Winter Olympics

When you're only allowed (i.e. only got/bought the rights for) two live feeds and have one main broadcast channel to put it on, then you are going to want to put the most interesting stuff (to the highest number of people) on it. When you have N (>2) things potentially of interest, then you are going to have to chop and change on the secondary feed (601) as well.
It's an impossible situation - you just cannot please all of the people all of the time.
You cannot please some of the people all of the time.
You cannot please all of the people some of the time.
You can just please some of the people some of the time.
Then you read $h!t on websites (from apparently ignorant people) about how the coverage is abysmal etc. What would they do? Of course that isn't reported as people just like to whinge and push home their (non) point.
Who'd be the editor of BBC Sport, eh?
 
Last edited:
In the men's curling, according to Steve Cram, every GB opponent has been Canada (at least for a while), except when it was Canada and he called them USA. Perhaps he should concentrate on the game he's supposed to be commenting on rather than the other three sheets.
Could make for a boozy drinking game. Every time, in a game not involving Canada, he calls the opponent Canada take a drink. Completely sloshed by the 4th end?
 
EEPhil said:
In the men's curling, according to Steve Cram, every GB opponent has been Canada (at least for a while), except when it was Canada and he called them USA. Perhaps he should concentrate on the game he's supposed to be commenting on rather than the other three sheets.
Could make for a boozy drinking game. Every time, in a game not involving Canada, he calls the opponent Canada take a drink. Completely sloshed by the 4th end?
Click to expand...
'slushed' surely
 
Black Hole said:
I watched the end of the women's game – didn't notice.
Click to expand...
Nearer the beginning.

Edit: I didn't miss the end of the women's game - I was watching live. (No spoilers here)
Just walked away and missed the end of the men's game. I'll have to see if I managed to record it.
 
Last edited:
🤬

I was out Saturday night, so missed the gold medal final for the curling (and didn't record it). ClassicFM didn't mention it in their news bulletins, so by Sunday morning I had avoided hearing the outcome.

I expected to catch up in iPlayer... to be presented with a news clip which gave the result in its title. Thank you so much (not)!

And then I found no full replay, only a 12-minute highlights reel (which was enough, given I knew the outcome by then).
 
Black Hole said:
And then I found no full replay, only a 12-minute highlights reel (which was enough, given I knew the outcome by then).
Click to expand...
I don't follow sports, with the exception of the Olympic curling. Isn't it just the case that no sport gets repeated in full on the iPlayer? Probably a rights thing. You either watch it live or don't watch it at all. Given the idea of migrating all TV to streaming only - you won't even be able to record it yourself for watching later. Not that the BBC make it easy with all the channel hopping.

Is it just me? I expected to find the US team annoying, but no - I found the Canadians really annoying this year.
 
The U20 Six Nations rugby are made available in full on iPlayer. As are the FA Cup matches that were live on the BBC. All with a time limit dictated by the rights agreements.
 
Just say no to online streaming and dictatorial policies. Record your own stuff and watch it when YOU want, not when THEY want.
 
What's your opinion?:

Take the men's sitting downhill ski. Each competitor has a multiplication factor applied to his clock, supposedly to compensate for relative degrees of disablement.

The winner had a smaller factor than second, and I worked out that on raw time alone, the silver placed skier would have come first by 0.2s.

So the winner was not determined by speed through the course, the winner was decided by the handicap committee getting their sums right - surely a matter of opinion.

I don't like it. It's not a sport, it's a "let them have a go".
 
Black Hole said:
And now the curling isn't on terrestrial at all.
Click to expand...
I'm sure the last Winter Paralympics were on various Channel 4 channels. This time they appear to be mainly on a YouTube feed. Given the way 4 brags about showing the Paralympics this has to be a mistake. Or is it rights again? I've given up trying to watch.
Black Hole said:
I don't like it. It's not a sport, it's a "let them have a go".
Click to expand...
I didn't watch those sports during the Winter Olympics so I can't compare. I remember watching the curling last time. It misses something without the sweeping. There may be some skill involved so might be a sport. Something where there are so many fudge-factors in deciding the result (downhill skiing) maybe not. But I wouldn't class travelling down a track on a tea-tray in the games a few weeks back as a sport either.
 
The curling is fine IMO, there is no handicapping system, they just play (restricted by sitting in a wheelchair and using a rod to throw the stone). Yes, it lacks the finesse of normal curling, but the gameplay is still pretty good.

What I'm railing about is the judgement required to assign handicaps, It's great that the skiers can hurtle down a mountain on the snow equivalent of a scooter (in fact I wouldn't mind having a go), but as a contest to see who's the best there should be no subjective (rather than purely objective) factors.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top