WRC TV Show - How to Improve ?

[Sulland]

The TV production that I see on Eurosport has been the same for years.

What can be done to improve the 30 min daily reports, to become more interesting than they are today ?

[AndyRAC]

The TV production that I see on Eurosport has been the same for years.

What can be done to improve the 30 min daily reports, to become more interesting than they are today ?

Simple, sack the ISC people, who film and provide the coverage! It's pants!! Simply dreadful!

It was better 10 years ago with BBC Worldwide filming it.

[Simmi]

It comes down to the budget I think. How much money is being used in the making of this coverage. Probably not much at all.

The problems and generic look of the shows comes from a lack of cameras out on the stages. Plain and simple. When I watch the coverage I want to see the cars from the outside attacking the stages. I think everyone else wants that too. But if you have just two, sometimes even one camera crew per stage, how do you convey the coverage without using all the boring on board footage.

I HATE the shot looking back at the drivers. The format of outside shot - shot looking at drivers - onboard shot looking out of windscreen - shot from static camera. When you have watched this for about 6 years you cant help but be sick of it.

But what is the alternative without more crews on stages? This is why we get stupid Virtual Spectator (was good for 2 months back in 2003), and boring head-2-head split breakdowns when all we want is exterior footage. They just dont have the shots.

Obviously it costs more to fly these guys out to the stages, give them equipment, pay them a wage etc. Plus you only have a 30min slot so time is at a premium anyway. But in F1 there is never a case of you not seeing parts of the track. They aren't limited to the use of two camera crews. It all comes down to money.

The biggest improvement they could do IMO is get the helicopter back in the air. That to me really showed the speed and spectacle of rallying. But someone has to pay for it. It wouldn't surprise me if the ISC diverts funds to other pointless areas at the expense of this. To me it's a no brainer to improve coverage.

Then how about just telling us what happened with an informative Mark James-eque commentary. No more cries of faked surprise...

And don't even get me started on the UK Dave coverage that rates rallying so highly it would rather plug a third rate commedian or upcoming tv show!
Rant over.

[bassist]

The TV production that I see on Eurosport has been the same for years.

What can be done to improve the 30 min daily reports, to become more interesting than they are today ?

I could be totally barking up the wrong tree here, but does anyone know if BHP Productions is still around, known as another company or even linked to ISC?? Barry Hinchcliffe was the guy who put Rally Coverage on the Map, and I think he did the terrestrial coverage on BBC/ITV many years ago.The programmes were full of action and geared to the ardent Rally fan or newcomer. I think it was Steve Riders commentary that also added to the package, and all in all made for an enjoyable watch! The shots they have of the drivers faces/feet/ wings in the current coverage is a total waste of air time. I appreciate cost is a major factor, but I would have thought that those at the FIA would have wanted the `shop wndow` of the sport to be great viewing,along with F1/Premiership Football/Golf.Maybe because the ISC is now the Global Promoter things may get better? Coverage of Monte was excellent, and the on board shots of stages spectacular, so the skill is there, even if it costs extra! So ideally, bring back BHP, show it on BBC (alongside F1) no adds, and get Mr Rider back, and stick to covrage of rallying, and leave out the Geography/Current Affairs.

[jonkka]

The problems and generic look of the shows comes from a lack of cameras out on the stages.

The biggest improvement they could do IMO is get the helicopter back in the air.

Exactly, here you have the number 1 and number 2 points that I couldn't agree more with!

I would add lack of narrative as third point. Nowadays the coverage goes through the top drivers in one stage, then moves to next stage and repeats this until next service break or rally end, at which point there are some silly questions to drivers. Obviously, this isn't down to ISC who only provide the raw film but for the company actually airing the package and how they edit it.

However, the result is just a collection of stage times and odd comments with little or no overall perspective or sense of plot. In the old days, when the full rally coverage was sent several days after the event ended, they had time to collect the best bits and really tell the story of how the rally progressed. Those were enjoyable...

I HATE the shot looking back at the drivers. The format of outside shot - shot looking at drivers - onboard shot looking out of windscreen - shot from static camera. When you have watched this for about 6 years you cant help but be sick of it.

Onboards, cockpit cameras and Virtual Spectator were all good gimmicks when those still were a novelty and still are if properly used but you're right, those are overused today.

[Motorsportfun]

Maybe because the ISC is now the Global Promoter things may get better? Coverage of Monte was excellent, and the on board shots of stages spectacular, so the skill is there, even if it costs extra!

Well, if you tell me that Monte's coverage is excellent, I dont agree. Why? Because for a newcomer, to see minutes and minutes of footage from the same on-board camera is boring. Isn't the right way to promote the sport. The "live" experience is good, but also in the IRC there is the same problem: the tv-crews on the stages. Look at the IRC magazines, the footage is taken from the same corner...

...for the tv production in Rallying, the problem is the same for all: the TV-crews on the stages. ISC is going in the right way, putting biggest crews (with 3 people in near corners) and 3 cameras located. Watch the "meet the crew" on wrc.com, you'll understand what Im saying.

But is necessary to improve the coverage for what concern graphics, maybe using something like THIS orTHIS

What do you think about it?

[Jimmy Magnusson]

I'm tired of watching the stage finish over and over again, souped up with some virtual spectator. Give me more exterior shots, and by god, give me a proper commentator (I think one is pretty good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Q2G5...eature=related). And as others have also said, add a better narrative. But again, what really needs to change is to have more of the Youtube link coverage and less of waiting for the timer to stop and seeing that Sordo had indeed lost time to Solberg.

[WRCfan]

How to improve?

Stop showing 22 minutes of footage out of 25 consisting of Loeb. There ARE OTHER CARS RUNNING!

[Iskald]

I do agree with most of the abovementioned, except that I`m not really that impressed of the Monte coverage.

As a TV-producer myself I do know one or two things about TV-coverage of rallies. It is possibly one of the most difficult sports to cover properly, unless you have more or less unlimited resources. And as I have written before, I am positively sure that rallying at the moment doesn`t generate enough of a sponsor market to cover the neccessary costs.

With travel, transport, food, accomodation and wages one cameraman, sound man or effect camera operator (inboard etc) will cost appr. 700 Euros pr. day. On top of that comes reporters, producers, video-editors etc. I don`t know the size of the North One Television crew for a WRC-event, but should we guess at least 20 people? Thats 14 000 Euros pr. day in costs for the crew alone. That doesn`t include the costs for running the production unit semitrailers (where they actually edit and produce the programmes). We are talking huge costs here.

Of course this is no excuse for stale and boring programmes with very little proper journlistic content. That is possibly the worst with these programmes today. The broadcast from Cyprus ended with a totally meaningless "interview" with Citroën teamboss Olivier Quesnel. It was "sponsorjournalism" at its worst, because the "reporter" didn`t even ask Quesnel a question about his views on Petter Solberg in an eight year old Xsara actually beating both factory drivers during the last two days of the rally. IMO this was a highly relevant question, with great public interest, but it was never asked and never answered...

[AndyRAC]

I do agree with most of the abovementioned, except that I`m not really that impressed of the Monte coverage.

As a TV-producer myself I do know one or two things about TV-coverage of rallies. It is possibly one of the most difficult sports to cover properly, unless you have more or less unlimited resources. And as I have written before, I am positively sure that rallying at the moment doesn`t generate enough of a sponsor market to cover the neccessary costs.

With travel, transport, food, accomodation and wages one cameraman, sound man or effect camera operator (inboard etc) will cost appr. 700 Euros pr. day. On top of that comes reporters, producers, video-editors etc. I don`t know the size of the North One Television crew for a WRC-event, but should we guess at least 20 people? Thats 14 000 Euros pr. day in costs for the crew alone. That doesn`t include the costs for running the production unit semitrailers (where they actually edit and produce the programmes). We are talking huge costs here.

Of course this is no excuse for stale and boring programmes with very little proper journlistic content. That is possibly the worst with these programmes today. The broadcast from Cyprus ended with a totally meaningless "interview" with Citroën teamboss Olivier Quesnel. It was "sponsorjournalism" at its worst, because the "reporter" didn`t even ask Quesnel a question about his views on Petter Solberg in an eight year old Xsara actually beating both factory drivers during the last two days of the rally. IMO this was a highly relevant question, with great public interest, but it was never asked and never answered...

Ha ha, 'The Reporter'. The whole WRC/ISC business is about promoting 'the show' - forget about any proper journalism. The interviews on Radio, the TV are virtually worthless, nothing hard hitting at all, i;e "How do you feel after winning?" "How unhappy after crashing, again?" The website is the same, nothing critical, remember the stage cancellations in Japan & Wales. Nothing! Not only that, they've also got hold of Rallycourse and made that the Offiical Annual - thereby removing any criticism. It's all control freakery.
Don't know what it's like in any other country, but here in UK we don't get any post Rally analysis. It would be nice to have some after the action finishes - go to a studio and some decent journalists commenting. Won't happen though because there isn't a big enough audience for it in UK.
As for the coverage, it was better when either BBC/BHP filmed it - and that was 10-20 years ago!!