2022 ERC News & Rumours

[Jarek Z]

Me neither.

[PLuto]

I also dont have positive feeling of these changes...

[RS]

I'm not convinced having the two main championships behind a paywall is a great idea.......

It depends what other coverage there is, perhaps a highlights show will appear on FTA somewhere?

Eurosport era ERC was kind of behind a paywall too (although many people would have had Eurosport as part of their tv package already, and the Youtube content was also very good)

It’s a good move that it’s a free addition to WRC+ at least. That might bring a few more paying subscribers to them and may bring some new fans to ERC who are already WRC+ subscribers too.

[Andre Oliveira]

I'm not convinced having the two main championships behind a paywall is a great idea.......

Here in Portugal, Eurosport is not FTA... so...

[Arnold Triyudho Wardono]

I'm not convinced having the two main championships behind a paywall is a great idea.......

Especially after they removed WRX's full races videos on YouTube..(now I'm worry if they'll also removing the onboard vids)

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[mknight]

Does anyone here seriously thought this years free coverage (on Youtube) was good? (Eurosport is a paid channel)

I was following almost all rallies and just about everywhere I rather watched the local free footage both from (semi)-proffesional production and just random people standing on the stages where it was available (Roma, Azores, Barum).

The free youtube footage showed only stage end interviews most of the time, often without even knowing the stagetimes. When there were heli shots, the stage end reporter couldn't see them in sync so it was like watching something and listening to something else.
On top of that there were usually 2 stages per day max.


So now the free footage from others will mostly stay, and on top of that you get Alllive (for free for those already paying for WRC). And here this is considered as terrible.

I can agree that 2 "free" TV stages with Allive level coverage and "nothing" for rest of the day might be better than Allive on all stages for money.
But if the choice is between free and almost useless coverage and Allive for money, the choice is simple.

[WRCStan]

Does anyone here seriously thought this years free coverage (on Youtube) was good? (Eurosport is a paid channel)

I generally enjoyed it, but I wouldn't have paid for it. I'm not expecting to see 'action' and it's a good way to dip into the rally with people who know their subject and present it naturally. I can also do something else whilst watching if I want. Wouldn't going live with the Youtube channels give two-minute gaps of dead air between seconds of a passing car? I'm happy to accept waiting until after the rally these days to see action highlights and these channels obviously work well because they can cut a few days into a few minutes. Truth is, the quality of highlights isn't compromised whilst sometimes AllLive footage makes my eyes hurt when it's kilometre after kilometre of blocky, stalling, pixels. This is the technical limit of being live rather than any other factor.

The question to throw back is what do people want from 'live', unless it's the technical limits like cameras the full length of every stage and guaranteed comms links. What do the local semi-pros do better? To answer my own question I'd like to choose who I ride onboard with. Is that unfeasible?

[PLuto]

Dont forget that everything is also matter of budget. If you have big budget, you can make everything - live from all stages, put onboard cameras into the cars, put static cameras to every second corner of the stage etc. But everything about compromise between value and budget...

[WRCStan]

Dont forget that everything is also matter of budget. If you have big budget, you can make everything - live from all stages, put onboard cameras into the cars, put static cameras to every second corner of the stage etc. But everything about compromise between value and budget...

And also increase the value/budget. Have the cars pass fewer cameras multiple times all at once. This is obvious.

Delayed highlights are free whether it's from Passats or Official (what was on Eurosport this year that wasn't on YT?) and unless anybody has any suggestions about what Live product they would be willing to pay for, my take from these forums is that the demand for Live is falling based on what is possible.

[Jarek Z]

I generally enjoyed it, but I wouldn't have paid for it.

I have never paid for watching rallying on TV. Am I a bad rally fan?