2013 Lessons identified

[Sulland]

We are in to the latter part of the First ERC season in the new format.

What has been good, and what not so good - and which of the lessons identified are so important that something should be made lessons learned, and by that lead to change for 2014?

[kober]

Lesson one: Teams' championship is crap - bring back manufacturers' championship, a la IRC.
Lesson two: A rally every two weeks is way too often - Croatia was the obvious casualty.
Lesson three: Live TV is good - expand to the majority of rallies.

[Mirek]

Lesson one: Teams' championship is crap - bring back manufacturers' championship, a la IRC.

AFAIK it's going to happen.

Lesson two: A rally every two weeks is way too often - Croatia was the obvious casualty.

Agree

Lesson three: Live TV is good - expand to the majority of rallies.

I'm sure Eurosport would like to have all rallies live but it costs hell of money so I expect the coverage to stay about the same like always.

Some another points from me...

Lesson four: Never change rules during the running season (tyres before Corsica).

Lesson five: There are too many events in the calendar.

Lesson six: Simplify the point system in regards to the events from which the points are counted. Average spectator must be totally lost in the standings during the season.

-> L5+L6: Reduce calendar and count all or almost all events (I'm sure this is not going to happen).

Lesson seven: It's not needed to call everybody a star. The articles on the website looks ridiculous sometimes. That brings a lot of good work away.

[kober]

I'm sure Eurosport would like to have all rallies live but it costs hell of money so I expect the coverage to stay about the same like always.

If on some rallies they skipped helicopters, but had a live stream on a website, with quality commentary, on-boards, and a camera at the end of the stage, then it would be good enough for me. Splits would need to be available too.
It'd like watching night hours of 24 Heures du Le Mans on TV, when they only have cameras along pitstops, and the rest of the feed is filled up with on-boards.

[liposh]

French WRC round showed us it is possible to broadcast all stages of rally without bigger problem. Eurosport could do that technically too, they have got enough staff. But no need for that. I agree with skipping the helicopters and broadcasting just onboards on official FIA ERC website. Moreover Eurosport can cooperate with some local TV in this point. I think many TVs from many countries would buy the rights for such coverage (like they did it during french WRC round)

I personally would prefer more simulcams and onboard comparisons during rally reviews.

[WUff1]

I agree with much less rallies, but I´d sure this won´t happen ....

Obviously ERC didn´t gain more attractivity by abandoning IRC - that´s the real problem, but I don´t know how it could be solved.

[Mirek]

French WRC round showed us it is possible to broadcast all stages of rally without bigger problem. Eurosport could do that technically too, they have got enough staff. But no need for that. I agree with skipping the helicopters and broadcasting just onboards on official FIA ERC website. Moreover Eurosport can cooperate with some local TV in this point. I think many TVs from many countries would buy the rights for such coverage (like they did it during french WRC round)

I personally would prefer more simulcams and onboard comparisons during rally reviews.

How do you think You can transmit the signal from cars without helicopters or planes?

[miniwintz]

The running cost of live TV could be greatly reduced with :
- small scale drones instead of full size helicopters
- good video compression algorithms such as H265
- wifi / wimax / 4g instead of very costly uhf transmissions

I think live video from onboard cameras is very much possible, but it would require some investment in r&d from the promoters. Unfortunately nowadays, investment is the word that everyone fears so it's very likely that they will stick to technology from the past and that they cannot really afford.
I agree that helicopter footage is unnecessary (aside from showing off the sponsor stickers) and GPS data would be sufficient to make the real time timing comparisons that we saw at rally France.

[shaperzrally]

Broadcasting costs are high for bicycle races too but there are many races live on eurosport. I'm not talking about the TdF, Giro or the Vuelta but there are several smaller races on tv live. The broadcasting method is almost the same. Helicopters and ground cameras are the same only change the motocams to onboard cameras. Looks like there are far more money in cycling than rally...

[AndyRAC]

The money in cycling is peanuts compared to even Rallying.....


I’d say the new relaunched ERC has been a bit ‘hit & miss’ – some events have had good entries, good TV coverage, others not so. Ideally, the top ERC events should be live on TV; Ypres, Sanremo, Zlin, Corsica.....sadly, most of them haven’t been.
Also, in an ideal world the best European events would be in the ERC – not those who can pay the fee – but that is just a fact of modern life.