- This topic has 24 replies, 14 voices, and was last updated 16 years, 5 months ago by
.
- Posts
Half of me agrees. The other half fears it could just as easily be a tabloid radio abomination.
Tabloid it would be, though not necessarily gutter. The main idea being it would be about punters and punting first and foremost, which is how the whole circus is kept going. Humour and contention could make racing livelier and more relevant. At the moment tv racing amounts to: betting market shows/cautious opinion/tight-lipped jockey and trainer ‘interview’/race/14 seconds of saturnine chat with winning connections and jockey/another ****ing advert for Dubai, life insurance for the near-to-death and Stanner Stairlifts/Process starts again. Punter TV would be more engaged. Presenters get down and punt in the ring with their own money (Rishi and Willy Carson going on about having a fiver on a horse makes me snarl); punters are given some air time (dicing with libel, but a five second delay can help), especially after a race where the bookie’s kept everyone’s money; let’s see some dirty cash in dirty hands; strident after-race analysis of the ‘
what’s going on there?
/What does he think
he’s
doing?’; let’s get into betting shops and witness some of the lunacy, sadness and glory going on in those places/ let people ring in, as they do about football, and have their say. At the moment it’s too ‘them and us’.
Mark Winstanley’s column in the Racing Post is a bit like it, combative and humorous but always sticking up for ‘our great sport’.I think a set-up like that would come under the heaviest censure from all angles but if it survived it would come to be feared and thus respected and therefore gain influence and finally the punter would have great media representation as opposed to the pisspoor situation today.
A middle way can be achieved, if the presenters entrusted with doing so are suitably adroit.
After 13 years of Blairism I no longer believe in ‘middle ways’.
In my utopian world Christopher Martin-Jenkins and Henry Blofeld would present everything
Rather more seriously, the principal reason I’ve enjoyed listening to Test Match Special for longer than I care to remember is its pleasing mix of civility, banter and plain speaking. The commentators are careful to display ‘no side’ and when a player/team ballses-up they are rarely reticent in their criticism.
Geoff Boycott is entertaining, not partisan, rarely minces his words, couldn’t give a flying fart what folk think of him…but unlike Thommo and Chappo speaks a great deal of sense, knowing his subject inside out.
In-your-face brash ‘n’ banal talksportism bawled in estuarine english is not a prerequisite to proving you are ‘one of us’ rather than ‘one of them’
ps
The formatting on TRF is totally fu*cked-up this morning
In-your-face brash ‘n’ banal talksportism bawled in estuarine english
I don’t think it has to be like that; but it should reflect the demographic that pumps the most money in. The only two presenters who are even close to getting it right are McCririck and ‘female’. The rest are drones.
…………… Punter TV would be more engaged. Presenters get down and punt in the ring with their own money (Rishi and Willy Carson going on about having a fiver on a horse makes me snarl); punters are given some air time (dicing with libel, but a five second delay can help), especially after a race where the bookie’s kept everyone’s money; let’s see some dirty cash in dirty hands; strident after-race analysis of the ‘
what’s going on there?
/What does he think
he’s
doing?’; let’s get into betting shops and witness some of the lunacy, sadness and glory going on in those places/ let people ring in, as they do about football, and have their say. At the moment it’s too ‘them and us’.
…………..Lots of good fresh ideas here Betting boy and agree about McCririck being the closest TV racing presenter ( possibly Francome at times too) to anyone ever giving an honest or off the record opinion,but I’m afraid Tanya Stevenson is the worst thing that ever happened to C4 racing even including The Blandest of the Bland (aka Thommo) IMO.
John Rickman The first man to introduce horse racing on an independent channel and in my opinion modern day TV racing teams do not match up to his professionalism.
With John was Brough Scott, Ken Butler,Tony Cooke, John Penney and Raleigh Gilbert, all I put more trust in, that today’s mob.
But the daddy of them all has to be Peter O’Sullivan.
Tom
Clive Graham might be added to that list as O’Sullevan’s trusty right-hand man.
Rob
I think the rose-tinted spectacles are working overtime with these old-time presenters.
With the exception of Sir Peter O’Sullevan, most of them were pretty dreary, to be honest, and even less controversial than the anodyne line-toers we see today. John Rickman was a delightfully-mannered old gentleman, but his World of Sport chats where he played the "racing uncle" to Dicky Davies’s "novice" role were cringe-makingly embarrassing even 40 years ago.
Clive Graham clearly loved his racing, but had a reputation for enjoying the occasional sherbert or two. I believe he had a Jeeves-style personal valet.
I’d like to just say that i personaly don’t find Thommo annoying and would rather watch a Saturdays racing with him presenting than say emma spencer, plunket or cattermole. I actually think he’s good for the sport in making it entertaining for the newer racegoer. And you compare his interviews to that of spencers and cattermoles- he actually gets a lot out of whoever he interviews, don’t be fooled by his persona i think it works well.
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.