The Sport Thread

Correct me if I am wrong but did Gethin Jones do a bit of pitchside reporting for the BBC 6 Nations coverage for a few years after he left Blue Peter and possibly before Jason Mohammad became involved with the Network coverage.

One possibly for Steve Williams or Brekkie

According to Sport on the Box the BBC have extended the rights to Ride London until 2019, according to this the rights will be exclusive to the BBC from next year.

See more at:
http://sport-onthebox.com/2016/07/30/bbc-extends-ridelondon-rights-to-2019/

Also if your interested in pre season friendlies ITV are showing a few this week. Viking FK v Arsenal on Friday 7.30pm on ITV4 and Arsenal v Manchester City on Sunday 6pm on ITV

Edit: ITV4 guide has again updated and they are also covering Tottenham Hotspur v Inter Milan at 4pm on Friday

Hopefully the new rights contract also will allow them to show the last 7km of the men's elite race?

*chuckle*

Seriously, what went on there? How was this event covered? Were there planes over the top of the helicopter to relay the signal to the finish in London, like in the Tour de France, or was the helicopter the last link in the chain?

Because we lost not only the helicopter but also the bike cameras suggesting that the helicopter was acting as a relay.

Maybe it was bad luck but it just seemed like there was lots of interference or objects in the way or something. Has anybody from RideLondon commented publicly about it? Also who did the coverage for the host feed? (Eurosport took the same feed, right?)

Yep. Like Simon Brotherton on the BBC. Carlton Kirby on Eurosport also had to put in some serious padding minus pictures at the same time.

Whoever was doing the world feed (the lack of BBC Sport house style race graphics makes me think it wasn't them - neither was it contracted out to France Televisions) had, up to Putney Bridge a very technically good race. Hardly any break up (despite trees on both sides of the road) and most of it covered via the bikes. So much so, at times I wondered if there was a helicopter as part of the coverage.

Looking at a tv tecchies Twitter feed yesterday, he included a link to flightradar where a French registered plane was circling from around 2.40 from Biggin Hill, so that must have been it.
So, wither there was some failure in the ground broadcast compound, or on board the plane with the MCR receiving units at the worst time imaginable.

European Rights,

Wimbledon - 2017-9 - Eurosport have signed to become exclusive broadcasters in several countries of the Championships.
Eurosport will present live coverage of The Championships, Wimbledon, exclusively in Albania, Bulgaria, Finland, Hungary, Iceland, Norway, Romania, Sweden.

Premier Sports using a slightly modified (blue and yellow instead of blue and white) version of Eir Sport's graphics tonight for their Scottish Challenge Cup coverage. Eir Sport's graphics are pretty much the same as Setanta's but with a colour and font change. And yes, the silly diamond clock has survived.

I like the diamond clock. It's different.

Great stuff. I wondered if the helicopter was working a London ground RX site and couldn't be used until the site was in range. But then what relayed the bikes?

It just seems odd to lose both bikes AND helicopter that a failure further along the path seems plausible?

tonight's Premier League World (BT Sport 1, 6.45pm) is billed as Episode 1 - so if they were going to launch their new-style graphics, I'd imagine tonight would be a good time for it.

New Ofcom licence has appeared this morning for ITV Box Office which is apparently going to be a PPV channel for them for boxing.

Sky Sports have confirmed what this and other forums have been speculating that Kelly Cates is returning to host Football League, she will host Saturday Evening matches while Scott Minto will host Friday and Sunday matches as well as the Play Offs while Simon Thomas is hosting the League Cup for the channel.

I expect this confirms Simon Thomas has been promoted to Premier League coverage replacing Ed Chamberlain. Also Kelly has confirmed on Twitter that she is still going 606 throughout the season and 5 Live Sport when required so she is only leaving Channel 5

See more at
http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10521233/kelly-cates-returns-to-sky-sports-to-present-sky-bet-english-football-league-coverage