They showed it here in Rochester, and I just finished sending the local affiliate a thank you email. I hope that, if they know that the folks out there appreciate it, they will show more as it becomes available.
I was amazed that they actually showed it here in Lexington. I’m also sending a thank you email. If you didn’t get it I would complain. At least you might get next weeks programming.
What a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon! (The house can get cleaned some other time.) Thought it was very cool that Jimmy Wofford was the eventing commentator. NBC did a great job all around. Thoroughly enjoyed seeing the dressage freestyles. That Totilas really is some horse. So proud of Steffen to get two bronze medals this WEG. Bummer that Karen had problems in the stadium phase and the US didn’t get a team medal.
I had emailed my affiliate last weekend to thank them and did so again today. Sounds like the jumping, driving and vaulting will start next Sunday at 4:00.
Thank you to NBC! (Stats on DirecTV said equestrian was the 4th most viewed program this afternoon.)
NBC did a fine job with what they showed of the cross country, and the commentary was excellent.
Years ago the network covering eventing at the Olympics showed only tight shots of riders’ heads – nothing but goggles and helmets and ugly grimaces bouncing around the screen. If you’re going to show us a tight head shot, at least show us the horse!
I can’t believe I actually got to watch all that on TV this afternoon. It was GREAT!
[QUOTE=Lord Helpus;5120813]
Where/what is Universal Sports and what do I have to do to join?
Is there a reason to think it will be better than the USEF Network live streaming?
Thanks.[/QUOTE]
You have to pay $29.99 and then you can see every minute on the web, either live (if you happen to watch at the same time) or afterwards. It is pretty good, resolution could be higher, but not bad.
http://www.universalsports.com/equestrian/video/live-video.html
Great break
It was the first day in weeks I’ve actually gotten to sit down for a period of time and wasn’t rushing around. I was very happy! I finally got to see some of the horses on cross-country after having worked the event all day and pretty much only gotten to see warm up jumps. :lol:
I agree with the others here. I thought the coverage was GREAT. Loved Wofford’s commentary. I DVR’d the whole thing. And yes, I even loved (most of) the commercials. All except that crazy woman. WHAT was that??
Totilas’ freestyle was AHHHHmazing. I am not a dressage expert nor do I play one on TV, but Holy Cow, I was impressed!
I called and complained
[QUOTE=bort84;5135180]
Yeah, I’m pretty irritated… My guide on the TV still shows WEG coverage for 5 hours - yet when I put it on, it’s cartoons! Not even good cartoons. Ugh. The “info” for the cartoons insists the WEG coverage is on. How annoying. At least my Saints are playing…[/QUOTE]
I called the KPRC here in Houston which is the NBC affiliate and complained. Poor girl answering the phone had been hearing it for about an hour when I called. I’ll call back today and see if they are going to do a re-run of the coverage that was supposed to happen. I also sent an email to the production manager reminding him there was supposed to be coverage this weekend as well. HOPEFULLY they will listen. :yes:
As usual, never enough dressage. They did cover the eventing well.
[QUOTE=Thoroughbred1201;5131640]
It’s clear that money is the number one idea on NBC. I wactched last Sunday. All reining, all the time. Brief blurb about endurance. There are how many events at WEG? Tons, basically. And they concentrate only on the reining. But with AQHA as the major sponsor, we probably won’t see much else on the major network.
Guess I’ll try to watch CBUT, they’ll be better (as always) - they are much more even handed, no matter what who the sponsor is.[/QUOTE]
I guess we have to be grateful for somer coverage…it’s better than nothing.
But:
(a) Why do we still have a former GP SHOW JUMPER commenting on dressage? Aaargggh. Still counting the tempis with no clue about straightness, throughness, etc. oooh–aaah. Hilda was too busy? Everyone was too busy for them to hire a commentator who knew what they were watching?
(b) TOO MANY COMMERCIALS and “extras”. Okay. gotta give the sponsors airtime, I get that. But geesh ENOUGH OF THE UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL STUFF!!! Breyer?!?!?!?! Show the fricking’ COMPETITION, not little girls buying plastic horses.
If you get some info on them rebroadcasting this, PLEASE post it! I was furious when I went to watch it and ended up with 2 hours of infomercials on my DVR. Did they offer an explanation of what happened?
I was thrilled to see the dressage freestyle on yesterday (Sunday 10/3) afternoon. I was going to watch the Redskins/Eagles game, but
found the dressage…a great and wonderful surprise.
My only disappointment with the coverage was that Diaz and Fuego XII’s
ride was not included.
Other than that , THANK YOU to NBC for airing dressage during Sunday afternoon prime time sports !!!
Now if I could just get Steffen’s home town newspaper to report on his success at the WEG…
Like BasqueMom said, Dallas showed the complete NBC WEG coverage- this weekend and last. Hopefully, we will get some showjumping next weekend.
I loved the coverage, the camera work for eventing was fantastic. My only complaint was that they cut to commercial too frequently in the XC, so we didn’t get to see the ride in complete/near complete sequence. I know you can’t show 11 minutes of each ride, but there were too many important rides in XC that were skipped.
Reining coverage was great…they did show dressage coverage too.
My friend in SLC said it wasn’t on her local NBC station- which was covering the LDS convention. Although it was on another SLC station.
I have already received a reply from my local NBC affiliate’s programming department thanking me for the positive feedback and assuring me that the WEG coverage from 4 to 6 next Sunday will be shown.
I was wondering if I had lost 5 minutes of my life somewhere, or if they just didn’t show it, sounds like it was the latter.
I am thrilled they devoted that much time to horse events, but wow, why would they exclude the showstopper performance? Even if he didn’t medal, the non-horsey viewers they might try to capture, or people from other disciplines (like who might have been watching the reining right before) could have been treated to a crowd-pleaser. Very strange decision.
[QUOTE=ZiggyStardust;5137872]
I was wondering if I had lost 5 minutes of my life somewhere, or if they just didn’t show it, sounds like it was the latter.
I am thrilled they devoted that much time to horse events, but wow, why would they exclude the showstopper performance? Even if he didn’t medal, the non-horsey viewers they might try to capture, or people from other disciplines (like who might have been watching the reining right before) could have been treated to a crowd-pleaser. Very strange decision.[/QUOTE]
As far as dressage is concerned, if Steffan Peters hadn’t medalled or placed, at worst, 4th, you probably wouldn’t have seen HIS ride.
And would somebody tell them that during a MUSICAL freestyle, we’d like to hear the MUSIC, not Melanie Smith-Taylor talking…and talking…and talking… AAARGGGHH!!!
[QUOTE=Sandy M;5137937]
As far as dressage is concerned, if Steffan Peters hadn’t medalled or placed, at worst, 4th, you probably wouldn’t have seen HIS ride.
And would somebody tell them that during a MUSICAL freestyle, we’d like to hear the MUSIC, not Melanie Smith-Taylor talking…and talking…and talking… AAARGGGHH!!![/QUOTE]
It was so weird, when they first came on, I swear they showed Werth sitting in 1st, but must have gone straight to Totilas, because everyone else was shown in order. Then Fuego is magically shown in 4th when they put up the final standings.
If they addressed that discrepancy, I missed it. I’m sure it was nothing personal, but I noticed it just because I was looking forward to seeing him clearly, not fuzzy streaming video! Oh well, the viewing public missed out a little.
I haven’t had time to watch it all yet (DVR has it ready), but did see most of the eventing coverage and was so very pleased that Jimmy Wofford was the commentator. I thought he was great!
Last week during the reining, I felt they often didn’t do as good of a job keeping the focus on the horse – sometimes they did these close-ups of the rider and I would be saying, Show the horse, dummies! I mean, you can’t really judge the whole picture when all you see is the rider. But the camera work during the eventing phase seemed much better.
SERIOUSLY disappointed by this response from local NBC affiliate
"Thanks for your inquiry. Unfortunately, in order to maintain our license with the FCC, we are required to air three hours of children’s educational programming every weekend during a very specific time frame.
We are also contractually obligated to air the NBC Golf programming package. On rare occasion, these two obligations conflict, and we find ourselves in a very difficult situation with no choice but to preempt something - in this instance, the Equestrian Games. To make matters worse, we are unable to join a sports event already in progress, which is why we filled the later time with paid programming.
I certainly understand your frustration – we had our hands tied and regret that such a fine sport had to be preempted. We look forward to airing the World Equestrian Games next Sunday, 10/10/10 from 3-5pm. "
This is absolute crap in my opinion. So they knew they had to air cartoons (seriously–this is an FCC requirement? 
), they knew they had to air golf (because that’s been on the schedule for probably more than a year at least), so WHY WHY WHY would you advertise and even list in the digital guide that it is going to be EQUESTRIAN coverage? :no: They knew what they were going to do all along and their answer is to broadcast two hours of worthless infomercials? Holy fruitbat :mad:
NBC/KPRC Houston—you are officially the worst television station in the city!
