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basically no TV coverage

Archives 2018 World Equestrian Games
#21

I totally agree

[QUOTE=Foxtrot’s;3441747]
CBC’s Bold TV is doing excellent coverage of all the horsey events.
Don’t know if you can get it, though.

I have to say I enjoyed Cara Whitman’s commentary on the dressage - she explained it in an authoritative manner that would have been easy for a non-horsey persons to understand, but was enjoyable too. She had some personal knowledge of the horses and riders that she told us about. In the x-country, it seemed short on research. Of course, the commentators never give enough about the bloodlines, or careers of the riders and horses to suit us guys, but if any of her buds are reading this, tell her well done.[/QUOTE]

Bold has been fantastic! I gave up watching dressage tonight after 2 hours. It is boring to me, even though I did enjoy dressage in the eventing phase. I find Cara’s voice “trying” at times, but she really explains it in lay terms and is very clear. She is a judge and can explain where a rider will earn or lose points.

I have my PVR set for tomorrow’s jumping… all 4 hours of it or so!!
I am loving it!!!

#22

Ok… Im sure you guys know… but i didnt feel like reading everything…

But ALL of the equestrian… or pretty close to as much as their willing to show… (their jerks… I think they should show EVERYTHING!) Put stuff on other channels if they dont want to watch it…) But yeah, its all be shown on Oxygen. So if you know, then good! :smiley: But for those who werent too sure… i tried

#23

FWIW, I have DirecTV and have been taping Equestrian from USA and OXYGEN. So far I’ve almost filled a 6-hour tape with Eventing and the first Team Dressage offering. And that time is with the commercials and station breaks edited out!

#24

TV stations work on ratings which create demand to ads which creates revenue. I would bet that there are alot more people out there who grew up swimming and doing gymnastics then there are people who are into these 3 disciplines of riding.
I agree that I would love to see every minute of equestrian events but that is because I am an english rider who understands these sports a bit.
My husband who is not horsey fall asleep at the dressage and cannot “get” what the appeal is to watching it. For him he thinks a horse is just walking around a ring and “he can do that” too (yeah right!)
The average american does not grow up around horses and does not understand a lick about equestrian sports. I wish more people did love horses as much as we do because to me I think its actually a very exciting sport and once you understand it you can truly appreicate the athleticm and hard work thats involved.
I have to say I was a bit surprised that the eventing portion of dressage was on NBC but the cross country and show jumping (which I think are much more understandble for the average viewer) are on Oxygen, a channel alot of people don’t get. I was just curious as to why they chose to put that portion on the major network.

#25

I think the 20+ hours of live stream and the 3 hours of eventing on Oxygen count as pretty good coverage. Of course, I’m not a big dressage fan, so I was pretty satisfied with the 45 minutes or so of live streaming that i did watch…

#26

[QUOTE=Frank B;3442610]
FWIW, I have DirecTV and have been taping Equestrian from USA and OXYGEN. So far I’ve almost filled a 6-hour tape with Eventing and the first Team Dressage offering. And that time is with the commercials and station breaks edited out![/QUOTE]

I have DirecTV too, but my OXYGEN does not have any Equestrian events on. :frowning:
I did get to see some of the eventing dressage on USA. If USA has shown any more Equestrian events I have missed them.

It’s so hard to know what time the events will air

#27

This is the schedule

Bold TV offers.

http://www.cbc.ca/bold/BOLD_2008OlympicSchedule_Revised.pdf

We can’t complain!

#28

For sure the live streaming is great! And much better than what was available in previous games for equestrian sports. I think if you want more coverage, write a nice letter/email about how much we appreciate the added coverage AND we’d love much more!
From what I understand ( I missed the tv coverage) they showed 5+ tests in full, which is better in my opinion than previous coverage. I don’t really care to watch the bottom 10 or so rides, but the top rides in each section is great and the fact that they are in whole, not just clips of a little half pass here and some changes there, is SUPER!
WE (Americans) REALLY need to get better at promoting our sport. If golf can get prime time spots IMO so should dressage. We need to get better at getting the underdog stories out, the rivalry etc.
These Olympics are full of great dramas, the Dutch vs. Germans, Courtney King, the first Chinese rider, the oldest olympian (I think at these games anyway) I think is a Japanese rider… There could be some super stories but unfortunately no one outside of our dressage group knows of them!

#29

I wish I could watch the online feed. :frowning:

#30

I’m glad someone else recognizes the obsurdity of beach volleyball and bikini clad girls being made an olympic sport. I have a feeling in Germany beach volleyball isn’t dominating the televised Olympics

As silly as it is, we have the best beach volleyball team in the world. It’s not absurd. Those ladies are minor celebs.

And, well- look, we close our eventing selection trials to the public. Then we complain about trying to make dressage more spectator friendly with a video screen. We don’t exactly do a great job of “here, enjoy our sport!”. That canoeing stuff- they held the whitewater trials in Charlotte and it was one giant party to promote the sport to everyone that had things to attract normal people. We don’t make much attempt to do that with horses, so be happy with the streaming coverage and what little they show on TV.

#31

FIOSN good wivestrream, but , no for equestrian on oxygen!!

FIOS oxygen shows nothing:mad:, but live stream is fabulous!:yes:can also watch tapes on :yes:demand!

#32

Interestingly, I’ve had about 5 very surprising random conversations, mostly with other mom-types, where we start out with, “Oh, I’ve been staying up too late and watching too much Olympics” and then they say to me, unprompted, often not knowing I ride, “Hours and hours of Equestrian. It’s fabulous!” :slight_smile:

#33

You can’t please everyone - many gymnastics fans were foaming at the mouth because coverage was flipping back and forth between gymnastics and swimming. ‘Who cares about Phelps in a semi-final?’ they cried. And gymnastics is certainly one of the most popular sports for the summer Olympics … I’ll never understand equestrians bitching about whatever sports they’re showing on TV - people surely have the same thing to say about (what comes off as) prissy people in wool coats prancing around on ponies. ‘Why are they showing THIS when they could be showing something interesting, featuring bikinis and divers in speedos?’ :wink:

I think it’s great they’re offering online coverage. Sure, I’d prefer to watch stuff on my TV, but it’s available and accessible if you have an internet connection. It’s nice not to have to rely on what they can show on prime time. We’re just not a prime time sport - but even during non-Olympic times, I get plenty of coverage of Spruce Meadows via one of the Fox networks. I’m in San Diego and don’t have a fancy cable package or anything. :yes:

#34

I was dissappointed in the Dressage (Team). They showed 5 riders, with at least 2 only partial tests! Hope they do better today but I will not hold my breath. Guess it depends on your local carrier!

The Eventing coverage was much better! :yes:

I cannot access the on line at work so no choice there. Guess we all need to move to Canada for the Bold coverage! :smiley:

#35

[QUOTE=Gunnar;3443225]
I cannot access the on line at work so no choice there.[/QUOTE]

Do you have a home computer? If so, you can watch all the rides as many times as you like, whenever you like, because they’re all right there online, available for viewing any time. :cool:

I’ll leave to late-night TV host Craig Ferguson to some up the vast majority of the viewing public’s take on horse sports: He described dressage as, “Horses being very careful (makes delicate prancing motions with his hands and arms) ridden by women dressed like magicians. I just don’t get it.”

You have to keep in mind that no event is shown in its entirety on TV. Not gymnastics, not swimming (heck, most swimming events are shown at all!), not ice skating, none of them.

#36

Now I’m really upset about NBC. I just watched Marius’s XC, and German TV had the whole ride from start to finish, uninterrupted, with the announcer getting more and more excited as the ride progressed. They were using the exact same feeds as NBC, so it’s NBC who should be shot for the way the competition was put together. I think they not only contracted the coverage, but have taken it unedited from the contractor.

Hughes-Carr could learn a lot about how to cover XC from the Germans.

Maybe there will be an unedited DVD with all the rides. Wouldn’t that be great?

Since I have a DVR and most other people either do or will by 2012, I would not mind at all the TV coverage being at very odd hours of the night. I do not have broadband, since the people who own the wires won’t string them in the country–cable or phone; and wireless isn’t anywhere near here.

#37

Guys, there is only one feed that the whole world is watching.
Do you seriously think every country sends it’s own TV cameras to shoot all the events. That doesn’t happen, and never has. The same when you’re watching the World Cup in soccer, everyone is seeing the same thing.
The Olympics has hired someone to shoot each event and then sells it to a network in each country who then has the exclusive rights to that country. Those network then add their own commentary (often the commentator are not at the event and are watching the same feed you are) and splice it and ice it the way they want.
If you saw Marius’ whole XC round it’s because German TV spliced it together from the different cameras angles after the fact. With several horses on course at a time you can’t show each individual horse’s run in it’s entireity during the live coverage, without missing out on some other horses and pissing someone else off.

#38

Drvm, if that’s the case, and it probably is, then I’m even more upset at NBC for not doing its own editing.

Which brings up another question–y’all remember how Hughes-Carr claimed that music rights kept them from showing the dressage freestyle at the 2007 World Cup in Vegas? Is that going to have the same effect on the dressage freestyle? I can’t remember who broadcast the last World Cup; it was either NBC or Animal Planet.

#39

What exactly could they have edited? You mean afterwards when they are showing highlights, or live? Yeah, in the highlights that evening they could show entire rides. Live, like I said, with several horses on course you’re going to miss several other rides, so someone else will be upset they didn’t get to see the horse/rider they wanted to see.
They have shown every eventing-dressage ride, every eventing-showjump ride, the whole of XC from start to finish, every team-dressage ride so far, all live, streamed on the net. They will show every jumping round and the rest of the dressage live, every second of it.
That has never happened before.
Yeah, sucks if you don’t have a high speed connection, but this is 2008 afterall and it beats the alternative of a handful of rides at some odd hour on NBC, or more coverage (but not total) coverage on an odd cable channel after the fact.

#40

In the grand scheme of things I think they US TV networks are show much more than they used to so we should give them alot of credit for that. What is interesting is while they show little to no equestrian olympics - CBS, I think was the channel, started of the evening w/ a show called TOP DOG? Hmm let’s not even get into all the crazy game shows. OLN used to televise (in US) equestrian events from around the world - at that time I think I was one of a handful around here that knew Meredith Michaels, from US, married a Beerbaum and the rest is history! It was awesome to be able to watch international showjumping from Spruce Meadows, Aachen, Hicksted etc etc. But apparently the logistics of televising equestrian events is very difficult vs the income from advertisers (cannot be any more difficult that televising PGA tournaments but the networks get much more income from advertisers).

And while I could have spent then entire evening watching horse after horse after horse, the general public does not understand the subtle differences in some of the dressage tests unless there is some buckfest. Showjumping and eventing offers a bit more but not really - most people would wonder what is so great about watching all these horses jumping? they don’t understand.

Last night I was watching the men’s all around gymnastics and rather than showing much of the US men, the networks kept flipping back to Michael Phelps - for his semi-final heats - not even medal…

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