2022 ERC News & Rumours

Nothing is free, even on "free to air" you pay for it by watching comercials. Personally i prefer to pay directly for things i'm interested in and get proper coverage without stupid commercials. There is the issue of growth and for that you need good marketing and social media. Maybe it's better to push for online and on demand stuff with some free stages here and there. But maybe i'm a special case i don't have a TV subscription for 10 years now, haven't missed it at all...

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Originally Posted by WRCStan

To answer my own question I'd like to choose who I ride onboard with. Is that unfeasible?

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That's technically possible, but would need some more funds for upgrades to the equipment compared to what is used right now. I believe mostly to the equipment onboard the relay aircraft.

There are usually only max . 2-4 cars on the stage at the same time anyway, except for very long stages.

Im just happy Im probably getting those 30 to 40 min highlights cuz I dont have Eurosport here in South America and the youtube/fb coverage is not that great. I dont care much about interviews after the stages. Im always more interested in seeing the cars at fan's videos. Add some comments about the times and positions and thats perfect.
ERC post some of the events highlights (30 to 40min) but they dont do that for every round (or at least Im geo-blocked from most of them) Rally is very difficult to promote and people consume media in a differente way nowadays. If its hard to WRC imagine for ERC.....

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Originally Posted by 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.

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The free ‘live’ stuff wasn’t very good quality I agree, however Eurosport were very good at uploading many full stage onboards very quickly to Youtube. i expect we’ll lose that next year unless we’re paying.

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Originally Posted by RS

The free ‘live’ stuff wasn’t very good quality I agree, however Eurosport were very good at uploading many full stage onboards very quickly to Youtube. i expect we’ll lose that next year unless we’re paying.

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Yes they were uploading quite a few onboards. However, I never understood their uploading logic. It almost seemed that they always uploaded the less interesting stages and not the important ones on purpose. Likely cause they could "sell" the top stages somewhere else.
For example the epic last Saturday stage of Cais on Barum was not uploaded by them, instead itbwas uploaded 2? months later by MSport. Instead Eurosport uploaded someone from the stage before and after.

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Originally Posted by RS

The free ‘live’ stuff wasn’t very good quality I agree, however Eurosport were very good at uploading many full stage onboards very quickly to Youtube. i expect we’ll lose that next year unless we’re paying.

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The coverage of the ERC by Eurosport was a bit second rate, almost 'old school'. Highlights late at night, 'live coverage' on YouTube of the end of stage interviews, etc Perfectly fine 10-15 years ago, but not anymore.
Following the success of the IRC, it seemed quite a come down and Eurosport seemed quite content to do as little as they did.

On the motorsport forums I go on, the ERC very rarely gets commented upon - I wonder if this will change, being linked to the WRC?

Was it not Eurosport that covered the IRC back in the days?

I just remember Monte in 09, where I learned crossing tyres for the first time.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PUAyYdI71JA
A certain frenchman is also there.....

Yes, it was - they started the live coverage in October 2008, at Valais; and it looked very promising. Then, we had the Monte with live coverage of all but one stage. However, not every event was like that.
I can't remember how many events, since the relaunch of the in ERC in 2013 they covered live; but it was definitely a downgrade in coverage.

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Originally Posted by AndyRAC

Yes, it was - they started the live coverage in October 2008, at Valais; and it looked very promising. Then, we had the Monte with live coverage of all but one stage. However, not every event was like that.
I can't remember how many events, since the relaunch of the in ERC in 2013 they covered live; but it was definitely a downgrade in coverage.

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At that time the IRC was a real competition to the struggling WRC. The works teams came to the IRC and a lot of money came with them too. When the WRC got back in shape and the IRC/ERC became again a playground of privateers and youngsters, there was naturally a lot less money in the game than before.

The live IRC footage was mostly paid by the event organizers, be it Monte Carlo, Cyprus or other events. Where the organizers didn't find the money there was no live footage. Simple as that. We do remember the highlights of the IRC era but those live TV events counted for only a minority of the events in the calendar. The majority had no live footage even in the golden IRC era.

Yes, if the organiser didn't have the money, then no live TV; I remember being disappointed that there was no live coverage of Circuit of Ireland.....but if there's no money.....