I was quite surprised to see she's returning for that considering her standing (but perhaps not her pay cheque) seems to have risen at BBC Sport over the last few years.
I'm not that surprised, she's doing much less stuff for the BBC than when she did Splash last year, which itself came well after London 2012. When she signed up to do Splash no one predicted it would be a hit, so it would be odd for her to turn it down now it is a hit. She's also lost her BBC entertainment format.
It's a nice effort - much better than the OBS version for Vancouver but not quite up there with the excellent one from Torino 2006.
I'd assume the Ski Sunday theme is out for the BBC considering they didn't use it last time. The obvious choice for me would be Bolero with it being the 30th anniversary and it having some Russian connections (was commissioned by a Russian ballerina) - but the BBC tend to not go for the obvious choice when it comes to the Olympics.
Last edited by Brekkie on 26 December 2013 12:19am
Pretty much live from 6am to 7pm on BBC2, even switching to BBC1 on weekday lunchtimes when BBC2 airs the Politics Show. A couple of holes in the schedule during the first weekend, but unlike the Summer games there can be a bit of downtime with the Winter Olympics. Two red button streams on TV, six via connected TV.
Anyone that reads this forum regularly knows that I'm all for as much sport as possible on network BBC television, but this seems to be an extraordinary level of network coverage.
As Brekkie says, there tends to be quite a few periods during the Winter Olympics when not a lot happens, so I'd expect to see a fair bit of recorded coverage during the day. Plus, we'll presumably see much more of the lesser events such as biathlon and cross-country skiing, and probably an awful lot of curling.
Great commitment from the BBC. Just not sure the ratings will be up to much - especially not in the early mornings.
Really does show the effects of London 2012 though. Considering at the last Commonwealth Games, the early-morning athletics and swimming sessions didn't even make it to network.
Really does show the effects of London 2012 though.
That and DQF.
Nevertheless, I'd still bet that before 2012 the BBC would be more inclined to show a repeat of Rip-Off Britain than Finland v Czech Republic in women's ice hockey.
Really does show the effects of London 2012 though.
That and DQF.
Nevertheless, I'd still bet that before 2012 the BBC would be more inclined to show a repeat of Rip-Off Britain than Finland v Czech Republic in women's ice hockey.
As the Beeb have paid for the rights for the event, it presumably allows them to show as much (or little) coverage as they wish, so the more they do show, the 'cheaper' it will be per hour, which will keep the beancounters happy ? Showing
Rip-Off Britain
is probably no cheaper ?
Given that BBC Two is mainly a repeats channel during daytime these days, with little original programming commissioned for the slots until peak time, it presumably is much easier to schedule long sporting events on BBC Two than it once was. You'll still have some production costs for the additional hours, but these are presumably marginal, and may not be massively different to the costs of repeats. If you've bought the rights, you may as well show as much of it as you think you can.
It's a pity that there aren't broadcast HD outlets available for the 6 additional streams of content - I wonder if they will re-introduce the 50p iPlayer stream encoding that was used for the occasional 3D trials. (1080/50i SBS 3D stuff was encoded 720/50p TAB for iPlayer)
As I said, its great to see so much live coverage - and its always more impressive to have a large chunk of live coverage wrapped up with proper presentation rather than a simple interactive stream. Adds more of a sense of occasion.
I'm just rather surprised that, in terms of the number of hours of live coverage on a main channel, this is comparable to London 2012 - totally unprecedented for a Winter Games. Long may it continue,
Of course, the time zone for these Games helps, as it doesn't really eat into the prime time schedule.
Looking forward to seeing the trailer on Sunday evening. The short sting currently available on the website doesn't give too much away.