What did you think of the Channel 7 coverage?!

[twig]

I have to say, on the first ever Bathurst 24 Hour race, they did quite a good job. Everyone would have wanted more hours to see it, maybe during the day, but i think they did a good job.

Considering they havent done a motorsport event for a while.
It is a 24 hour race so its not easy to get the maximum hours.
and, It was the first one ever.

Plus, they didnt have the stupid channel 10 commentators.

What did you all think?

Oh yeah, and well done Holden and GRM, all the teams and the drivers!

Tom.

[marcus]

it wasnt the best coverage , but todays effort was certainly better than yesterdays effort , like the national anthem and crossing to brocky for the start your engines thingy , very poor indeed.

but today was alot better allthough you really cant cover a 24hr race in the short time they gave , would be good to get more coverage in the future.

but I give them a 7 out of 10 for their effort (Pun intended)

[Dazz]

I think they need to give the whole Australia vs the world thing a big miss, and stop hyping up the Monaro as much, because it actually tarnished the result in some ways for me.

Covering some more of the class cars might have been a little better, but I think without greater air time covering everything would be difficult.

[jetsetter]

I don't think that they showed hardly enough with only showing 2 & a half hours out of 24 but they'll hopefully learn & improve their coverage with time.

[Amaroo Park]

It was dreadful actually. For a network with so much experiance covering Motor Sport I would expect much better. Seven used to be better tah 10 Network but now I am not so sure. I think they are both as bad as each other.........

[golem]

Shocking to Average, the lead commentator dragged it down VERY substantially in quality. And that whole Australia > World was so BAD to listen to, I fealt embarassed to be an Australian! It was like an American commentary or something. Bloody hell, whoever it was fire him.

The camera's and sounds where good though, but that owes alot to the event's diversity than the coverage though I DID like the shots they took of those three Mirage's circulating at the end. They looked pretty good in a bunch, was good. ^_^

I wish the sounds of some of the smaller cars would come over better, I think it must have something to do with the editors equilizer settings. I'd like to be able to hear that S2000 a bit clearer.

Gricey was good to listen to, pity about him not being able to race. If he's not racing next year he'd make a good enough guest commentator.
The British commentator wasn't too bad despite repeating himself a few times, you can bring him back. The lady in pit lane only made minor errors, but she too suffered from this Us V Them a bit with referance to some comments she made. Why in the world there wasn't midnight till dawn coverage I have no idea. It's not an overly watched viewing spot on seven, on sunday mornings. At least I wouldn't imagine Sunday dawn was overly watched.

Main suggestion still stands at this though: Drop the US V THEM mentality and start by firing that lead commentator!!

[275 GTB-4]

Originally posted by golem
Shocking to Average, the lead commentator dragged it down VERY substantially in quality. And that whole Australia > World was so BAD to listen to, I fealt embarassed to be an Australian! It was like an American commentary or something. Bloody hell, whoever it was fire him.

Gricey was good to listen to, pity about him not being able to race. If he's not racing next year he'd make a good enough guest commentator. If ya a need a Cranky Ole Man (that is)

The British commentator wasn't too bad despite repeating himself a few times, you can bring him back. (Come back anytime David - well done under difficult circumstances)

The lady in pit lane only made minor errors, but she too suffered from this Us V Them (Ally, what can I say? Try and be a little more knowledgeable and demure...??

Gary Wilkinson, where are you!! Seven hang your head...

On the other hand, the track looked magnificent, surrounding burn't off countryside not a good look!!

Main suggestion still stands at this though: Drop the US V THEM mentality and start by firing that lead commentator!!

To be fair, they didn't have much to work with. Even the failed two litre effort was more interesting..

[Morris 1100]

The thing that annoyed me the most was the stupid quotes like "Three out of three for the Monaro at Bathurst" because the Monaro won in 68 and 69.
But the Monaro did not win in 70, 71, 73 and 74! (did any run in 72?)
And it was not the first 24 Hour race in Australia.
Nor was it the first since Mt Druitt.
I raced in four 24 Hour races at Winton in the 90's

[The Tool Man]

Short answer to the Question : NOT MUCH !!!!

[golem]

No, the race was interesting enough if you looked at some of the other battles. It's not an exciting race, it's more interesting. But when they harp on and on about the same contrived mousetrap it gets boring and annoying. I didn't see the initial hour but caught the last half hour of the first stint and caught all the last stint.

I didn't see any coverage on the RX-7 team, the Go Karts Go car, the compuware magna, David Borg's car, That Bilstein Sube... Nada.

I also didn't mind the tech specs while watching the car in question popping up. Interesting enough. But, again, don't just cover one car.

The coverage was less than B-grade. But some of the sound edits (too and from add breaks) where good quality, so to ME it means the producer and team are good at making shows but knows sweet diddly about making racing broadcasts. To me, these are what appear to be key areas they need to work on. Commentator training / breifing to improve their knowledge of all teams but more importantly, of the machinery involved because this event is mainly driven by interest in the vehichles not the drivers, Timing of coverage of which cars, preset topics to cover during the race quiet points etc.

I tend to think SBS has more informed commentary on Speedweek's coverage of GTP but not so great on the audio-visual side of things due to budget I'd say.

Oh, and Morris, you're right about dumb statements. Oi. Like I said. EMBARASSED.

[William Dale Jr]

Did anyone hear Will Hagon commentating? Because he was listed under 'Commentators' in the credits, but I'm sure I didn't hear him :confused:

I know that Seven was restricted by their other commitments, but surely two-hours of Danoz Direct could've been bumped for one night? The Seven coverage had updates, but they could've done a better job with those. At the very least, they could've put them on when they said they would. 12-o'clock-midnight AEDT my foot! I'm assuming that living in Queensland, I would adjust that and see the update at 11. I waited up until half-past-12 before it came on.

The job Channel 10 did on the 12-hour in the early 90's was better than Seven's effort. How can television coverage have gone backwards from where they were a decade ago?

[Flaggie]

Just average, IMHO. Almost as average as calling that Monaro based sports sedan a Holden, really.

Ross P is on record as saying that Nations Cup is for the great marques of the world. Somehow, I dont think Holden quite matches it with Ferrari's F1 achievements, or Porsche's Le Mans achievements and so on...

[Morris 1100]

Originally posted by William Dale Jr
Did anyone hear Will Hagon commentating? Because he was listed under 'Commentators' in the credits, but I'm sure I didn't hear him.

Will Hagon is what could be termed as a gentleman and believes that if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all!

[Amaroo Park]

Originally posted by Morris 1100
Will Hagon is what could be termed as a gentleman and believes that if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all!

Here, here

[Bomn]

When Brock mimed "Gentlemen start your engines" and they then showed the incar shots of tachos and drivers pushing buttons I remembered why I was glad 7 wasn't doing motorsports any more. I am sure they showed a driver wearing stringback gloves and a HK monaro tacho.

[racer69]

I've only had a quick look at both telecasts since getting back from the race (well 3 actually, including the FOX Sports coverage of the 2 hour), and i thought that it wasn't all that bad.

You've got to remember they haven't done anything since 1999, and that they got burned the last time they covered motorsport, lost a heap of money, you can't blame them for being cautious. From all indications i received while talking to people at the track, expect a much bigger effort next year, some where even talking about full race coverage, if the event and ratings where well received, and apparently they were.

David Addison did a superb job, both in the 7 box and on the coarse commentary, maybe he can bring Richard Hay with him next year. Bring back Wilko though!

Don't know if you can blame 7 for the muck-up on saturday with the national anthem and the Brick thing, the quality was just as bad on the coarse commentary for those two bits.

[DNQ]

David Addison was brilliant, great commentator.

[stido]

YAAAAAWWWWWWWNNN!!!!!!! far out channel 9 would have done a better job!!!! channel 10 should keep all motorsports at least they dont make it boring as all hell!

[Troy]

Originally posted by Flaggie
Somehow, I dont think Holden quite matches it with Ferrari's F1 achievements, or Porsche's Le Mans achievements and so on...

They've gotta start somewhere

[racer69]

The are aiming the Monaro at the Porsche etc.. market though. Isn't Sportscar racing the ideal place to race it then?

stido - due to the short telecast time's it was alway's going to be difficult to convey the good race that it actually was, especially as it was their first time in 4 years.

[Buckshot]

Having Mark Beretta anywhere near the telecast was a mistake in the first place. I remember him from the last year Channel 7 handled the Super Tourers and he clearly didn't have a clue about anything motorsport related.

Also how many shots were there where the sound didn't match the vision on screen.

At least they didn't dub in all headache inducing virtual adds this time.

But still - I thought the whole coverage was pretty sub par.

I wish the main commentator guy could gone one minute without saying "The first ever 24 hour race at Mt Panorama".

I would have liked to have seen some of the racing at night and a bit more coverage too.

[racer69]

Buck - I agree about Mark Beretta, he tries hard, but.......i still think they should get Wilko off the morning news.

Apparently from what i have heard is that Channel 7 just showed the telecast, it was filmed by another company (perhaps the company that film all PROCAR rounds), although when i was moving around all the camera points had Channel 7 stickers and jackets and so on.

Judging by the apparently high ratings it got,i would assume a much bigger will be put in by 7 next year.

AF - The night stuff was absolutly fantastic, especially the Monaro across the top, pity that some wasn't shown on the telecast.

[JohhnyRacer]

Absolute ****. I would have thought they would show a bit more that just the last 1.5 hours. What about the start. What about overnight coverage. I dont expect to see the whole race but maybe an hourly update during the regular programs or something. When they did start the telecast at 2.30 this afternoon they didnt even have the decency to give a race update or highlights from the previous 22.5 hours. I hope they do better next year, or someone else televises it.

[Flaggie]

Originally posted by Troy
They've gotta start somewhere

Fair point.....