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The coverage today is a joke, even worse than usual. It is nothing more than advertisements with a bit of racing in between. I am fed up with it already. It should be called Channel 4 at the advertisements.
Also they changed the name to Grand National Special or something & my recording set up hasn’t recognised it. Good job I was in in time to catch it.
Good to see they’ve utilised the very talented Gary O’Brien in their Willie Mullins feature, one of the best presenters around imo.
Also they changed the name to Grand National Special or something & my recording set up hasn’t recognised it. Good job I was in in time to catch it.
Matt Chapman just mentioned this going to be a lot of upset people who will find the show hasn’t recorded.
Absolutely dreadful.
Should retitle and call it ‘Three Blokes In A Booth’ as we are seeing more them than the horses.
As ever Balding is too lightweight.
May I suggest they ditch Luck – McGrath and Francome managed together – you don’t need to be paying another salary to someone just to string bits together.
Ditch Balding and bring back Down.
Then you just might just have something you could call a racing programme.
I switched to channel four for the race itself just to see how it went terrestrially and was shocked at how awful it was.
With the camera angles, one cold barely see anything for the first furlong, having the view of the 14th blocked by the big screen was a absolute joke and the rear view angle of the Chair made me switch to switch back to RacingUK.
I turned on again after the finish to see the completely idiotic superimposed finishing line and after a minute of Balding tedium, I made the decision never to be curious again because it isn’t worth it.
The camera work was appalling worse than a 1950s Pathe Newsreel. Did they only have two cameras? I couldn’t see what was going on as I don’t have a huge TV. Any way, though I am glad that all the horses & jockeys came back safe, I didn’t think the race had much drama or interest. It is a poor shadow of its self, just a long race now.
I also agree with the other poster that we saw far too much of Nick Luck & friends & hardly any horses before the race, at least the BBC tried to show them all. How can you expect people to connect with racing if they don’t see the horse whose carrying their office sweepstake selection? I know it sounds a bit silly but I think that it is true. Disappointed.
Well done to the winning team & a horse inbred to Northern Dancer too….so much for my comments.I think the coverage has improved from January, but does have a way to go. The touchscreen has rightly been binned and the filler features are very good.
For the future, I would like:
– More views of the horses in the parade ring
– Less aerial shots during the race
– Less time wasted with Mick getting soundbites from jockeys in the changing room.
– More varied interviews. I think Sam Twiston-Davies has been interviewed five times this week.
– No more Alastair Down.
– Nick Luck: please stop saying "schmozzle"!
That’ll be all.
Thankfully I have Racing UK so did not have to watch C4 at all.
They are just so bad.
I have no doubt they were bad but after their Morning Line on Thursday I will never watch them again
Words cannot describe how bad they are IMOIve only seen the replay so I could skip all the boring booth bits but what an appallingly badly filmed race! I couldn’t pick out one single horse until about a furlong before the finish when they thinned out. There was no mention of colours to help you out, but watching it from a helicopter three miles away I doubt that would have helped anyway.
Woeful and disappointing.Yea, I agree with all the above comments, especially about the camera work, truly dreadful. You could just about put up with the blethering of some of the presenters if there were coverage of horses in the parade ring and a bit of decent camera work so that you could follow the runners but I’m afraid to say the whole thing looked like it was directed and produced by a bunch of incompetent amateurs.
Something was lost with the BBC, but I can’t quite nail what it was.
I thought there were many benefits to the CH4 coverage: no slomo replays of heavy fallers throughout the meeting, an obsession of the BBC.
I thought the zip wire tracking shot was great and some of the aerial coverage was superb.
Presentation-wise, I think some gravitas is needed that does justice to the history and grandeur of the race. Too many – Nick Luck in particular (I like him and think he has a fine mind and is a good broadcaster) were trying too hard to be TV personalities. Mick Fitz is probably more suited to that ‘schtick’ than others and I thought he did really well.
Much as I admire the form experience of GC, and JMcG,they are lightweights in broadcasting on the global stage.
Clare is a brilliant, quick thinking, hard working professional, but she lacks charisma and some of her brash paddock intrusions are beginning to look just a bit too ‘I’m Clare, all must stop for me’. I very much doubt that’s the way she imagines it is portrayed, nor her intention, but that dogged ‘get the story’ attitude won’t go down well with many.
Having said all that, a bit like replacing a football manager, who would you bring in to fix it? I like Alastair Down but his naturally hangdog, punning personality, doesn’t fir for a GN anchor.
Peter O’Sullevan, at his peak, would be perfect. Des Lynam is much missed . . . maybe I’m getting old
Channel 4 has Simon Holt, has to be easily the best commentator out there, brilliant.
If there was any commentator to signify how special Sprinter Sacre is, its him.
Swapping between RUK and CH4 the last couple of days nothing wrong with Simon Holt’s commentaries but it was as if he was locked away in a sound proof room.
The atmosphere and noise associated with the occasion was not transmitted to the viewer…a bit too sanitised for me. I like to hear the noise of the horses hooves and the birch flying.
Maybe this was to drown out the course commentary but it came across a tad dull to me.
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