Monte 2009 - old style rally and old style tv coverage

[MJW]

From crash.net - I remember the mid to late 1990's we had fairly good coverage of the WRC both on Eurosport and in UK on BBC (with the excellent Mark James) The at the turn of the millenium we had the mantra of TV and marketing and how the classic formats of events had to change to accomodate tv, hence the double use of stages, cloverleaf around thE service park and finish early for tv, no nasty night time stages etc. Fast forward 10 years to 2009 and the Monte Carlo organisers in their year out of WRC go back to a 'traditional Monte' and this is the tv coverage they get.

http://www.crash.net/motorsport/wrc/news/170079-0/irc__live_tv_coverage_confirmed_for_monte_'09.html

[Mirek]

Monte 2009 already has it's topic and this is already posted there.

http://www.motorsportforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128024

[RS]

I am going to reply here anyhow as Monte is an ex-WRC event (at least for next year) and I think this is relevant to the sport as a whole.

I really think this is what the sport needs, live tv coverage of real special stages (not stadium stages, if you want those go and watch rallycross)

Although they have been criticised for being a bit clunky in their delivery, I like the IRC concept of television throughout the event during the day, and not having to wait until 10-11pm in the evening to see anything. Actual live stage coverage will take this to the next level.

I am pretty sure this is going to be expensive and hard to get right straight away, but if IRC continue to do this on a more regular basis it should make great tv. Especially with the tight battles in IRC.

Back in the "good old days" when the RAC rally used to start on the weekend we had a whole day of spectator stages round country parks and the like and the BBC used to be able to cover these stages live. This was often around lunchtime or mid afternoon on a Sunday and probably put the viewing figures of modern WRC to absolute shame. These were a nice compromise between stadium stages and making something accesable to fair-weather spectators before the real action began on a Monday.

[Daniel]

RS. No talking about the good old days when things were done in a sensible and logical way which didn't spoil the show but was still spectator friendly. Bad boy!

[AndyRAC]

RS. No talking about the good old days when things were done in a sensible and logical way which didn't spoil the show but was still spectator friendly. Bad boy!

Very bad!!! Can you believe a sport which made changes to improve it's TV & Media coverage was in fact better 10-15 years ago, well at least as far as RAC/Rally GB coverage was. Progress eh???

[Daniel]

Very bad!!! Can you believe a sport which made changes to improve it's TV & Media coverage was in fact better 10-15 years ago, well at least as far as RAC/Rally GB coverage was. Progress eh???
Yup! Thank god guys like Mark James aren't involved in the coverage anymore as well! Heaven forbid the coverage would be well voiced and done with a good level of professionalism!