British Eurosport Coverage Rant

I enjoy watching bike sport on British Eurosport. I prefer the dulcet northern tones of Whitham and Burnicle commentating, as well as Toby and Julian for MotoGP - plus all the races are now in HD. I'll be very sad when they lose MotoGP coverage at the end of this year...

BUT

I set the Sky+ box up to record the highlights from WSBK in Laguna last week on British Eurosport. I go through the planner on Sky and find "WSBK Highlights from Laguna". First attempt at recording - I only got race 1. Second attempt at recording a day later - same description in the planner - the program starts 8 laps into race 2. WTF!? I appreciate that they had the two races on separate days, but there should be no excuse for starting the coverage earlier than planned, meaning I missed the first 8 laps.

And this has happened before - I've either missed the end of races (MotoGP, BSB or WSBK) because they've started the coverage late or I miss the beginning because they've started early. Who is setting the clocks at Eurosport - Stevie feckin' Wonder!?

/rant over

 

I am with you on the Eurosport coverage, Prefer it to the brain numbing dullness of BBC and their will they wont they stay for the podium?!
I now make it a rull to set a manula recording for all bike sport...and set THE WHOLE BLOODY DAY! lol

Not sure If I can justifying subscribing to BT just for Bike racing for next year so hoping they will at least be allowed NON LIVE coverage.
/in sympathy with your rant

 

I think the Eurosport coverage is far superior to the likes of the Beebs coverage of the same footage, the comentry is boring monotonal that just doesnt work for me! The HD channels are just the added icing on the cake especially when it comes to the super slo mo shots from motogp!

The problem with Eurosport coverage times changing is the live footage they show most days quite often runs on due to no fault of Eurosport themselves, let's take the WSB race 1 coverage there were two red flags and the race was scheduled to run a 22 lap race which was extended to a 33 lap race with the two restarts and waiting on repairs to the air fencing! This added over an extra hour of live footage to broadcast!

Tbh they are at the losing end of both sides of the stick if they were to cut off the live footage before it was actually finished there would be an uproar and just like now the highlight footage got either pushed backwards or cut short due to live footage running on, again causing an uproar from the desired viewer base!

 

Totally agree Eurosport coverage is way more exciting to watch & listen too, especially when watching Moto GP with Toby and Julian, I actually record the main race and prefer to watch it later than watch the live BBC2 coverage.

Defiantly going to miss them next year, but i am quite fortunate to have Virgin Media and with the package im on they are giving me BT Sports free so at least i still get to see the racing

 

I appreciate things run over, and maybe it's partly the inadequacies of the SKY+ system - there should be some system whereby any program that starts late, is automatically extended. Even my VCR back in the day had this feature!

BUT. There should be no excuse for starting programs early. Take the 2 race for example, my SKY box recorded on schedule and the recording started 8 laps into the race. So based on their lap times and a bit of pre-amble the program must have started at least 15 minutes early. That's not good planning and poor service. If an event has ended early and there is nothing else to show - fill in with some highlights or extended pre-amble for the following event - even bring back the girl on the test card with her blackboard and balloon friend! Just do not start the following program early so it results in me missing the start of a race...

 

Yeah - I'd forgotten about that. I recorded one of the race highlight shows (BSB, WSBK, or MotoGP - can't remember which), only to find an hour of lycra-clad cyclists when I played it back. Feckin' cyclists...

 

Yeah I did the same, it was a couple of weeks ago for the Moto GP total cock up on Eurosports TV guide it was just cycling on both Eurosport channels

 

I am as gutted as most to be loosening the MGP in 2013 to BT Sports, and I think Dorna get some slack for it too, however I wonder how many know that it's Dorna sports who own the cameras, crew and rest of the gear that records the footage of the MGP, no wonder they sell the rights to air the footage they record. So it's Eurosport and BBC that fk up the airing of all that hard work! I am hoping that some middle ground is found before next year and just maybe BT will do some kind of deal based on the fact not all or rather most of the UK will find it hard to watch it without Sky or a fast Broadband connection, not that I want to watch shitty Broadband based footage on my nice big TV! Here are some facts on Dorna and the footage they have to capture, as well as a great place for facts, inside info and some great pics...

They setup 35 tonns of equipment and 45km of cable in three days!

Photographer's Blog: Interview with Sergi Sendra, Director of Dorna Sports TV Production | MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

and then pack it all up again and ship off to the next race!