The 2012 Paralympic Games

Noticed there wasn't a thread for the London Paralympics, which will be both the biggest live event in Channel 4's history and the most comprehensive coverage the games has has on British TV.

The press launch was today, coinciding with the unveilling of the latest "Big 4" outside Horseferry Road, this time by disabled sculptor and artist Tony Heaton:

http://www.channel4.com/media/images/CorporatePortal/Benji/2012/Paralympics/Big4crop_A2.jpg

As well as the 150 hours of coverage across 12 days on Channel 4 and More4, there will be three SD and HD streams available on Sky and channel4.com with availability on Virgin Media expected to be announced shortly.

Rick Edwards and Daraine Mulvihill (selected through the channel's disabled presenting talent search) will host at breakfast time, Jonathan Edwards and Kelly Cates through the morning, Arthur Williams (also from the talent search) and Georgie Bingham in the afternoon and Ade Adepitan and Clare Balding will host the prime-time coverage. Comedian Adam Hills will present an entertaining look at the day's highlights , and Jon Snow will front coverage of the ceremonies.

Reporters include Ned Boulting, Adam Darke, Rachael Latham and Jordan Jarret-Bryan, with commentators including John Rawling, Rob Walker, Bob Ballard, Andrew Cotter, Katherine Merry and Karen Pickering.

Channel 4 will be using special colour-coded graphics called the ‘Lexi Decoder', developed by Paralympic gold medal winning athlete Giles Long, to explain the different classes of disability that group the athletes into different competitions. You can see some of these graphics by scrolling along to the end of this page.

Actually, I made a thread about it here, but then was locked by Bail.

And rightly so as unlike Blake you had nothing to say on the matter.

I wonder whether Channel 4 really believe Paralympic sport can drive ratings or whether they just feel they can gain a few high profile sponsors on board.

I wonder if they went to the extent of giving the full coverage of Paralympic world cup online as something of a training exercise for the big one.

You'd have thought they'd have shown more live coverage from the that event on Channel 4 and More 4 if they were serious about growing the interest level in Paralympic sport. I must say the coverage I have seen has been more or less faultless and a good mix of experienced and competent presenters with the new talent.

I really hope this goes well for Channel 4. It's the sort of thing the BBC should be doing but if a commercial operator is bidding and paying interest in the Paralympic movement that can only be good news.

No mention of Freesat?

And by 3 streams do they mean 3 streams in addition to whatever goes out on Channel 4/More 4?

Also do we know where the main studio will be?

I would have thought C4/More4 would have made a bit more of the Paralympic World Cup this year, even if just a couple of hours before Countdown, then switching coverage online

It seems a shame that they've made such extensive use of red and green for opposing concepts ("severe disability" vs "no disability"), thus effectively disenfranchising the 8% or so of British men who are red-green colourblind - especially considering the disability-related subject matter. But then maybe that's something they'll fix as they refine the system.

Maybe they could recolour the green to a traffic-light greeny-blue.

One thing C4 need to get right for this is the adverts. For live continous sport, rather than sport with natural breaks, having regular breaks with the programme bumpers, sponsor credits and then a channel promo just doesn't work - as they showed during the athletics last year. They need to do something more similar to what ITV are doing for the tennis and C4 used to do with the cricket with just a brief on-screen sponsor credit then straight to the ads and back again. It may mean more frequent breaks but they'll hold the audience better surely, keep the flow of the show and can still take a longer break every hour or so to make up the ad time.

Oh, and talking of the streams I wonder if one of them will have signed commentary for the ceremonies at least.

Nice to read that Channel 4 has done a similar deal as like the BBC for the Olympics with Sky for 4 HD streams for extra coverage.

The main "Meet the Superhumans" promo debuts tomorrow night at 9 on C4.