Live Test Cricket returns to C4

Most likely S+V production will be listening to the world feed talkback and will be calling the breaks to playout. Most of the time the world feed will be calling breaks at the end of pretty much every over, unless they have something planned for the commentators to talk about, and it'll be up to the UK production to decide which ones they'll take.

Some world feeds (and commentators) are a lot better at pausing for breaks than others. Also some have longer breaks for wickets while others have 30" breaks all the way through. The one universal thing seems to be the commentator calling the score being the cue to take the break.

On sports channels there'll be a certain number of over breaks scheduled per session of play and an additional number of wicket breaks, but often they won't all be taken. Terrestrial channels are generally a lot more averse to dropping commercials though so I'd assume Channel 4 would want all of their scheduled over breaks to be taken.

Not sure if it was the same today but yesterday even in the final session during the drinks break, which allows for 2 minutes of ads, they opted to return to the studio for analysis. I wonder if that is partly a call made about adding the voices of C4 to the coverage during the sessions where they can sacrifice the ads to do so in lieu of having any of their own voices within the commentary team,

Talking of C4 Voices I understand Simon Hughes turned up (remotely) during one of the breaks in play today to add his "analysis".

I know that SCTE triggers can be used to to fire off ad breaks, and it's possible that this is used downstream for digital ad insertion - eg on All4 - but I have never seen this used on a contribution feed to broadcasters.
[edit] and if it is used at all, it would be generated by the playout provider, rather than passing through the chain.[/edit]

The host will provide an AD listen, either embedded as an extra audio track or on the phone. In this case the Timeline gallery will be listening to it and cueing Red Bee where they think appropriate. They'll also provide a running order to say how many breaks they're planning to take, and their duration.

If the host broadcaster doesn't provide this, the taker will have to use their skill and judgement (ie busk it).

He did turn up during the tea interval yesterday.

If they haven't sold the airtime I would expect them to keep it simple and stick with the cricket output rather than playing out a trail for the sake of it.

The exception being that C4 ads are still on a macro regional basis so it's possible for some areas to have an ad and others to need a fill-in trailer.

I can confirm that the cricket world feed has an audio track which contains the director talkback from India.
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I am pretty sure it says something like Star take a break and provide instructions for world or something like that, isn’t the world feed produced by S+V anyway for the BCCI?

It's not been S+V for a few years. I believe the production contract was up for tender as recently as last month - I'm not sure who got the gig in the end.

Here it is, it wasn't ICC Champions Trophy but an Ireland v Pakistan test match which was on an FTA satellite feed. There is about 20 minutes here (video quality is low as the audio is the main reason I posted the video)

https://www.nepgroup.in/
This is the best I can find.
Seems like production sits in-house with the BCCI themselves (although Star Sports may help with some production support), using NEP OB facilities.

That’s a little bit different to some listen tracks in that it contains both the Director and Assistant Director. Many will be a straight listen of the just the AD’s mic. Anything else you might hear would be spill into that mic.

With cricket you’ll often hear the AD talking to their own playout about when they want a longer ad break (asking them to build some to have ready), who is going to fill any rain delays, when they’ll be coming off air, along with those count in / outs and other messages for ‘world’ or ‘internationals’ (as others have said) about if there will be an extra bit of analysis during a break that they might want to stay for.

It’s get most interesting when something goes wrong and you hear the attempts to work around it.

C4 are adding the highlights to the More4 schedules for the 2nd test, usually around 1pm and midnight.

Updates for the upcoming Test matches! If you can’t do the early starts, don’t worry we have highlights on More4👏

2nd Test Highlights: ⏰📅

Sat13: 1315 and 2410
Sun14: 1340 and 2410
Mon15: 1310 and 2405
Tue16: 1310 and 2400
Wed17: 1310 and 2405#Channel4Cricket #INDvENG

— Channel 4 Sport (@C4Sport) February 10, 2021

Also adding a second pundit for the second test with Ebony Rainford-Brent joining Andrew Strauss for the second test.