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and the grovelling to extremely minor royals.
"I’m here with Zara Philips who’s closely related to Monbeg Dude."
Alice Plunkett
Brendan Powell jnr "He keeps me in line. Gives me the occasional bollocking."
Clare Balding
"Well, we all need one of those"
Mike
With the Beeb covering the Grand National for so many years, we got used to uninterrupted coverage, i.e. no ads. We also had the benefit then of the best sports camera work (in my opinion) which made the spectacle easy on the eye and showed everything we wanted to see. C4 is different and nobody likes change so it’s not easy to accept.
With regards to the studio team, the two "experts" are far to technical, there’s no "natural" influence there. Neither Cunningham or McGrath ever having trained or ridden a horse. Mick Fitz is enthusiastic but I think should be in the studio more to counter the "technical twins".
On the outside I cringe sometimes with some of the daft questions and comments that Rishi and Plunkers come out with. Surely as professionals they should at least do some preparation and have some idea on what to ask. I really don’t see any point in Plunkers asking questions like "how did that feel?" to a winning jockey. I would have thought that it is much better to ask about the ride itself, where in the race he was worried, felt confident, was there anything in the race where the jockey felt lucky or perhaps feels he made the right decision.
C4 is a work in progress and it’s just about acceptable to me at the moment, but as a big John McCririck fan, I think there’s a huge gap to fill now that he, Frankers and Thommo have gone.
"I’m here with
Zara Philips who’s closely related to Monbeg Dude
."
Alice Plunkett
Mike
Is that on the Sire or the Dam side?
Thanks for the good crack. Time for me to move on. Be lucky.
The sanitised camera angles at Beachers and The Chair were very disappointing. Took away all perspective of the two most famous fences in Racing.
Why would you want a special view of "Bechers Brook" it is just like any other fence now and doesn’t require any special coverage.
Save this thread. In the not too distant future, when all terrestrial coverage of racing has ceased, it can be renamed ‘The Good Old Days’
I enjoyed some of the coverage more than I did the Cheltenham ‘show’. I think the zip wire tracking shot up the straight is fantastic and the heli shots excellent.
The BBC were good, but directors became fascinated by regular ultra slomos of horses somersaulting or skidding along the turf – just what the Animal Aid doctors ordered.
Sanitised footage is exactly what the National needs imo to build on what’s already been changed with the fences. CH4 won’t be catering for us at the National – they’ll rightly want to satisfy the 90% or so who are once-a-year viewers and I think they made a decent job of that.
There was a very complimentary article about Ch4’s coverage of the National in The Observer yesterday.
My first post and slightly off topic but worth talking about
I had to miss channel 4 because I was working so I listened to the first ever commercial radio commentary as mentioned in the racing post
see what you think
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCju8hwBP98
I thought they missed too many fallers
There are pluses and minuses with the changes that channel 4 made. I was fed up listening to John Francome telling us what a great ride the jockey on the winning horse had just given and i think that Graham Cunningham and Mick Fitz are great additions. However the loss of Alastair Down is still felt on the big occasions and McCririck did make the programme more entertaining.
The big criticism i have of C4’s coverage is their camera angles. Nothing annoys me more than not seeing EVERY horse jumping a fence in the early stages of the race and too often C4 seem to be going for the arty shot rather than the best possible view.
Surely it’s not too much to ask to have a stationary camera at each fence in the national so we can see all the horses go over the fences instead of just the leaders.
However in general i think that Channel 4 are doing a coog job.
Some of the stats the betting "experts" come up with are absolutely mind boggling.
Tom Lee today "8 out of the last 10 winners of the Greenham have come from the first 3 in the betting"
Re : CH4 Grand National coverage.
It’s fair to say that the BBC did it so much better.
They had David Coleman, Peter O’Sullevan, Julian Wilson, John Hanmer, Michael O’Hehir … oh, and Richard Pitman, to but a few.
Compare that team to CH4’s line-up and it really is no contest.
Gambling Only Pays When You're Winning
The days when people could wave at the camera behind Des Lynam from the old winners enclosure, and seeing him smooch over Jenny Pitman
Julian Wilson always had the expression on his face as though he’d sat in a bowl of cold porridge.
I’ve been told by a very reliable source that Julian Wilson was never the same after our very own Triptych broke his finger. Something along the lines of he wanted her to give him a bouncer but she gave him the full toss instead……
Blackbeard to conquer the World
I’ve been told by a very reliable source that Julian Wilson was never the same after our very own Triptych broke his finger. Something along the lines of he wanted her to give him a bouncer but she gave him the full toss instead……
You’ve been reading my poem Nathan .. but it was by default Jules had backed Singspiel and my friend and I had backed the 20/1 shot Posidonas who beat him that day. Poor Jules was distraught as he was standing in front of us, as we jumped up and down screaming our horse home, and left early (deaf in both ears) to cheer himself up playing Cricket, that was where he damaged his little pinky
I think the cold porridge look came shortly after that incident.
Things turn out best for those who make the best of how things turn out...I couldn’t resist….
Cant be long now before the 2014 poem comp.
Blackbeard to conquer the World
Re : CH4 Grand National coverage.
It’s fair to say that the BBC did it so much better.
They had David Coleman, Peter O’Sullevan, Julian Wilson, John Hanmer, Michael O’Hehir … oh, and Richard Pitman, to but a few.
Compare that team to CH4’s line-up and it really is no contest.
Coudnt agree more that the bbc did racing much better than channel 4.With the exception of simon holt the commentators aren’t a patch on before and without Alistair down or mcririck there is no understanding or entertainment on it. I watch channel 4 as I don’t have racing uk but just fast forward to the races. Atr is so much better than the rest imho.
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