New WRC TV coverage for 2011

[ChrisB]

Now WRC round 2 on German Sport1: I tried to watch Friday night, which was only scheduled to be 5 minutes (probably between 15 hours of dumbball), program cancelled, Saturday morning 15min round up included 11min(!) adverts, I didn't bother with leg2 then, but now the power stage for which points are given, switched it on and it shows handball.

Right, that's it, I have deleted Sport1 from my TV set up now!

I can't help feeling this is fitting. Amateur TV for the amateur ice cream manufacturer series and professional TV for the IRC!

I mean you call that marketing of a series, you call that a rally on TV? I better shut up now, I feel too disappointed for polite words!

[rv65]

You can get decent coverage on Youtube until the whack a moles block it. HDTheater decided not to air WRC 2011 for some strange reason.

[rv65]

http://dhd.discovery.com/tv/world-rally ... about.html

HDTheater is carrying the WRC for 2011, without any boring soccer interruptions. It's tape delayed, but we are getting better coverage than we did last year! Even the live powerstage is going to be carried via tape delay. I bet this coverage is the same as OneHD and ESPN, but last year, HDTheater used the OneHD with a small SWRC snippet.

[rv65]

HDTheater does show commercials, but it's not as bad as Soccer1 , and this is coming from a country, that has more commercials per show than anywhere else.

[rv65]

Soccer1 is airing a 25 minute program for the WRC for Rally Portugal on Day's 1, 2, and 3, but it's on at late afternoon, with tons of commercials, making it even shorter.

[rv65]

It's sad that Soccer1 has tried to block Youtube coverage of the WRC. It might not be the most legal way of watching it, but there are no soccer interruptions, or no adverts.

[ChrisB]

Power stage is live and Sport1 just changed from 4 men sitting around a table playing cards via some adverts showing soccer playing dishwashers to now Bundesliga sucker soccer. I think out of that choice the poker playing looked most spectacular. Especially as the soccer is the exact same as shown on two more stations at the very same time.

I really don't have hope German TV will ever change. Bundesliga is every Sunday. In fact Bundesliga is organised in such way that there are games every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Monday is 2nd league, Tuesday is UEFA Cup, Wednesday is Champions League. So my suggestion stop the rally on Sunday morning and wait with the power stage until Thursday. Oh, hang on, Thursday is the day we talk about the FIFA Euro Cup 2012.

[rv65]

I did see a 1 hour highlight show for WRC on Soccer1. Why watch it on Sport1, when you can watch it online. I prefer to watch it online, but to each his own. ESPN 2 in my country airs Poker, and Speed shows F1, but the majority of Speed programming is NASCRAP and boring reality shows. NASCRAP on speed is like Soccer in Germany, but at least they show other sports on American channels. Of course the FTA channels air NASCRAP, but some races are shown on ESPN. At least Speed has an online channel that shows 1 hour highlights of IRC. Too bad Speed2 won't show the live coverage of the IRC, since their platform is capable of such coverage.

[mof]

Hey Chris, rally is set to rise in Germany, since the soccer is going down big time. The Aussies even beat the Germans in a soccer match this week.

[ChrisB]

RV65, where can you watch WRC online? I only found it on Youtube, and even here the footage is only fractions or blocked for my country.

Hey Chris, rally is set to rise in Germany, since the soccer is going down big time. The Aussies even beat the Germans in a soccer match this week.

The problem is that Germany is a dictatorship and in what we have to suffer it doesn't matter if we are successful or not. The first time I heard of Bernhard Langer was when I visited UK, even though he is a multiple World Champion! In the last Olympic Winter Games Germany won, but in German media you did not hear a single word about it! In contrary, for the Olympic games in München the German Green Party is trying everything to not make it happen because it is too expensive and not environmentally friendly enough. In contrast we had no problems building many new soccer stadions. Right now my county is telling everything they are bankrupt, they need higher taxes, they need EU financial help, they can't repair the roads for there is no money, but they have just announced they are going to pay 30 Million Euros for a new lawn for the Saarbrücken 3rd league soccer club! No kidding! Who cares what we are good or bad in. On the last FIFA World Cup Germany lost and every single player to have been there, some 30 of them, all got an (German equivalent of) OBE! But if you are a World Champion in another discipline, you are nothing, you don't even get a mention.

[rv65]

RV65, where can you watch WRC online? I only found it on Youtube, and even here the footage is only fractions or blocked for my country.

Hey Chris, rally is set to rise in Germany, since the soccer is going down big time. The Aussies even beat the Germans in a soccer match this week.

The problem is that Germany is a dictatorship and in what we have to suffer it doesn't matter if we are successful or not. The first time I heard of Bernhard Langer was when I visited UK, even though he is a multiple World Champion! In the last Olympic Winter Games Germany won, but in German media you did not hear a single word about it! In contrary, for the Olympic games in München the German Green Party is trying everything to not make it happen because it is too expensive and not environmentally friendly enough. In contrast we had no problems building many new soccer stadions. Right now my county is telling everything they are bankrupt, they need higher taxes, they need EU financial help, they can't repair the roads for there is no money, but they have just announced they are going to pay 30 Million Euros for a new lawn for the Saarbrücken 3rd league soccer club! No kidding! Who cares what we are good or bad in. On the last FIFA World Cup Germany lost and every single player to have been there, some 30 of them, all got an (German equivalent of) OBE! But if you are a World Champion in another discipline, you are nothing, you don't even get a mention.

I watch it on youtube, but you could find online or torrents, if you look hard enough. I don't want this site to break any laws.

[rv65]

Soccer1 err Sport1 did show some MotoGP coverage, and that is probably the most compelling thing that they show on that network. This weekend didn't have as much soccer as other weekends, and I've noticed that Sport doesn't show as much soccer when the WRC isn't on. Maybe this was a rare case, yet I think German TV should have a dedicated soccer network. Of course, American Basketball is also much more interesting than Soccer . I'm looking forward for 3 1/2 hours of WRC on HDTheater on Sunday. Ironically they are so far behind, that today will feature Rally Sweden. Yes 3 1/2 hours on one day. 3 days of coverage, Power stage, pre rally show, and post rally show.

My Country doesn't block WRC videos , but Sport1 did block one video with coverage, but other than that I'm good. I end up watching it on HDTheater anyway, so it's not like I'm missing anything. 3

[rv65]

Sport1 just hit a new low this weekend. Only 5 minute coverage each day, and it doesn't look like they will cover the power stage live. Tons of teleshopping today, and the rest of the weekend will have sport qualifying, and handball. Handball looks like an exciting sport, not. ChrisB feels the same way about Soccer, as I do about NASCAR. NASCAR is the soccer of motorsport.

[ChrisB]

NASCAR is the soccer of motorsport.

LOL. I must say NASCAR is the most boring form of motorsport I have seen in my live. Just left hand corners ovals seems quite simple and primitive, so youz could say NASCAR is the soccer of motorsport. With Sport1 they had those 5min round ups already the last event, so I didn't even bother looking at their program schedule for this event until now. No power stage? Well, it's the debut of the German Mini, we don't want to report anything interesting that might improve rallying's fan base! Well, seriously, what a missed opportunity.

I was already jealous seeing (thanks to internet) the BBC had a multi minutes special on their general TV evening news about the Mini debut (in which they tried everything to avoid straight links to the old Mini, because the new Mini is a van from a German manufacturer) and here in Germany there was nothing, not in the news, not in the papers, not in sport papers, nothing at all. Our industry could profit from it. Well, Hyundai sells really well in Germany now, because nobody has seen how crap their cars are in straight competition (i.e. WRC) but now they see their stickers on Mercedes busses in soccer.

[ChrisB]

Btw these 5min round ups on Sport1 include an advertising break as well! It least that was the case in Jordan, I never tuned in again.

[rv65]

Well Soccer1 is now trying to make up with a 30 minute late night highlight show on Wednesday from 23:00 to 23:30. It's about Rally Sardegna.

[rv65]

Well the ESPN coverage in the UK is getting around 11,000 viewers. I think this could be the end of the WRC on ESPN. Maybe they'll carry it until the season is over, and then a new TV deal will be put into place. I bet this number is higher than the German ratings on Soccer err Sport1.

[rv65]

While this forum does need to be fixed, I've heard that the Snooker final match got around 5-6,000,000 viewers in the UK. Yet, Snooker is a "dying" sport.

WRC on FTA TV in the UK got around 250,000 to 1,000,000 viewers. I guess people like Soccer, F1, Cricket, Hockey, NASCRAP, and snooker over rallying.

[rv65]

IPTV is coming to the WRC in addition to Youtube, Hulu, MSNTV, JMLatavalafan and his aliases, and other sources. IPTV will be tested in Alsace, perhaps in time for Rally France. I'm sure it will likely be blocked in Germany, and the USA. Maybe not USA, but probably Germany.

Maybe this will enable Live TV on the WRC. Speed2 can do live coverage of the IRC, but chose not to.

[rv65]

Jarmo Mahonen says that WRC will broadcast all stages live within 2 years. This is when the IRC has been doing it all along. Full live coverage would probably be available via IPTV, and probably on channels that carry the WRC on TV. I've heard they will test the IPTV system during Rally France, but I'm sure they are doing this to test it out. I'm sure that was one of reasons how they got the Monte in the 2012 calendar.