ITV4 Tour Coverage.

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

Post by fastpedaller »

I sometimes have to mute PS and PL - especially when PL starts on his 'that's the face of...' Still less irritating than Hugh Porter saying "Queen Victoria"! I almost expected that one day she would flip and throw a bike at him, but she's too polite to do that (thankfully).
Brucey
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by Brucey »

commentators are guaranteed to wind you up eventually; I think it goes with the territory, esp on a long event like the TdF.

However, tonight's coverage was interesting.... they had a piece about doping allegations against CF, which I thought fair enough; that such allegations are being thrown about is a news story in itself. But then they had a piece about the stage route for tomorrow, which finishes at Pra Loup and of course they had a piece about the '75 tour stage there that decided the race.

The archive footage was interesting, and it was clear that Bernard Thevenet was still moved 40 years later to recall events that day. But to have such a piece in the same breath as doping allegations against current tour riders without accidentally on purpose mentioning that BT was a notorious drugs cheat is surely a case of double standards?

Thevenet is quite well written up here;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Th%C3%A9venet

and here in McGann's book

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=V8mlwItBhhcC&pg=PA110&dq=thevenet+drug&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAGoVChMIyKCtxvzsxgIVxBo-Ch2TwwAR#v=onepage&q=thevenet%20drug&f=false

on p110 it is noted that the drugs tests and penalties (fines and stage relegations) were seemingly not administered fairly around that time.

Thevenet took so much cortisone (in the three years that included his two tour victories) that he damaged his liver....

and so it goes.... another TdF, another opportunity to set the record straight missed....

cheers
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Postboxer
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by Postboxer »

And he was presented with a 40 year anniversary yellow jersey after today's stage.
Ray
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by Ray »

Although I share many of the above criticisms of the presentation (and presenters), by far my my least favourite part of the broadcast is the adverts, which I am quick to mute as soon as they appear.

Even without the sound, however, I have to wonder about the kind of stuff that is advertised. Presumably the target audience for the ads is those people who tune in to watch the TdF, people whom you might assume to have at least a passing interest in riding a bike for themselves. What seems remarkable is how few ads there are for bikes and bike kit. Now I can hardly claim to have done a thorough statistical analysis but, apart from noticing a "Wiggle" advert the other day, I can't really remember seeing any cycling stuff being advertised. Loans, insurance, cars, films - and other forgettable things - but very few, if any bikes, cycling clothing etc. We are led to believe that 'cycling is big business' these days, and we certainly see a lot more well-equipped riders on the road, but this apparent lack of interest on the part of cycling manufacturers is rather baffling.

I've always tended to assume that a fair proportion of my fellow-viewers would have approximately similar interests and lifestyles to my own, but I now wonder whether most of them, far from making a deliberate choice to watch cycle racing, are there because they'd be sitting in front of the box anyway, and would probably watch pretty well anything that is put out. It would seem that the marketers regard them as no more likely than anyone else to buy bike stuff.

Or am I missing something?
Ray
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Paulatic
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by Paulatic »

I've missed them all usually at a X12 speed.
I think the only thing I've noticed is Alpecin and wonder why anyone needs caffeine in their shampoo.
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mjr
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by mjr »

Ray wrote:Or am I missing something?

A lot of the adverts, especially during the live show, are the sorts of adverts that block-buy advertising space on itv4 and can be seen in any old programme on there. It says more about itv's ad sales tactics than it does about whether cycling itself is big business.

Halfodds seem absent this year. I think even the wiggle advert was more common during the Tour of Yorkshire and Dauphiné than it has been during TdF coverage - but I'm not 100% sure because I also mute the adverts, although for me it's because they're something like 30% louder than the show. Broadcasters and advertisers still haven't realised that screaming at viewers is a good way to get the adverts muted and something else looked at for three minutes. :roll:
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thirdcrank
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by thirdcrank »

I record it on a hard drive recorder then skip through the ads: five presses of the +60 seconds button works a treat unless it's competition time when it needs an extra 60 seconds. I see few of the ads so I don't know what they are selling, but I can appreciate a company connected with cycling not wanting to upset cyclists with ads interfering with their viewing. I watched some of the Spring classics on my son's Sky (Eurosport) and I didn't know how to skip the ads so I saw a lot of publicity for Alpecin who are sponsoring one of the teams in the TdeF.
reohn2
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by reohn2 »

thirdcrank wrote:........ I saw a lot of publicity for Alpecin who are sponsoring one of the teams in the TdeF.


I saw some of that in (in)Sainsbury's yesterday,it was £7.50 a pop :shock:
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old_windbag
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by old_windbag »

Reohn2 if you spend the £7.50 and use it on your bald acreage then you'll have hair like rapunzel in no time :) . Like Thirdcrank I'm lucky in that I can skip the adverts and the competition where most of the blurb is rhyming off all the T's and C's and call costs. Overall it makes a 4hr show( it's still cutting off early in my recordings ) about 2.5hrs. Not sure on Chris and Neds TDF questions lead in why they're shown manically laughing on the animation, I don't really get that bit as its not a comedy short..... though sadly the producers seem to make them put some low rent humour in there.
Brucey
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage. Thibaut Pinot

Post by Brucey »

Thibaut Pinot came off (again) yesterday, as he exited a tight turn on a descent (from the Col d'Allos, I think). On the commentary they talked about the state of the road surface, that 'he'd skidded', Pinot's mental state, the fact that he had been practicing driving racing cars to improve his technique ... :shock: . They talked about a lot of things....

And it was all guff; he just started to pedal again too early, and grounded his pedal on the road. It was very clear from how he fell. Rookie mistake from him, rookie mistake from the bloke that designed his bike and gave him those ridiculous sticky-out pedals ( I don' know what sort they are exactly), rookie mistake from the commentary team, and one they didn't bother to correct in their highlights show.

D'uh... :roll:

cheers
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jochta
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by jochta »

They talked about Contador's mechanical problem for quite a while yesterday when it was clear he had fallen and been given Sagan's bike. Even when they showed his bloodied forearm they were still blathering on about it being a no fault of his own mechanical incident.
Tonyf33
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage. Thibaut Pinot

Post by Tonyf33 »

Brucey wrote:Thibaut Pinot came off (again) yesterday, as he exited a tight turn on a descent (from the Col d'Allos, I think). On the commentary they talked about the state of the road surface, that 'he'd skidded', Pinot's mental state, the fact that he had been practicing driving racing cars to improve his technique ... :shock: . They talked about a lot of things....

And it was all guff; he just started to pedal again too early, and grounded his pedal on the road. It was very clear from how he fell. Rookie mistake from him, rookie mistake from the bloke that designed his bike and gave him those ridiculous sticky-out pedals ( I don' know what sort they are exactly), rookie mistake from the commentary team, and one they didn't bother to correct in their highlights show.

D'uh... :roll:

cheers

quite, the two Ps are so far off the pace now (Sherwin more so IMO) that it's embarrassing. he (Sherwin) continued to tell us how Pinot was going to be more nervous going down the descent and that he wasn't a good descender anyway & more riders were passing him etc, yet the grand total of 2 riders went past I think & Uran Uran (a very good descender according to Sherwin) only gained a handful of seconds come the bottom of the descent.

He constantly banged on about Valverde & Nibali being superior descenders yet they gained absolutely nothing on Froome, Thomas and a few others whilst Froome is mentioned (though less so this tour) as being an iffy bike handler on the back of a couple of offs (none of which I seem to recall were his fault) Yet the mighty Contador makes a rookie error on what wasn't a difficult corner (similar to the one were he snapped his leg in a trillion places places last year and recovered in two weeks :roll: ) it's like everyone is trying to cover it up???

I've started watching it with the commentary off it's getting so unbearable with his "XX years of age" for almost every bloody rider. :x
The poor commentators are the ones that repeat themselves and use the same well worn phrase to describe X, there's an athletics tator whom describes everything from the field events as "massive", he just couldn't find any other descriptive for a good effort no matter what the event My favoured sport rugby league has Mike 'Stevo' Stephenson as the lead on SKY, an ex international he's one dimensional and has his awful catchphrases/words repeated and repeated again and again along with his with his quite horrendous errors calling the game anyway. The whole dynamic is a mess, at least P&P have some semblence of order but that's about it.
reohn2
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by reohn2 »

I watch it on Eurosport,much better,Carlton Kirby is entertaining and insightful,Sean Kelly likewise if only for his quirky Irish/English,which I don't mind a bit,one thing about Kelly,if he doesnt understand a tactic he's honest enough to admit it which is a breath of fresh air IMO.
Juan Antonio Flecha's insight,tech spec reports and bright disposition always cheers me up,more so Mrs R2 :?
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mjr
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage. Thibaut Pinot

Post by mjr »

Tonyf33 wrote:Yet the mighty Contador makes a rookie error on what wasn't a difficult corner (similar to the one were he snapped his leg in a trillion places places last year and recovered in two weeks :roll: ) it's like everyone is trying to cover it up???

Ah, another curse of the commentators - poor pictures means little for them to talk about. I also think there's still a bit of embarrassment and uncertainty about "Beefy" Contador and they're quite happy not to talk about him this year.

About Froome's bike handling (as if - he started off on far worse roads), I think P+P sometimes get into a bit of a feedback loop, each agreeing with each other and entrenching a mistake.

I like Eurosport's Karsten Migels, but it's nice to watch a race with English commentary sometimes :lol: I can't stand their English commentary team but I don't think they're currently available free-to-air anyway. But it could be worse: we could have France 2's dopey team. ;)
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thirdcrank
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Re: ITV4 Tour Coverage.

Post by thirdcrank »

The commentators are sitting in front of a telly seeing the same pictures as the rest of us. In addition, they have race radio which used to be and AFAIK, still is, a series of the barest announcements of incidents: the rider's number + eg puncture. This was where Duffers had problems because it's all in French and the only word he seemed to know was Chapeau!

There's now a computerised feed which is available on the US version in English:

http://www.letour.com/us/

That's particularly useful for things like the details of who's in a breakaway and the time gaps.

Watching telly with the sound off and that on, you wouldn't miss much of the action.
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PS Anybody who can't bear to miss a moment can even keep up-to-date during the ads. :mrgreen:
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