Speaking of the Tour de France, how nice it is to be able to enjoy decent coverage again. The days of Mart Smeets and Jean Nelissen are behind us, but Herbert Dijkstra and Maarten Ducrot are worthy replacements with their interesting insights, dry humour and undisguised irritation. Each stage’s commentary is good for a handful of hilarious quotes.
Back in the US, Sarah and I would be forced to watch OLN’s coverage via DirecTV satellite. It was really quite bad, but it was all we could get and bad coverage is vastly preferable to no coverage. I remember days when OLN provided no live coverage at all, just highlights at the end of the day. Other major irritations with the coverage were:
The seriously inopportune ad breaks. Sometimes the coverage would be interrupted in the middle of the final climb of a mountain stage. Upon resumption, you would discover that someone had broken away in the climb to make a break for the finish. What the hell is advertising doing in the middle of a continuous sporting event?
Commentary that failed to captivate. The permanent commentators, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin clearly aimed their commentary at people who knew very little about the sport. In fairness, this was probably their brief from the station, as cycling wasn’t really covered in the US before Lance Armstrong started winning. Paul Sherwin, in particular, was a dull commentator, resorting constantly to the same well-worn clichés (some of which still resonate in my ears).
Amateur coverage. Often, the French camera would zoom in on some noteworthy aspect of the rider or the bicycle, and neither Phil nor Paul would pass even the slightest comment to enlighten the viewer as to what they were looking at. I think they, themselves, were oblivious to whatever was being pointed out by the cameraman. Similarly, they made virtually no comments about the equipment the riders were using, such as which gears they had mounted for that stage and why, or why someone might be using a closed as opposed to an open wheel. The background detail was conspicuous by its absence, too. For example, when the French director would focus on a particular rider, we’d get no mention from the commentators of how that rider was performing this season, what his victories and other accomplishments had been this year and in previous years, anything about the rider’s history or any amusing anecdotes about the region being cycled through, how many times a particular town or mountain had been visited by the Tour, or which other riders had made history here in previous years.
Partisanship. Dear, oh dear. You would have thought only English-speakers were competing in the race. The intense favouritism for the American riders, particularly Lance Armstrong, was very frustrating to me. It’s American television, so one naturally expects daily interviews with the national riders and copious background information on them and their teams, but with OLN it was to the virtual exclusion of all else. If you were lucky, you’d get a snippet of information about Robbie McEwan or Cadell Evans, presumably by dint of their also being English-speakers and therefore more identifiably similar to Americans. An interview with an Italian, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, a Dutchman, a Kazach or a Swiss? Forget it, unless said person also happened to be a member of Armstrong’s team.
Kirsten Gumm, Frankie Andreu and Bob Roll. Oh, Oh, oh! Kirsten didn’t know a thing about cycling and was presumably there for an assumed glamour factor. Frankie, a former Motorola rider, was just not a good interviewer. And Bob Roll, another former rider, who’s probably a nice guy to share a drink with, but his coverage was like fingernails on a blackboard. He couldn’t even pronounce the name of the race, for crying out loud.
The direction. As with the ad breaks, sometimes the viewer would be whisked away from the live coverage to witness a prerecorded superficial interview with some third-rate no-hoper, just because he was an American. In the meantime, God knows what would be going on in the actual race. Why not split the screen down the middle and continue to show us coverage of the race on one half of the screen? Better yet, show us the interview before or after the race, not at a crucial moment during the live coverage.
No evening coverage in a separate programme. Consequently, there was no post-stage race analysis from either the commentators or knowledgeable guests (such as ex-riders), no mention of the day’s intrigues, no interviews with riders at the finish, no background on the organisation of the Tour de France itself, no analysis of the next day’s stage, etc.
Yes, I know I’m very demanding. I should probably relax in my old age. I’ll probably die complaining about something. On the other hand, if we all settled for mediocrity, where would that get the human race? 🙂
Anno 2007, I have to wonder what the US TV coverage is like now. Armstrong has retired and neither Hincapie nor Leipheimer can make good on the potential they showed in previous years. OK, Leipheimer’s currently fourth in the general classification and that’s great, but he’s not in contention to win. After seven years of Armstrong victories, Americans are used to watching grand spectacle, crowned with a victory.
All of which leads me to expect that viewing figures must be falling over there, aided by the disrepute into which the sport is constantly being brought by doping scandals. I witnessed in my first couple of years in the US how Olympic events were scarcely covered if no Americans were taking part in the event. And if Americans __were__taking part, you’d see pretty much only the Americans performing, plus maybe a couple of Russians just for old time’s sake, to show that they’re still being beaten. And cycling isn’t even broadcast across the national networks; you have to subscribe to a cable or satellite package to get OLN or whatever it’s called these days.
Anyway, enough about the Tour coverage and back to watching it.