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It’s now neither a sports channel or one of mass appeal. The bias of the pundits is so annoying and if a horse wins they are not keen on they come up with bogus excuses. Dont insult the intelligence of real racing fans who in most cases far more about racing than all the pundits. The exceptions are weaver and Johnny murtagh who call it as they see it. I just skip to the races and even then have to hit the mute button. I usually end up watching them on another website. Very annoying coverage.
The constant moaning about the tv coverage of racing is one of the reasons I don’t visit this site as often as I did.
Is this golden age that people keep harking back to the one where the beeb used to squeeze races in between motocross or rugby league or when Channel 4 didn’t show any racing for three weeks at a time in the winter?
If any of today’s pundits said that they would refuse to criticise jockeys as Francome did you would be going mental but for some reason he’s lauded as the pinnacle of racing coverage just because he was humorous.
When I was growing up racing on tv was something to look forward to because it wasn’t on every day. Now it’s wall to wall every day so there can be a saturation point. I used to watch every live football game going 40 years ago. Now I can’t be bothered there’s so much of it.
ITV are doing a much better job than I feared when they took over. It’s interesting that there has been no mention on this forum of the success of the Sunday series on ITV4. Doesn’t fit in with the negativity does it?
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Yes indeed. This is just a place to have a good moan these days
It’s a forum, so no apologies if observations and opinions don’t agree with yours.
Are ITV doing a ‘better’ job? Well there is more than a couple of posters who would disagree with that.
From the resources at their disposal, a number would say quite frankly they were making a pigs ear of it.
I won’t go into the problems and observations raised as there 40 pages of them and would just be repeating many of them.
In a number of areas we feel their coverage could be so much better, and that’s where the debates are.
If criticism is to be labelled “moaning” you will find it all over the Internet regarding every subject under the Sun.
There is material on TRF which is not to my taste and criticism that I feel is unwarranted, but I defend the right of others to express their view – it’s all free speech.
The old BBC and ITV7 coverage was very much focussed on the betting and the racing itself.
No talk of “contextualising” the sport – it was manifestly obvious to the Producers at Grandstand and World Of Sport that the main reason people watched racing was to have a bet on it.
And they were right.
That blindingly simple fact seems lost on the modern-day broadcasting luvvies.
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"I agree with patriot. Think it’s pretty ok overall and I suspect the nostalgia is in line with those who drone on about how wonderful it was in the 70s forgetting it was a lot of crossroads, Arthur Mullard with the sport being a choice between bloody swimming or rugby league
I can’t have the view it should just be about betting either.
It’s not a case of “should” it’s a case of knowing the reality of the general public.
Without a bet on it, it’s just a load of horses running round a field for the vast majority of people.
The BBC (who I used to work for) were very focussed on the betting with Len Martin and Tim Gudgin providing betting shows and results.
The BBC even had their own bet – the Triella.
John Tyrell did the same on ITV where the whole broadcast was based on a seven-horse accumulator and the excitement as it built up during the afternoon.
The producers of both Grandstand and World Of Sport understood their audience and how betting was what made them engage with the racing.
That’s been lost to the detriment of the game.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"Patriot1, I think you gave the answer yourself just how important the presenting part of racing is on TV when you used Grandstand and the World of Sport as examples.
People tuned in for the betting, quality commentators, the ITV 7 then (the ITV7 is NOT the ITV 7 now) and the race itself, not to listen to reems of opinions and ‘trying’ to be entertained in some way by ITV for three long hours!
I am sure those programmes would be mighty popular again, showing racing as part of a show with varied sports each week.
I tend to ignore these threads about TV coverage, but I do wonder if those who complain, ever stop to consider just how difficult our sport is to broadcast live.
Take York last week – three midweek days with each program scheduled for a two and a half hour slot, covering four races. Those races provide approx eight minutes of actual live sport, advertising breaks probably account for another twenty minutes, leaving the producer and director with 122 minutes of space that has to be filled.
And they’re stuck with using some of that time to show the most tedious and repetitive TV known to man, the never ending shots of handlers pushing horses into starting stalls. More often than not, it’s about as interesting and entertaining as a repeat of the Brookside Omnibus edition. But they can’t cut away from it, as they musn’t miss the start of the race.
And it still leaves over 100 minutes, not just once, but every day. Replays, interviews, paddock shots all help to use up time, but it’s a stone cold certainty that whatever is broadcst in the remaining spaces, will never appeal to all the viewers.
No other sport that is regularly shown live on TV has this problem – football, cricket, tennis, rugby, golf, even darts and snooker, all provide continuous hours of actual sport. What they show at half time, or the in the interval at snooker, may be banal, but the producer only has to fill about fifteen minutes, not an hour and a half.
So let’s just be grateful that we get the coverage we do, and try to keep in mind that live TV is not easy. There’s no script, no rehearsal, no ‘Cut, start that scene again’, and absolutely no guarantee that events will even run to the published schedule.
“So let’s just be grateful that we get the coverage we do.”
I thought this was a forum for open debate?
Sorry, APRacing, but that doesn’t cut it for me – and yes I do know what live broadcasts face, actually, as I had a spell working on racing for Grandstand, including a Grand National Day and it doesn’t get much more challenging than that.
The whole modern format is wrong.
Back in the day World Of Sport would hand over to racing at, say, 1.25pm and with races at two meetings at: 1.30, 1.45, 2.00, 2.15, 2.30, 2.45 and 3.00 the ITV racing team would deliver seven rapid-fire races, complete with betting, replays and results, over an hour and a half.
And on the BBC even if lumbered with time to fill between races in a midweek broadcast, Julian Wilson would pad out the time between with topical items from the racing world.
I wasn’t even a particular fan of any of them back in the 1970s, and they were far from perfect.
But they looked like geniuses compared to what we have now.
A two-and-half hour racing broadcast often containing only seven live races is a nonsense.
They did the whole thing BETTER, taking an HOUR less, 44 years ago.
Progress this ain’t.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
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It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“If any of today’s pundits said that they would refuse to criticise jockeys as Francome did you would be going mental but for some reason he’s lauded as the pinnacle of racing coverage just because he was humorous.”
I agree that Francome gets a bit overpraised here. Towards the end of his time as a pundit, I thought some of his opinions were becoming more than a little eccentric. Regularly tipping outsiders with no chance. And he is an advocate for abolishing the whip.
I haven’t actually mentioned John Francome – my comparison is between the ITV7 as it was when I got into racing in 1977 (when Francome was still riding) and what’s on offer now 44 years later.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"“Hand over to the racing”
From what ? It was ******* mick McManus or truck racing from Arizona
World of sport and grandstand were crap
It’s strange how people are annoyed by certain presenters/pundits not critizing jockeys/trainer’s yet the one man who often spoke up for the working/silent man was often critized ….a certain Mr McCririck , the way I see it channel 4 was a more relaxed programme , produced for the ardent punter , itv is polished turd trying to get any viewer it can , all that bollocks introducing the jockeys before the nunthorpe …show us the ****** horses
clivexx,
Grandstand and World Of Sport in particular (I only ever tuned into it for the ITV7 tbh so can’t comment on the rest of it) might well have had their overall limitations, but that doesn’t disqualify the racing part of both from having any merit.
The ITV7 offered more for punters 44 years ago than it does now and took an hour less to do it.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"World of sport was presented by a seedy double glazing salesman and grandstand by a pervert
You only needed to have jimmy saville hosting the paralympics and you had the full set
Possibly cuttingly witty, but it still doesn’t address my point.
Maybe I’m biased but IMO the best thing about Grandstand and World Of Sport was their racing coverage.
“The ITV7 offered more for punters 44 years ago than it does now and took an hour less to do it.”
I stand by the above – and I reckon it’s a severe indictment of the modern show.
I am "The Horse Racing Punter" on Facebook
https://mobile.twitter.com/Ian_Davies_
https://www.facebook.com/ThePointtoPointNHandFlatracingpunter/
It's the "Millwall FC" of Point broadcasts: "No One Likes Us - We Don't Care"
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