Olympics 2016

Agreed. I've been watching tonight and it's not been especially impressive for the reasons you mention. It's probably just me but I found the commentary during the cycling - one of the only events BBC One did cover in depth this evening - somewhat amateurish. I know nothing about how cycling is covered usually on television but the commentators seemed clueless as to where Chris Froome was in the race in terms of his position at several points. The bias towards Team GB is, I suppose, understandable, but it does become quite grating when the BBC seems to lose interest in competitors from other nations.

It can only get better from hereon in. I hope.

You're not confused - you've got it spot on. All a result of those with SD only or not in areas receiving the COM8 mux only getting 600/601.

What I don't understand is why they're not using the downtime of the temporary CBBC HD stream for the Olympics in HD too. I'd have put the HD channel in the red button section too like it was previously - suspect many won't stumble upon it tagged on the end of the HD section.


Compared to other countries the BBC is positively neutral. Nothing wrong at all though in them support Team GB, and most are just reflecting the mood of the viewer.

The road cycling is nortoriously difficult to cover - we saw that last week with Ride London and it's one of the events that won't be covered live in the Paralympics. They are reliant solely on the info provided by the OBS timing systems and commentating on little more than the pictures we're seeing. It's not like they can be put in a commentary box where they can see the entire course.

Didn't ITV Sport decamp there so the cracked/shattered glass in their studio cube could be replaced one afternoon? I'm sure I remember Adrian Chiles mentioning that at one point. They certainly didn't present from outside the studio very often.

To be fair to the BBC the problems with the cycling were the fault of OBS, the broadcaster. They can't cover road races for some reason. The coverage was better than in London but still very poor in comparison to Le Tour. The lack of covering sports on a weekly basis, or even on a yearly basis now, shows on the BBC now. The commentators aren't as knowledgeable as they used to be.

I've worked around the eight HD channels on Virgin and is ok, though on some of the channels the event being shown hasn't matched what is listed.

Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. I was being harsh in my assessment then.

Yep, it could be NBC where you're lucky to be aware that any country other than the US is taking part

Yeah, they're clearly trying to play to Clare Balding's strengths with this kind of presentation.

The Sochi Trolley thing worked in 2014 because we're used to the Winter Olympics being presented in a more 'quirky' manner. But it doesn't really work for what should be the flagship broadcast during these Games.

One of the problems is that, until next week, there isn't a great deal of major live action happening during the UK prime time block. It'll be better next week when they can fully concentrate on the gymnastics finals and the track cycling, which will dominate Clare's slot.

But it's difficult to stretch out a 4-hour live Saturday night BBC One programme with women's rugby sevens and hockey qualifiers. Hence the additional fluff this evening, presumably.

I'm absolutely sure Clare's slot will also feature the best of the overnight swimming/athletics finals from the precious evening.

An additional thought - the BBC have got slightly used to filling their linear shows with chat and features whilst having the back-up of the extra live streams to satisfy those who want to stick with the live sport. They will definitely have to reconfigure this strategy from 2018/2020 when there will be only two streams to play with.

A comment made by Clare Balding on BBC One earlier confused me a little bit, when she referred to coverage of something being on one of the 24 outlets covering the Olympics, because there aren't 24 outlets this time around, are there? I thought that was the scenario in 2012 but there are only 8 this time?

I don't mind the presentation from the Olympic Park, both Ore earlier on BBC Four and Clare tonight have been pretty good but there have been a few problems. At one point sound (and possibly vision, it was during a caption) was lost, something much less likely to happen in the studio.

Radio 5 Live are the best at that sort of thing, they've been doing it since their first games in Atlanta and when it's done well it gives you a real sense of what it's like to be there, you can feel some of the buzz around the park and discover some enjoyable minutiae that you wouldn't get if everything was done from studios and inside the venues.

Easier for radio to do, though, and often the regular studio set-up does work better for television. I can see what people mean about it suiting the Winter Games more, I can't quite put my finger on it but that slightly ramshackle, on-the-hoof style does seem to fit with it better while many see the Summer Games as much more prestigious and in need of a little more gravitas and polish.

All 24 streams are available on the BBC website and on the app and Connected Red Button which is available on connected TVs.

I think it's fine for BBC1 too but just not the primetime slot, and certainly not for hours upon end. Would be better suited to the afternoon slot really or portions of the evening coverage. Probably will be better when longer form events dominate and there is less switching between events.

Every sport is live on the BBC Sport app or Red Button+ via Connected TV, which they are marketing as 24 streams.

BBC not providing streams from all tennis courts on the website is causing some complaints among the tennis fan I follow on twitter, especially when other broadcasters in other countries are providing them. I suspect it's something to do with being limited to 24 streams in total.

Also there seems to be a fault with the website where they marked the tennis as having finished for the day, and the stream closed, and the live stream for the current action was listed under tomorrow's page. The games website - for the first three days - originally listed two sessions starting at 15:00 and midnight, but in reality it has just been one session through the whole day, and what the BBC have done is start the second session early, and that's why it's listed under tomorrow.