The BBC

pinno
pinno Posts: 51,196
edited June 2015 in The cake stop
Arguably, the biggest event in motorsport occurred over the weekend but no mention of it whatsoever on the BBC - the Le Mans 24h. Why? Is it because it's in France? Is it because they are too busy navel gazing and there was no (apparent) British interest?

BTW, Porsche won. Breaking a 5 year run by Audi.
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Comments

  • ddraver
    ddraver Posts: 26,348
    No interest here...sorry Pina
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  • vimfuego
    vimfuego Posts: 1,783
    British driver in the winning car too.

    I've been going to Le Mans on & off since 1997 and it never gets the coverage at home despite about 75,000 brits going to it every year. Eurosport have it covered anyway - sod the Beeb.
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  • capt_slog
    capt_slog Posts: 3,939
    I'd say that was fairly typical, Pina. I'm usually annoyed with BBC sports coverage.

    For a start, there's too much of it. Why it has to come into every single news program is beyond me.

    Secondly, it always seems to me to be about football (I know you're a follower, I hate it). Then they will have loads of conjecture about who might be going where to manage whom, and why. As if it mattered.

    Finally we might get a little bit on cycling if there's anything happening and if they have time after showing some new "sport" which you didn't even know existed.


    The older I get, the better I was.

  • veronese68
    veronese68 Posts: 27,252
    If they don't have the rights to show it they forget it exists. Absolutely no mention of Moto GP now on the Beeb.
    Been to Le Mans a few times and it's a great weekend away.
  • Flâneur
    Flâneur Posts: 3,081
    BBC radio 2 sport is pretty well rounded I find.

    I suppose if I was producing I would guess that most people who care for the less popular sports have already gone and found the results, so unless something else had happened wouldn't eat into air time with it. I don't know. I was griping over brunch yesterday that the sports pages in 3 papers were still over half full of football.
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  • lostboysaint
    lostboysaint Posts: 4,250
    If they don't have the rights to show it they forget it exists.

    Is the correct answer.

    Danny Kent leading the WC in Moto3, Sam Lowes doing well in Moto2, three British riders in MotoGP and nary a mention, even on the website.
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  • DeVlaeminck
    DeVlaeminck Posts: 8,719
    BBC radio 2 sport is pretty well rounded I find.

    I suppose if I was producing I would guess that most people who care for the less popular sports have already gone and found the results, so unless something else had happened wouldn't eat into air time with it. I don't know. I was griping over brunch yesterday that the sports pages in 3 papers were still over half full of football.

    The thing that bugs me is the coverage the give to horse racing. It's meant to be a public service broadcaster not a free advert for the betting industry.
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  • debeli
    debeli Posts: 583
    There is much wrong with the BBC, but it remains in my good books.

    I am a fan of the 24h dM, but I'm not sure it merits any time on the BBC. It is a big-money (HUUUGE money) sport which is something of a barbeque-stink, burnt-rubber, beer-marinated exhaustothon for the tens of thousands of fans who show up, but it is not really TV or radio sport and doesn't command a wide following on TV.

    It may be one of the oldest motorsport events still running, but it wouldn't get many viewers...

    Right now it is being used by many of the big names in motorsport to bash Bernie and F1, which is a very good use of the huge funds of Audi, Porsche, Nissan, Ford (soon) and others.

    But a TV spectacle for the BBC.... not really.

    I was sad that MotoGP left Auntie, although Cox and Perry were tiresome. Stavros was and is unique and the coverage and post-race were (mostly) good.

    But endurance racing.... really? Huge fun to be there and hear it and smell it and feel it. But not for TV.
  • pinno
    pinno Posts: 51,196
    It may be one of the oldest motorsport events still running, but it wouldn't get many viewers...

    Right now it is being used by many of the big names in motorsport to bash Bernie and F1, which is a very good use of the huge funds of Audi, Porsche, Nissan, Ford (soon) and others.

    But a TV spectacle for the BBC.... not really.

    But endurance racing.... really? Huge fun to be there and hear it and smell it and feel it. But not for TV.
    #

    I disagree. No one is suggesting that the whole thing should be televised by the beeb. What's wrong with the occasional bulletin? What's wrong with mentioning who won and the British interests? There was no mention of it at all. Nothing. Nadal winning the Mercedes open, a bronze medal for some bloke (I think it was athletics).
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  • frisbee
    frisbee Posts: 691
    I was quite enjoying watching the Le Mans coverage on TV, surprising amount of action and seeing how quickly they can get a car which has limped back to the pits with major damage back out racing again was really impressive.
  • mamba80
    mamba80 Posts: 5,032
    I m pretty sure that breakfast TV (BBC) did a talk with Ant Davidson on his chances of winning LM given his poor qualifying, 8th on grid wasnt it?

    Fact is the bbc are fighting for their very existence and have little money, as a society we ve voted in a Gov that wants to radically alter the beeb.
    So if you want non mainstream sports be prepared to pay for them.
  • verylonglegs
    verylonglegs Posts: 3,949
    I m pretty sure that breakfast TV (BBC) did a talk with Ant Davidson on his chances of winning LM given his poor qualifying, 8th on grid wasnt it?

    Fact is the bbc are fighting for their very existence and have little money, as a society we ve voted in a Gov that wants to radically alter the beeb.
    So if you want non mainstream sports be prepared to pay for them.

    Eastenders, The Voice, property programs, cooking programs, Radio 1, quiz shows, The One show...all crap that could and should be dropped and that's just stuff I can remember easily, trawl through the schedules and you'll realise a lot of it is junk. If it's pleading poverty as an organisation then I can only say it's very badly managed.
  • Flâneur
    Flâneur Posts: 3,081
    I m pretty sure that breakfast TV (BBC) did a talk with Ant Davidson on his chances of winning LM given his poor qualifying, 8th on grid wasnt it?

    Fact is the bbc are fighting for their very existence and have little money, as a society we ve voted in a Gov that wants to radically alter the beeb.
    So if you want non mainstream sports be prepared to pay for them.

    Eastenders, The Voice, property programs, cooking programs, Radio 1, quiz shows, The One show...all crap that could and should be dropped and that's just stuff I can remember easily, trawl through the schedules and you'll realise a lot of it is junk. If it's pleading poverty as an organisation then I can only say it's very badly managed.

    in your opinion. Whatever you, I or others here think we aren't the majority.
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  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,597
    I m pretty sure that breakfast TV (BBC) did a talk with Ant Davidson on his chances of winning LM given his poor qualifying, 8th on grid wasnt it?

    Fact is the bbc are fighting for their very existence and have little money, as a society we ve voted in a Gov that wants to radically alter the beeb.
    So if you want non mainstream sports be prepared to pay for them.

    Eastenders, The Voice, property programs, cooking programs, Radio 1, quiz shows, The One show...all crap that could and should be dropped and that's just stuff I can remember easily, trawl through the schedules and you'll realise a lot of it is junk. If it's pleading poverty as an organisation then I can only say it's very badly managed.

    in your opinion. Whatever you, I or others here think we aren't the majority.
    Exactly.
    The BBC are giving their audience what they want. And they want trash.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
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  • tangled_metal
    tangled_metal Posts: 4,021
    BBC fighting for cash? Doubt it. They've sold a lot overseas and make shedloads from overseas sales of rights or back . catalogue. Indeed other broadcasters always sscream about it being unfair BBC is not fighting on the same level playing field.

    BBC don't show something as big as the TdTdF, correct me if I'm wrong one of the biggest annual sporting events. Why is a bunch of fancy cars being driven for 24 hours deserve more BBC airtime than the TdF? I'd rather they showed at least the highlights of TdF than le mans 24 hour race personally. Others, even on this cycling forum, may disagree.

    BTW they can only show so much much better have to cater for the majority and probably can't spare the cash buying the TV rights because ffootie, athletics, etc has taken their sports budget. Athletics I'd rather not lose but if you take all footie off the beeb I'm more than happy for le mans to replace it. Please replace it! Perhaps put more rugby union on too. They'll save a lot with le mans and union rights without footie I'm sure. In my book that'd be a public service too! ;)
  • finchy
    finchy Posts: 6,686
    They cover a wider range of sports, but only certain events from within those sports. So they'll cover the track cycling WC, but not a mention of cyclo-cross, they'll do football but only 11-a-side and not 5-a-side and F1 but not Le Mans.
  • tangled_metal
    tangled_metal Posts: 4,021
    I'd love to see cx on TV. Only seen the world championship I think 20 years ago in Leeds Roundhay Park. That was live and impressive. 25 years ago I first heard of cx when I saw it in a Blackburn park.
  • ballysmate
    ballysmate Posts: 15,921
    I m pretty sure that breakfast TV (BBC) did a talk with Ant Davidson on his chances of winning LM given his poor qualifying, 8th on grid wasnt it?

    Fact is the bbc are fighting for their very existence and have little money, as a society we ve voted in a Gov that wants to radically alter the beeb.
    So if you want non mainstream sports be prepared to pay for them.

    Only 5.1 Billion a year. Yes you are right, they are running it on a shoestring. :wink:
  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244
    non-stop coverage on Eurosport.

    Come one you lot, if you like cycling you should have Eurosport anyway.
  • pinno
    pinno Posts: 51,196
    non-stop coverage on Eurosport.

    Come one you lot, if you like cycling you should have Eurosport anyway.

    Have you tried to watch Eurosport lately (online) [see Eurosport thread]? I have a subscription and have had one for years. The only way to see it on television is to buy a very over expensive TV package - Which I don't have and will not have out of principal, partly because of Mr Murdoch.
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  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244
    non-stop coverage on Eurosport.

    Come one you lot, if you like cycling you should have Eurosport anyway.

    Have you tried to watch Eurosport lately (online) [see Eurosport thread]? I have a subscription and have had one for years. The only way to see it on television is to buy a very over expensive TV package - Which I don't have and will not have out of principal, partly because of Mr Murdoch.

    Stop whining then.
  • pinno
    pinno Posts: 51,196
    non-stop coverage on Eurosport.

    Come one you lot, if you like cycling you should have Eurosport anyway.

    Have you tried to watch Eurosport lately (online) [see Eurosport thread]? I have a subscription and have had one for years. The only way to see it on television is to buy a very over expensive TV package - Which I don't have and will not have out of principal, partly because of Mr Murdoch.

    Stop whining then.

    Well then. I'll come round to your house and watch Europsort on your telly. I don't take any sugar in my tea and please leave the key under the mat. Please buy some decent biscuits and coffee.
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  • rick_chasey
    rick_chasey Posts: 72,244
    It's not difficult to hook up a computer to your TV.

    Also, you don't need sky necessarily to get Eurosport (though have to say, Sky TV is really very good) - can pay one off for a satellite to pick up all the Euro channels.

    Eurosport is free-to-air, so once you've forked out for the receiver, it's not expensive.
  • debeli
    debeli Posts: 583

    Have you tried to watch Eurosport lately (online) [see Eurosport thread]? I have a subscription and have had one for years. The only way to see it on television is to buy a very over expensive TV package - Which I don't have and will not have out of principal, partly because of Mr Murdoch.

    I don't subscribe to any broadcaster; Freeview covers more than I used to be able to get in the Good Old Days. That's not on principal (?) or principle as I'd put it, but because I'm tight and there's more free telly than I can watch.

    But really, both motorsport and cycling are pretty well covered by the free channels. Even the bloody Dauphine has been on ITV4 recently... I didn't see it, but I saw that it was on... and is still available from them online.

    Cycling is enjoying a brief bubble of high popularity at the moment. It seems almost perverse to me that it is, as it has changed little over the decades and yet in the 70s, 80s and 90s few people in the UK gave a flying moonward fornicatory act about it. This frequent coverage on freeview and elsewhere will drop away...

    Cycling always was a slightly geeky, minority interest in the UK. In France, Italy and elsewhere it was a regular topic of family conversation and everybody 'drank' the traditions and knew the names. Not here. Understandably, I think. It is quite an odd sport, whether one looks at road, track, CX or the many other disciplines we have today. Interest will wane, bike sales will wane, Mamility will caese to be a condition and we'll all be able to enjoy geekdom and punctures as before.

    Motorsports that are less widely followed in the UK (24H du Mans, MotoGP, WEC, Indycar et al) may also enjoy the odd bubble of popularity and sneak onto one or two pay channels or freeview, but they are not really in our UK DNA and they will come and go.

    In this digital age, it is not the job of the BBC to pay out to broadcast geek-interest sports just because I like them. Tim Birkin is dead and the last Bentley to race was an Audi.
  • RideOnTime
    RideOnTime Posts: 4,712

    Have you tried to watch Eurosport lately (online) [see Eurosport thread]? I have a subscription and have had one for years. The only way to see it on television is to buy a very over expensive TV package - Which I don't have and will not have out of principal, partly because of Mr Murdoch.

    I don't subscribe to any broadcaster; Freeview covers more than I used to be able to get in the Good Old Days. That's not on principal (?) or principle as I'd put it, but because I'm tight and there's more free telly than I can watch.

    But really, both motorsport and cycling are pretty well covered by the free channels. Even the bloody Dauphine has been on ITV4 recently... I didn't see it, but I saw that it was on... and is still available from them online.

    Cycling is enjoying a brief bubble of high popularity at the moment. It seems almost perverse to me that it is, as it has changed little over the decades and yet in the 70s, 80s and 90s few people in the UK gave a flying moonward fornicatory act about it. This frequent coverage on freeview and elsewhere will drop away...

    Cycling always was a slightly geeky, minority interest in the UK. In France, Italy and elsewhere it was a regular topic of family conversation and everybody 'drank' the traditions and knew the names. Not here. Understandably, I think. It is quite an odd sport, whether one looks at road, track, CX or the many other disciplines we have today. Interest will wane, bike sales will wane, Mamility will caese to be a condition and we'll all be able to enjoy geekdom and punctures as before.

    Motorsports that are less widely followed in the UK (24H du Mans, MotoGP, WEC, Indycar et al) may also enjoy the odd bubble of popularity and sneak onto one or two pay channels or freeview, but they are not really in our UK DNA and they will come and go.

    In this digital age, it is not the job of the BBC to pay out to broadcast geek-interest sports just because I like them. Tim Birkin is dead and the last Bentley to race was an Audi.


    I don't think its a popular blip I think it's a steadily rising trend.
  • CiB
    CiB Posts: 6,098
    Have you tried to watch Eurosport lately (online) [see Eurosport thread]? I have a subscription and have had one for years. The only way to see it on television is to buy a very over expensive TV package - Which I don't have and will not have out of principal, partly because of Mr Murdoch.
    Yeah. I used to think like that, refusing to pay for Sky on principle (for me it was Rooney & co's obscene wages), but really it's not the 1970s any more where 3 channels divvied everything up between them and showed us bits of sport, and in the end you wonder just who is the mug here. Rooney still raking in a hundred+ grand a week regardless of me smugly not contributing, or me + the kids not being able to watch sport that's being broadcast to all & sundry and we're missing it thanks to me preferring to stuff a few more quid into a savings account somewhere. We're only here once; I'd rather cough up reluctantly and get the full benefit of Sky Sports & Eurosport + ITV4 HD than wonder what do with an extra few hundred quid in a bank account.
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,597
    Have you tried to watch Eurosport lately (online) [see Eurosport thread]? I have a subscription and have had one for years. The only way to see it on television is to buy a very over expensive TV package - Which I don't have and will not have out of principal, partly because of Mr Murdoch.
    Yeah. I used to think like that, refusing to pay for Sky on principle (for me it was Rooney & co's obscene wages), but really it's not the 1970s any more where 3 channels divvied everything up between them and showed us bits of sport, and in the end you wonder just who is the mug here. Rooney still raking in a hundred+ grand a week regardless of me smugly not contributing, or me + the kids not being able to watch sport that's being broadcast to all & sundry and we're missing it thanks to me preferring to stuff a few more quid into a savings account somewhere. We're only here once; I'd rather cough up reluctantly and get the full benefit of Sky Sports & Eurosport + ITV4 HD than wonder what do with an extra few hundred quid in a bank account.
    If someone paid the full Sky package fee into a pension fund instead then their pension pot would be higher than the average pot based on that alone.
    Just a thought on priorities for the masses.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
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  • CiB
    CiB Posts: 6,098
    If someone paid the full Sky package fee into a pension fund instead then their pension pot would be higher than the average pot based on that alone.
    Just a thought on priorities for the masses.
    See it's churlish snide comments like this that drove me away from this site. Eeeh I remember when it were fun on here and all this was just fields man.

    You might have a point if £60 a month was a significant proportion of my disposable income or the total of what's going into various funds & accounts, but it isn't, it's buttons in reality and I'd rather enjoy spending a small sum on sport etc for me & the kids (wife isnae bothered by it) and enjoy the tidy pension that's coming my way anyway in a few years time.

    Masses my backside. :roll:
  • squired
    squired Posts: 1,153
    The BBC would prefer to focus its efforts on huge events that no-one is interested in, like the female World Cup. It made me laugh the other day when the England vs New Zealand cricket game was on, but the main headline on the BBC website was for live coverage of the female football....yeah, ok....
  • pblakeney
    pblakeney Posts: 25,597
    If someone paid the full Sky package fee into a pension fund instead then their pension pot would be higher than the average pot based on that alone.
    Just a thought on priorities for the masses.
    See it's churlish snide comments like this that drove me away from this site. Eeeh I remember when it were fun on here and all this was just fields man.

    You might have a point if £60 a month was a significant proportion of my disposable income or the total of what's going into various funds & accounts, but it isn't, it's buttons in reality and I'd rather enjoy spending a small sum on sport etc for me & the kids (wife isnae bothered by it) and enjoy the tidy pension that's coming my way anyway in a few years time.

    Masses my backside. :roll:
    I said it was a thought about the masses, Mr & Mrs average, not something personal, or something to chew over.
    Hope you didn't choke on that big bite.
    The above may be fact, or fiction, I may be serious, I may be jesting.
    I am not sure. You have no chance.
    Veronese68 wrote:
    PB is the most sensible person on here.