itv...
MJR, mostly pedalling 3-speed roadsters. KL+West Norfolk BUG incl social easy rides http://www.klwnbug.co.uk
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Bicycler
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by Bicycler »

Richard Fairhurst wrote:
jochta wrote:Oh and his other two favourite words...

"attentive"
"nervousness"


And "years of age". No-one is ever 25 years old, they're "just 25 years of age".

But I still have fond childhood memories of "Charly Mottet's in all sorts of trouble" and "Laurent Fignon has sprouted wings", which dates me. ;)

And he just has one of those voices. It's just a great commentating voice :D

EDIT: Sorry I meant Phil. Watching the coverage now. I'd never noticed the Paul's 'years of age' thing but, gosh, you're right.
rmurphy195
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by rmurphy195 »

I record and watch the highlights program each night.

It reminds me of why I prefer the BBC - 3 or 4 x 5-minute commercial breaks per hour of programming!

I wonder if the people are paid less on the commercial channels - e.g. a typical 1 hour drama on BBC lasts 58 minutes, on a commercial channel 40-45 minutes. Which must mean the BBC production costs should be higher?
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""You know you're getting old when it's easier to ride a bike than to get on and off it" - quote from observant jogger !
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