Kevin O'Connor is right to gripe about the coverage:
>If this ESPN broadcast is anything like their coverage special on the
>Monterey Historics it won't be worth watching. Too much hated
>yuk-yuking by the hosts, too little coverage of the cars, and way too
>many commercials. It sucked so bad I could not watch the last
>half-hour.
I couldn't agree more, but remember, they are condensing a 3-day event
into one hour! They should definitely lose the bogus commentary. ;=)
There simply isn't time to listen to that sort of drivel.
>What is needed in good TV coverage of these events is for the networks
>to treat the events and their audiences respectfully. We want to see
>THE CARS actually on the track! What's wrong with filming these events
>the same way they film a sprint car race or an Indy car race? More
>action, less bs.
Unfortunately, the key word here is audience. Unless they have a big
audience, they will not be able to attract the big, BIG sponsors, and
that's what they need to make a better program. Better coverage takes
more cameras, more camera crews, more footage, more editing, yadda,
yadda, yadda. They would have to have some pretty deep pockets opening
up to give us a 3-hour vintage fest on TV with full coverage of each
race session. To properly do the Monterey Historics would take at least
4 hours of air time, and they still couldn't do flag to flag on every
session. Pro races get flag to flag coverage because there's only ONE
session of interest.
For the Indy 500, we get time trial reports, and full race day coverage.
Each F1 race gets a qualifying report, and full race day coverage. Indy
car races are about 3 hours long, F1 races are 2 hours. While a vintage
session is only about 20-30 minutes long, there are 14 race groups at
Monterey! By the time you add in the demo laps of the featured marque,
you would have about 8 hours of footage with no practice or qualifying.
If you cut each race group's coverage to 5 minutes, you would have about
70 minutes of Monterey Historics action. Throw in another 20 minutes of
blabbing, paddock shots, and demo laps and you would have 90 minutes.
Add 30 minutes of unabashed capitalism and you have a 2 hour program.
With 5 minutes for each race group, you MIGHT have time for the start,
the finish, and one lap in a camera-equipped car or selected action
shots. I, for one, would not care to see only the lead car in each
group. There are so many interesting cars in these events, that you
need coverage from the whole length of the pack, IMO. You could easily
chew up 5 minutes watching the whole pack go by a few choice corners.
Does that sound like a better formula?
I just wish I was in charge of such a production. ;=)
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