Euro 2008

Or it could have been an ISDN line?

Nice studio there. I take it the people in the stands were probably crew just there watching the game, or are they part of the pre/post match analysis?

Or where they a studio audience, such as Sky's Fan Zone?

It looks as though there should be a studio audience, but there isn't, lol. A very nice studio indeed, and an interesting idea if they have been using a studio audience.

Scotsport tried the whole studio audience thing a few years ago for it's SPL highlights and it failed completely.

Although, to be honest, the failure may be down to the presenters.

It was certainly very common when I was at the beeb. The bookings into presentation used to have many parts - a main, a back up and, when available, alternative radio commentary.

Most sports come through studio 5 so the main would be from there, the backup of a feed direct from the event by a diffrent route to what Studio 5 had, and the radio commentary from 5 live (or Radio 4 LW when they did cricket). There'll be a similar setup with Wimbledon - albeit much more complicated as there's more than one match at a time.

In the old days the 5 radio stations were available on the router in the presentation area so it didn't even need to be set up, of course now Five live and other stations (local stations) are usually available on the red button during football so there's alternative commentary available easily again

However there's not much can be done when the entire broadcast centre is lost. I'm presuming that Swiss TV took their coverage straight from the stadium as it was easier.

The international feed had a replay of the second half after the match so stations could get the bits they missed. Good job they recorded it at the stadium!

I remember during the 70s and 80s when the commentary what often go missing from international venues, that the then ITV presenter Brian Moore would take over from the studio. Of course Moore was a commentator anyway.

They might have done if Capital Radio still had extensive sports coverage (which they've now ditched). That's where Jonathon Pierce started his broadcasting career of course.

Actually given TalkSport's reputation for commentating off a TV set in their London studio, how did they manage last night ?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/item/b00c83cy.shtml

Breakdowns left in.

Was anyone watching BBC HD? What happened there - has anyone ever seen their breakdown slide?

Indeed. I think we all discussed radio commentary a few weeks ago and some people wondered whether Red Bee Media would still have the wherewithall to put radio commentary out in such circumstances. Clearly they do and hats off to them. The people in NC1 worked really hard last night and even managed to get to the Ten more-or-less on time. I understand at one point they were preparing to put filler programmes out after the UEFA pool coverage of the actual game had ended, because there were questions over whether the BBC studio out there would be available for the post-match analysis. In the end all came good, but what a night for all concerned!

Much the same as BBC 1, but a brown swirly effort of a breakdown slide.