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I’m surprised to say it, but the good old Beeb did the actual race coverage way better. This had zero atmosphere. Shame, when it was such a good race.
Just watched RUKs replay on YouTube. Vastly superior camera work, much closer to the action, and seamless, professional commentary. If youve only seen the race on C4 I’d urge you to seek the RUK one out.
Just watched RUKs replay on YouTube. Vastly superior camera work, much closer to the action, and seamless, professional commentary. If youve only seen the race on C4 I’d urge you to seek the RUK one out.
Yes I watched both and would agree.
Interestingly, The Racing Post has an online poll asking whether viewers preferred C4’s coverage to the BBC’s. It’s probably not the last word in psephology, but at present C4 has it by 63% to 37%.
Mike
I caught up with the C4 coverage yesterday evening and it was frankly disappointing.
The camera shots were useless most of the time.
As has already been mentioned using the flying camera to cover the home straight on the first circuit was appalling – to have the view of one fence obstructed by the big screen was unforgivable and the shot of the chair was similarly useless.
I have to say the commentary wasn’t brilliant – Richard sounded muffled and Barty just didn’t sound interested and I wonder if he was standing next to Darren Owen as I could hear Darren almost as clearly.
With Simon picking up the commentary from Valentines – what was with that – he was clearly working off the monitor. I don’t see why Richard could not have covered the run from Valentines to the course proper.
As for the re-run of the race – was there no communication between Nick Luck and the director "let’s freeze the action here" and the VT carries on running.
Then with the "what happened to your runners" – that suddenly stopped half way through.
My biggest gripe was with the run back where they tell you where your money went. It had fences in the wrong order and at the end was cut off before they had finished to return to Clare in the weighing room. In many ways its the most important part of the show and they cocked it up badly.
No doubt Simon Holt best race commentator around. Compare past years and Aussie Jim. Yes more paddock coverage focusing on individual horses would help. More humour too. Where’s Tommo when you need him. Overall a great improvement on Beeb.
My biggest gripe was with the run back where they tell you where your money went. It had fences in the wrong order and at the end was cut off before they had finished to return to Clare in the weighing room. In many ways its the most important part of the show and they cocked it up badly.
To be fair I think they were over-running. Iirc coverage was due to finish at 5pm so they ran on another 15 minutes.
I too felt that something in the coverage was lacking over the Beeb’s. Just haven’t figured out exactly what it was yet. I didn’t like the flying camera shots very much the first two days, but funnily yesterday it didn’t bother me at all. The cameras positioned down near the bottom of the fences were useless; it’s not as if they don’t have the Beeb’s camera angles to work from to get this right.
I’ve now watched the RUK coverage of the race and I have to say it was infinitely superior to that of C4.
Where’s Tommo when you need him
He was at Aintree at Thursday and was the most enjoyable part of the day. C4 made a big mistake dropping him
The Mick Fitz Cliche Show is bloody annoying. He should be a roving reporter, not a presenter
And i want to see horses. Not bookies telling lies about the size of bets placed or that a win for a certain horse would be devastating for the industry.
I liked some of the coverage of the race itself but thought they were trying too hard to be different.
If one ignores the fact that the National is a horse race and regards it as a 15 minute event around which a traditional-day-of-national-importance-as-entertainment is fashioned then the BBC have always been and still are (cf. The Olympics) the broadcasting organization who manage to pull off such events with consummate skill and ease; they do after all have a very long history of being the broadcaster of choice for such events and therefore a wealth of experience to call on
It’s not really my thing to sit through interminable hours of light entertainment on a sunny April afternoon so I didn’t watch much of C4’s attempt at National Day but was happy enough with the fifteen minutes each side of the race itself, though do agree with the comments on camera angles and Ian Bartlett’s increasingly Goode-in-his-dotage-like bored monotone
So for those comparing the inaugural effort at broadcasting The Day by C4 to the 50 years honing and polishing by the Beeb I would suggest allowing them a little more time with the emery paper and solvol autosol
Harvey was wearing a tie and what looked dangerously like a new lambswool pullover: that made my day
Am sure there will be changes as they look to find the right format and presenters but well done to Channel 4 for promoting the race so well.
As well as the mistakes with the Rerun and the "hidden" 14th fence already, why was Simon Holt made to talk to camera when the runners were being called in?
Also, agree with the comments (Paul Ostemeyer I think) questioning why Simon was made to cover the canalside section (i.e. after Valentines) when surely Richard Hoiles was closer across from Fazakerley Bank?
Personally I missed Pitman his voice always reminds me of the National. Channel 4 seemed to lack enthusiasm to me.
Add to that as already stated the camera was terrible, the replay missed a fence and a few fallers, and they nearly missed the start!
Wasn’t the biggest fan of the commentary either at one point maybe the canal turn first time round ? You could hear the far better course commentator over the Channel 4 one.
Shame that the old guard at C4 didn`t get a chance of covering Aintree. The IMG crew brought a lot of latter day BBC baggage.
On the plus side we didn`t have McGrath calling them home.
Had my hopes raised that we`d get a decent look at the horses – nice shots in the pre-parade once Clare got ther big face out of the way but that gave way to Fitz in the dismal weighing room.
The camera positions and angles were poor. Missed some of the traditional BBC positions like the overhead at the Ancor Bridge.On the re-run the commentary should be more about identifying horses rather than what the jockeys may have been thinking.
The programme on the whole seemed to be aimed at those with severe attention deficit, never dwelling on one thing long enough. Probably just passed muster for the general viewership.
Lamentable stuff from the Morning Line today.
Why the hell couldn’t C4 have arranged a feed so we could see Blacfk Caviar’s race?
The best horse in the world running as the programme is going out, and what do we get, f*** all.
Even audio-only would have been better than nothing.
It’s not as though there was a riveting collection of races in the UK to be previewed – today must be just about the dreariest Saturday’s racing all year.
How can racing expect to be taken seriously as a sport when this sort of thing happens?
Lamentable stuff from the Morning Line today.
Why the hell couldn’t C4 have arranged a feed so we could see Blacfk Caviar’s race?
The best horse in the world running as the programme is going out, and what do we get, f*** all.
Even audio-only would have been better than nothing.
It’s not as though there was a riveting collection of races in the UK to be previewed – today must be just about the dreariest Saturday’s racing all year.
How can racing expect to be taken seriously as a sport when this sort of thing happens?
The main aim of Channel 4 / The Morning Line seems to be to make the remaining few people actually watching turn off.
If the company was serious about getting more people interested they should have advertised over the last few days that the Super Mare from down under was going for her 25th consecutive win and she could be seen LIVE on the Morning Line. Sadly as you say they couldn’t even get audio for the race. Pathetic.
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