Wimbledon 2018

Early thoughts

New on screen scoring information

Same opening titles as last year, although they usually get a few years out of them and they were new last year

Yet another year of that terrible BBC Two ident.

Low risk of any regional news disruption and late evening thrillers on BBC One, with no Andy Murray

The new on screen scoring graphics look awful.

Also Boris Becker bizarrely shouted B*stards on Air at about 11:30 this morning

Brekkie would have approved of them coming on air at 11 to enable a full discussion before play started rather than missing the action.

The change in graphics presumably due to Wimbledon Broadcast Services (WBS) taking over the BBC as host broadcaster, and the first use (?) of 4K at the tournament.

I've not seen the new net cams in use yet, but the court screens look to have had an upgrade. Not much change with Hawk-Eye, albeit slightly more jumpy frame rate wise.

Connected Red Button is a mess, jumping in and out of the Sport App at will for some courts but not others.

BBC One lucky that Serena Williams just finished her match in time for the 6.

They still have the annoying situation where the Centre Court match always starts on BBC Two then moves over at 13:45, they really should move the 1 to 12 during Wimbledon, then they can give the Centre Court match a decent introduction on BBC One as well.

Note tomorrow's coverage is disrupted by the World Cup, they might as well not bother with the BBC One parts, they will both be just 45 minutes either end of the football.

Is there a specific reason that Wimbledon Broadcasting Services has taken over?

I guess they want to be like Premier League Productions? I think it’s a partnership with IMG, before it was just IMG.

The colours are nice and strong, the transitions are not very good though, they seem to be bbc sport inspired and of course it dosent match the bbc sport graphics like it did in the past.

WBS took over because the BBC couldn't realistically commit the required staffing and technical expertise (albeit bought in) following the cuts over the past few years. Wimbledon's plans for the future UHD, VR and the like together with more countries needing multiple court coverage, meant a break and establishment of an in house unit using new techniques was required.

The rig time for Wimbledon is about 3 to 4 weeks. There is no permanently installed cabling there
for the broadcasters (unlike other major sports venues). They're a bit behind the curve there still.

NEP Visions are actually providing the technical install and facilites (Arena are there for BBC Pres)

Exactly - they've done it for the football over the last couple of weeks so no reason at all not to do it for Wimbledon - even going on air at 1pm would be sufficient considering the warm up.



Yes, that isn't great. Even though coverage of both would be exactly the same would look far less disruptive if the football was on BBC2. Even a 1pm start for BBC1 to let them probably get in the ladies champions game on Centre before shifting to the football would be better. Think Kyle Edmund is also on at that time.


New official graphics nice enough - nothing revolutionary but they do the job and are close enough to the BBC style not to clash. Seems Clare Balding is doing the evening shift - not heard anything from Sue since about 6pm. I'm sure that's how they used to do things in the Des Lynam days - he'd do the early shift and Sue replace him once coverage ended on BBC1. Hating this "Queuing" ad though they keep playing in between games - if you're padding it out with promos it might as well be on commercial TV.