WRC - RTE "coverage"

cashmni1

After being led to believe that RTE had "live coverage" of the WRC, I was bitterly disapointed with the discraceful coverage of the event.
All I saw was a ss on day 1, half an hour of actual rally footage on Sat (out of 1 hour tv programme) and the last ss on Sunday. What about the rest? It was actually sickining to listen to Michael Lester speak to the other pundits all about how great they all are at organising the event. What a success!!
Yeah but no bloddy coverage.
Sickining.

Fey!

Are you really surprised? Galway International last year had NO coverage in any of the local papers, despite the crowds (and relatively trouble free ones at that!) that came to the city. Had it been the regional skipping finals with half the support, it'd have been front page on EVERY paper!

CrowdedHouse

I'm not really a motorsport fan in particular,but as an important sports event in Ireland I tuned in to see this.I have to agree it was very disappointing - all talk and no action almost literally.

gucci

have to admit i dont normally follow the WRC but i thought the coverage was very poor by RTE. not nearly enough actual video coverage shown at all and way too much talking in studio.I wonder was there rights issues? was fans in other countries getting better action on theyre screens or were they relying on the images RTE supplied??

Robbo

RTE have to use the footage supplied to them by ISC, the rights holder. This is the reason why 30 mins of coverage has to be extended with the same amount of talk.

Mint Sauce

what i was surprised about that they had no hightlights show at all last night (missed the so called live show as was there ), not a huge rally fan, would have known one or two drivers before the weekned, but fully enjoyed the whole experience of it, i would have thought they would have had something on the closing day as well as the whole weekend, was kind of cutted lasty night when turned on the TV and nothing at all.

ended up watching eurosport highlights at about 10 last night

jmayo

RTE coverage was total cr**.
Half an hour of hour long program just talking was a joke.
Billy Coleman was a legend, Gallagher is a good propsect but asking them to waffle on for half an hour was embarrassing.
The idea of motorsport coverage is to actaully show cars/bikes/trucks moving, not have an effing chat about it :mad:

They should have purchased more coverage if at all possible.
FFS it was in our country but I suppose because it wasn't near the capital Donnybrook didn't care.

The Don

I agree. The coverge was a joke. Tuned in on Saturday at 1:30 expecting to see some driving and all there was was talk. Going to watch the WRC on Tuesday night to see if they have anything extra to add (hopefully).

If they can have hours of coverage for horse racing events like the Grand National then why can't they do it for an event that is more important to Ireland.

Kudos to the people for organising the event though. They really did an amazing job. Hopefully it'll be back in 2 years. Fingers crossed.

Gwynston

Robbo wrote: »

RTE have to use the footage supplied to them by ISC, the rights holder. This is the reason why 30 mins of coverage has to be extended with the same amount of talk.

Well, Eurosport showed about 3 times as much actual rally footage in their 30-min highlights shows as RTE managed in a hour!

On Sunday, RTE didn't so much as even mention the morning's 2 stages, which had a lot more action than the completely uneventful Mullaghmore stage.

aidan_dunne

I have to agree with you all, the RTE coverage this weekend was dire. My opinions on the subject are well documented in this thread here:

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055182880

As I said, RTE's attempt this weekend was definitely not a patch on the likes of the 'Top Gear - Rally Report' shows that the BBC used to do years ago when they showed the RAC Rally.

I'll say one thing, though. ISC/North One have one hell of an impressive setup. Check out these videos (they're a couple of years old but it'll still give you an idea of how impressive the whole setup is) to see exactly how they cover a rally and all the equipment and everything they use:

http://tvinformation.wrc.com/How_WRC_TV.wmv

http://tvinformation.wrc.com/inmarsat.wmv

bman

Gwynston wrote: »

On Sunday, RTE didn't so much as even mention the morning's 2 stages, which had a lot more action than the completely uneventful Mullaghmore stage.

I have to agree with you about the Mullaghmore stage. Very poor stage to finish the rally with. The road was too wide and freshly tarred, did not make for exciting spectating. Also, after the 45 minute walk from the main road you want something really good! Suppose they wanted the big crowds along the road for the last stage and it had to be short enough to be live.

Didn't watch much of the RTE coverage (not that there was much to watch from what people are saying here!) but it did seem pretty poor from what I seen Saturday evening.

ednwireland

i watched the itv 4 highlights on sun night and the event looked fantastic,sideways action crashes knackered drivers, its just a shame rte didnt look at at some of the other coverage mind you it may have cost too much to buy in all the helicopter and in car camera stuff from the crowd that do it for the wrc
thought the live stages werent good but then i've watched gb rally live stages and they never come out well either not really tv fodder on a live basis rallying imo, better to be standing in a field even got the in-laws out watching it

Oilrig

RTE coverage was an embarrassment.

It seemed to be focussed on securing pats on the back from competitors - "how good are we for staging this", Jeez get over the insecurity guys, the fact that we hosted a round of the RWC signals that we can do it. Lyster et al need to move on, I squirmed listening to some of his Q's... the need for constant endorsement from the competitors stank of an insecurity that doesn't exist amongst the majority of us anymore.

Stick to the GAA Michael, RWC is a different ballgame, you're out of touch.

powerfarmer

I agree the coverage of the rally was very poor , can anyone remember the "Rally Report" coverage of the Circuit of Ireland in the mid 1980's? it was superb an hour of that days action , no ads, short interviews with drivers and the teams and excellent coverage of the rallying presented by alan "plum" tyndall and george hamilton an rte/utv joint programme I've just watched the 1986 circuit (had to dig out the tape!) o the nostalgia! remember the theme tune............?

Oilrig

We've been confirmed for '09 as expected.

RTE... farm it out to the Pro's... its not Prime Time chat format stuff that the punter (or sponser) wants. Rallying is notoriously difficult to convey on TV but it has been done.

Rise to the challenge or lose the rights...

triple h

I have been watching WRC for 10 years now and i never liked live rally. The half an hour on eurosport is excellent and good enough for me.

Gringo

does anybody know where on tv i can watch the WRC this year? i know that the dave channel on sky i showing it... but im not impressed with the coverage...
i'd appreciate any info...

Robbo

Gringo wrote: »

does anybody know where on tv i can watch the WRC this year? i know that the dave channel on sky i showing it... but im not impressed with the coverage...
i'd appreciate any info...

There's still the half hour daily highlights packages on Eurosport. As far as I know, RTE have dropped it altogether this year.

I wasn't overly impressed by the coverage on Dave but I can see what they're getting at. Putting it on at 6pm on a Sunday, they're aiming for a much broader audience than ITV ever pitched it at.

aidan_dunne

Robbo wrote: »

There's still the half hour daily highlights packages on Eurosport. As far as I know, RTE have dropped it altogether this year.

Ah sh!te! I suspected as much. Noticed no listing in the RTE Guide this week for the Tuesday night/Wednesday morning highlights show they've shown the past two years on RTE Two. That got me wondering if they'd dropped it or lost the rights or something so I e-mailed them over the weekend to find out what the story was. Still haven't gotten a reply so it's not looking good.

Typical RTE! They decided to buy the rights to show the WRC highlights on the back of Ireland being awarded a round of the WRC, make a big hoo-hah about this and then, once Rally Ireland is over and done with, they ditch it again! Typical! Just f**king typical! :mad:

I wonder will they decide to buy them again for 2009 when Rally Ireland returns or is that it now, over and done with, and RTE's brief love affair with the WRC has come to an end? For some reason, like so many things with RTE, I suspect the latter unfortunately.

ednwireland

anyone know if there's any free to air coverage anywhere i was looking to see the monte highlights (expecting itv4 or late night rte) and nothing nada. i have fta sky satellite just dont want to pay cant see this doing wrc popularity any favours either

edit: wrc.com seem to have a few clips free have to make do with that

molateen

ednwireland wrote: »

anyone know if there's any free to air coverage anywhere i was looking to see the monte highlights (expecting itv4 or late night rte) and nothing nada. i have fta sky satellite just dont want to pay cant see this doing wrc popularity any favours either

edit: wrc.com seem to have a few clips free have to make do with that

Yep its on Dave which used to be "living" every week . really good coverage but better interviews . Channel 111 on the sky platform .

ednwireland

molateen wrote: »

Yep its on Dave which used to be "living" every week . really good coverage but better interviews . Channel 111 on the sky platform .

daves only available with a sky contract ( i assume ) cos i cant get it so no use to me

Jor

I don't understand why ITV pays money to but the rights for sports like Tour de France and WRC, and then dumps them on ITV 4.
Channel 4 used to give both these very food coverage. Then ITV taskes them but cannot put them on ITV 1 because they have to fill that with Corrie, Pop Idol and Dancing on Ice. WooHoo!!

aidan_dunne

In the words of Professor Farnsworth from 'Futurama'...... Good news, everybody!

I just checked my e-mail there a minute ago and I got this reply from RTE regarding the WRC coverage:


Dear Aidan

Apologies for the delay in responding but I was awaiting information from RTÉ Sport.

In response, the World Rally Championship (WRC) highlights programme will be starting on Tues 12th Feb. and ending on Tues 2nd Dec.

Kind Regards,

Brigitte Murphy

RTÉ Information - Communications


A bit late starting this year but it's better than no highlights at all. Better start clearing out some space on my DVD recorder's hard drive, I guess!

Bobby04

Only happened upon this thread now.

I was furious with RTE for making a complete b***s of the coverage of Rally Ireland. I mailed them to complain about lack of actual stage coverage, but also for subjecting us to hearing Coleman/Gallagher embarassing themselves day after day with the same lines about Loeb being the best, rallying being expensive, stages being slippy, great for Ireland etc etc. What total and utter waffle, and poor Gallagher looked like he had a plank stuck up his ...
I got a swift response from RTE, explaining that they had to take what coverage they got from WRC, and acknowledging that there was alot of studio talking etc., but certainly not promising to change anything next time around :mad:
I had persuaded a few non-rally fan friends to tune in before hand, and had to eat humble pie I'll tell you. They all thought the coverage was s***e.
Thankfully for all rally fans, Rally Ireland was a big enough success to secure us a place in WRC 2009, but I dread to think what RTE will pollute the airwaves with next time around!

Solberg2005

RTE should have got their facts right from the start of the year and got a deal to show all 15 rounds of the WRC instead of leaving it late and missing the 1st round. Still its better then no coverage although im still gonna get the box and be guaranteed to see some action. I presume we will have to set our recorders for half 12 on a tuesday nights now from the 12th!

Biro

I don't like the coverage on Dave, it's like Rallying for Dummies. Yer man is a bit of a flute. However, it's far better than nothing at all.

Anyone know if it's possible to purchase a DVD of rally Ireland as recorded by the WRC team?

Solberg2005

The only DVD you can get is the one of the review of the whole season which i think is out now.

recyclebin

The Swedish Rally is on RTE on Tuesday at 00:45. Two days later than most other channels and at a ridiculous hour. I guess ill have to watch it FTA on Eurosport Germany where they show hightlights at about 10pm on friday, saturday and sunday.

Akilduss

powerfarmer wrote: »

I agree the coverage of the rally was very poor , can anyone remember the "Rally Report" coverage of the Circuit of Ireland in the mid 1980's? it was superb an hour of that days action , no ads, short interviews with drivers and the teams and excellent coverage of the rallying presented by alan "plum" tyndall and george hamilton an rte/utv joint programme I've just watched the 1986 circuit (had to dig out the tape!) o the nostalgia! remember the theme tune............?

Now could someone put that on YouTube!!

Robbo

Akilduss wrote: »

Now could someone put that on YouTube!!

Your wish, etc.

I can dig out more if people want.