It would avoid the resentment currently being caused between both nations as well.
Resentment ? Nah, must be a Scottish thing. If Scotland were playing I wouldn't find it unusual to have a commentary leaning towards the home nation. I would think fair do's for a country that is part of the UK, I would expect it.
Looks like you have a gigantic scottish chip on your shoulder.
I agree with SE, if Scotland were in too their games would have a Scottish bias.
Now if it was England v Scotland and it was England biased I'd understand the complaint but not when it's against *foreign* teams. Fox News style nationalism imo.
I've just seen a clip on BBC News 24 of one of the goals, with BBC graphics in the corner. Presumably this is from the replay that BBC One will show tonight?
Resentment ? Nah, must be a Scottish thing. If Scotland were playing I wouldn't find it unusual to have a commentary leaning towards the home nation. I would think fair do's for a country that is part of the UK, I would expect it.
Looks like you have a gigantic scottish chip on your shoulder.
Oh for God's sake get a grip - you're normally quite sensible on here, but you've had your red and white tinted spectacles on throughout this debate.
English people are clearly getting slightly annoyed by constant anti-Englishness up here, hence the "Are you Scotland in disguise?" and more uses of the English flag rather than the union flag. A major cause of anti-Englishness, especially during football tournaments, is people listening to heavily biased and nauseating network commentary. Many people up here assume (wrongly) that everyone down south is an arse. People up here start whining, then people down there get annoyed because we're complaining or assume the entire English nation is as cretinous as the ITV commentary team.
If Scotland were playing I'm sure there would be bias towards us, but presenters down south don't care as much as us - any bias tends to come out in patronising or unfortunate ways. Hence we have an opt-out to let us enjoy things from our own perspective. Each of the nations has something like this.
The problem with England is that, as it is the network feed and not an opt-out, the whole nation has to put up with commentary that assumes everyone watching is right because 'our' boys. Imagine an Arsenal supporter being forced to watch coverage of a game heavily slanted towards Manchester United. His team lose, then he has to put up with it on the news for the next week with people saying how great it was that Manchester United won. That's what it's like up here.
As I've said before, I'm sorry to break it to you, but not everyone up here is supporting England. Personally I'm not too bothered, I know a lot of really cool English people and I know they're not all John Motson or Clive Tyldsley (or however you spell it). But most of the nation doesn't want England to win. I'm quite sure not everyone down south supports Scotland or Wales, although not to the same extent. All I'm proposing is that a relatively cheap opt-out is created so that England can enjoy the game, bang the drum for their country and talk about a certain world cup win as much as they want, while the rest of us can enjoy the tournament from a different perspective. Too much to ask?
Surely it would be a deep fried Mars bar on my shoulder anyway....
Just got a quick question - I have no idea whether it's been brought up so far, so apologies if it has. I've seen a couple of Sport Today programmes on BBC World since Euro 2004 started, and all they seem to have in terms of footage from the matches is very high quality stills. Does anyone know the reason for this? Is it because they're from ITV, or are there some other international rights issues?
The problem with England is that, as it is the network feed and not an opt-out, the whole nation has to put up with commentary that assumes everyone watching is right because 'our' boys. Imagine an Arsenal supporter being forced to watch coverage of a game heavily slanted towards Manchester United. His team lose, then he has to put up with it on the news for the next week with people saying how great it was that Manchester United won. That's what it's like up here.
Not quite because England arn't playing Scotland. The equivelent would be an Arsenal supporter watching Man Utd v AC Milan in the champions league, and the Arsenal fan complaining that the commentators were biased towards Man Utd. You haven't really got a leg to stand on when you compare it to this situation.
Just got a quick question - I have no idea whether it's been brought up so far, so apologies if it has. I've seen a couple of Sport Today programmes on BBC World since Euro 2004 started, and all they seem to have in terms of footage from the matches is very high quality stills. Does anyone know the reason for this? Is it because they're from ITV, or are there some other international rights issues?
I would guess they only have rights to show the matches in their own country. It's rare for a British broadcaster to do it, but I've seen it on CNN quite regularly.
Also, why don't Sky News/ Sky Sports News simply show the goals and credit them to BBC/ITV/UEFA or whatever?? If the BBC can do it why can't Sky?
As a guess, the BBC have copyright clearance to show action they don't have live rights for. It doesn't really matter where they're sourced from. Sky obviously don't have permission to do so.
Why they used ITV's footage when they had their own for the replay later, I'm not sure.
Not quite because England arn't playing Scotland. The equivelent would be an Arsenal supporter watching Man Utd v AC Milan in the champions league, and the Arsenal fan complaining that the commentators were biased towards Man Utd. You haven't really got a leg to stand on when you compare it to this situation.[/quote]
Fair enough to a degree - although the problem with the England coverage is that it is all encompassing. You can't turn on the TV without being hit with it. Remember right after the Rugby World Cup the entire ITV network had to put with England: A Celebration. News presenters have been wearing English tops. You wouldn't get this degree of partisan coverage if Manchester United won something, because the broadcasters would know that a sizeable proportion of their viewers don't support Man U. The broadcasters should at least accept that a proportion of their audience ain't supporting England.
I still contend the idea is relatively cheap to put into place, especially if you go with the interactive idea, and would save a lot of problems. Although the tournament is also beginning to show the worth of a Scottish Six...
Thank goodness the next England match will be on the BBC. Clive Tyldsley is boring, Bobby Robson can hardly string a sentence together. I still think Des is good though, but the studio sound is appaling. Sounds like they're sat in a goldfish bowl.
It's rubbish that we still don't see any stats throughout any matches. Where's the 'shots on target' and posession percentages? Also, there's not a single imaginitive shot to be seen anywhere.
Bit scary seeing the French play tonight against Croatia, they're looking good.
Don't you find Motty's constant stats boring though? I, for one, do. He's great at reaming off numbers from his head, but for me, his commentary isn't as good as Clive T's - but that is because I look for something else in a commentary. I prefer description of the atmosphere rather than an array of ratios and averages.
They can't do much about the "imaginative" shots, neither can the BBC. Although they do use 1 or 2 of their own cameras every so often during the match coverage.
