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I don’t see why they can’t just clone Lydia Hislop five or six times. The immediate duplicate cloning of course rather than that protracted test tube cloning…
You could have one Lydia Hislop presenting, another Lydia Hislop on analysis, a Lydia Hislop in the paddock and a couple of Lydia Hislops doing interviews. Maybe a Lydia Hislop doing the Thommo warming up the crowd thing at big meetings. Six Lydia Hislops at the same time. How amazing would that be? That would be totally amazing.
I mean one will have to forego the Tony McCoy interviews but he’s retiring pretty soon anyway. Plus, we need not worry about RUK obligations as you can just create another clone to step in if the original Lydia Hislop doesn’t fancy it. You could even keep a few spare Lydia Hislops as back up in case one of them is poorly, wants a holiday or falls pregnant.
If I knew there would be a flock of Lydia Hislops gambolling around a racecourse on Channel Four, I would tune in every Saturday.
I don’t see why they can’t just clone Lydia Hislop five or six times. The immediate duplicate cloning of course rather than that protracted test tube cloning…
You could have one Lydia Hislop presenting, another Lydia Hislop on analysis, a Lydia Hislop in the paddock and a couple of Lydia Hislops doing interviews. Maybe a Lydia Hislop doing the Thommo warming up the crowd thing at big meetings. Six Lydia Hislops at the same time. How amazing would that be? That would be totally amazing.
I mean one will have to forego the Tony McCoy interviews but he’s retiring pretty soon anyway. Plus, we need not worry about RUK obligations as you can just create another clone to step in if the original Lydia Hislop doesn’t fancy it. You could even keep a few spare Lydia Hislops as back up in case one of them is poorly, wants a holiday or falls pregnant.
If I knew there would be a flock of Lydia Hislops gambolling around a racecourse on Channel Four, I would tune in every Saturday.
Do you like Lydia Hislop, by any chance? I can’t tell from your post.
nice one Bachelors
I had mixed views regarding Lydia Hislop , but nowadays respect her entirely , her hard work , ceaseless attempts to get it right , humble approach when she realises she is wrong , just a brilliant broadcaster …Racing Uk is damn lucky to have her
The channel 4 bods could well take a leaf …….
Imo
Ricky
I found the old Ch4 line up far more palatable. Yes Emma and Cat flirted outrageously and yes she used the camera as a mirror, but they bought a bit of life to the programme, throw in Thommo on the odd occasion and it was a friendly relaxed programme focused on the horses. Now adays you have Mr Luck one of the most smug arrogant presenters known to man who just makes you want to turn off. Big Mac had the measure of Lord Snooty many years ago.
Grand National figures down as well
http://www.racingpost.com/news/live.sd? … category=0Various posts and threads trying to evaluate and suggest the non appeal.
Today I was thinking Nick Luck, Clare and Rishi, they all look and sound like they should work in the city and the chemistry just isn’t there with the racing.
People like Francome, Tommo, even McCririck all with personalities and sounded more natural for the programme.Nick Luck is competent but as a personality is completely forgettable. To get good audience stats there has to be an appeal outside the racing fraternity. Clair Balding clearly has appeal to the public but is on screen for only a small part of the broadcast.
Watching McCririck provided unpredictability and entertainment for the casual viewer, along with some more positive contributions on issues like the whip and fairness for punters, of relevance to the racing community. McGrath and Cunningham are the equivalent of drying paint to the casual viewer. Plunkett, Lee and Stevenson are of interest to nobody.
I doubt the BBC will resurrect any interest in covering racing and it is far from ideal for the sport that Channel 4 has a monopoly on terrestrial broadcasting.I was at Aintree yesterday so have only just watched the recording.I know Ch4 relies on advertising BUT for goodness sake an advert break just when the Grand National runners are getting mounted and leaving the paddock?! There should be NO breaks whatsoever imo from when the runners enter the paddock to after the presentation … and ALL runners should be shown in the paddock …
It was one of the worst coverages of a big race I have seen. That advert break seemed extremely long, I was screaming at the TV. (Presumably it was a prime and pricey slot that they utilised).
I am saying this again, sorry if it’s getting annoying, but showing just a small handful of horses in a race like this is madness. In the old days attempts were made to show all the runners in the Grand National. We want to attract new viewers and quite frankly seeing "your runner" if it’s from a sweep stake, & the jockeys colours is important in such a race. The interviews went on and on and then the long advert break.
Some of the camera work was poor too and the film quality was very bad in one section of the race.
As soon as it had finished I turned it off. I am female, but I wish they would get rid of the women presenters, they are all dreadful.I thought the camera angles utilized during the National were awful.
Also, I thought Simon Holt was not at his finest.
Very, very disappointing.
The sanitised camera angles at Beachers and The Chair were very disappointing. Took away all perspective of the two most famous fences in Racing.
I was at Aintree yesterday so have only just watched the recording.I know Ch4 relies on advertising BUT for goodness sake an advert break just when the Grand National runners are getting mounted and leaving the paddock?! There should be NO breaks whatsoever imo from when the runners enter the paddock to after the presentation … and ALL runners should be shown in the paddock …
I was absolutely astonished that C4 took that advert break when they did. It is part of the tradition of the race to see the horses leaving the paddock to the sound of the bugles announcing the runners for the Grand National are entering the course.
To add to C4’s woes their cameras concentrated on Across the Bay for far too long after he was carried out missing the rest of the field was, and has been said this was not one of Simon Holt’s best commentaries. Surprised they didn’t use Richard Hoiles again from Valentines to the Melling Road.
Mentioning Richard Hoiles their post-race analysis of the National was awful, concentrating on seeing fallers/incidents from the air and their arty-farty camera angles. RUK showed each fence in normal side-on view at least twice to capture all incidents
Dear Alice made a mistake too. Talking about Red Marauder winning the 2001 National she said only two horses finished the race that year. Wrong Alice, it was four: Red Marauder, Smarty, Blowing Wind and Papillon.
Viewing figures are still falling too:
http://www.racingpost.com/news/horse-ra … t7DaysNews
I wonder how long Dubai will keep sponsoring them if things don’t pick up. Then we’ll be without any racing on terrestrial TV. Does that mean the Beeb would have to pick it up again as part of their remit is to provide coverage of "minority" sports/interests if it’s not available elsewhere? As neither RUK or ATR are "free" they should be made to.
I see ch4 are jumping up and down with their 8m viewers for the national,we’ll in my book the beeb would have got 10m!
The new format isn’t working and I just wish the pig-headed bosses would admit it and change back to treating the horses as the stars not the connectionsI know that commercial break was annoying but it’s a commercial station and they have to make money and advertisers would have had to pay a premuim price for that slot. Agree about not seeing the horses in the paddock, though; they really need to get that knocked into their heads. At least they showed the parade of previous winners. Might be wrong about this but I’m sure that the ultra professional Clare Balding has come up with a couple of wrong statements recently as well. I do like the way that Alice interviews the jockeys, though, and I can’t help but feel she knows them well and they feel happy with the interviews she gives.
Been saying it for years Cav. Might not be a big deal to some, but it drives me absolutely ******* mental. There is no need for it, and as I’ve said many times before, half the angles they use………..it’s like televising a football match with cameras attached to the corner flag. It’s ridiculous. I watched it on Channel 4, and the camera they chose to use from the 13th to The Chair, well, words fail me. They’re supposed to be showing a race, not how creative and arty they can be. Watched the re-run on RUK, and they’re choice of shots was much better.
I just wish somebody would say to them "yeah, we know you’ve got a camera in the air, they’ve been used since the mid 80’s, but it’s no much use for covering a race live now is it". Just stop it, and stop it now…….if you want to use them, then by all means do so, but save the footage for the re-run.
As for Holt, I’ve always been a fan, and we’re lucky that with him and Richard Hoiles, we currently have 2 commentators who’re easily the best we’ve ever had, but he was terrible yesterday. Wouldn’t be at all surprised if he had something distracting him. He was all over the place.
Worth noting though, that the day after The National, if the only thing I’ve got to gripe about is camera angles, then after the horrors of 2011, and 2012, then I’ll settle for that every year……………..still drives me ******* mental though
The racecourse commentators on RUK, Johnson, Machin & Howes were excellent all week, although as always could do without Machin’s tedious puns. Thankfully he wasn’t doing the climax of the National so we probably spared a second "Just what the doctor ordered" of the week.
The producer and director aren’t interested in our opinion of their coverage. The only comment they long to hear is some Z-list celeb announcing:
"And the winner of Best Outside Sports Broadcast is C4 for the Grand National"
Hence all the arty farty camera angles, the celebrity interviews, the avoidance of showing the horses parading and the grovelling to extremely minor royals.
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