ONE HD not the answer to better coverage. Yet!
Columnist By Adrian Musolino, 5 Apr 2009 Adrian Musolino is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- F1, motor sports, ONE HD, sports on tv, TV
Brazil's Rubens Barrichello steers his Honda. AP Photo/Antonio Calanni
I finally succumbed to the digital revolution, forking out for a set top box for little else other than ONE HD and its promise of sporting utopia. Settling in Saturday evening to watch qualifying for the Malaysian F1 GP, live coverage from Sepang was nowhere to be seen, ONE mimicking the standard channels AFL coverage. Not a good start.
Don’t get me wrong ONE HD is a huge development in the Australian sporting landscape.
Formula 1 fans for example will finally get to see races live, ONE promising live coverage of each round. MotoGP fans aren’t so lucky sadly.
However it isn’t the revolution it has promised.
The problem with the introduction of ONE is it detracts from the coverage on the standard channel and there are already signs of this occurring.
Motorsport fans without ONE have already lost out; qualifying for Malaysia isn’t being shown on Channel 10 standard at all. After years of fighting for the right to see qualifying sessions, F1 fans without digital are back to square one.
Even the coverage on ONE wasn’t much better.
During the Australian F1 GP viewers without wide screen had the leader board on the left hand side of the screen cut out.
Fans missed Kimi Raikkonen’s later race spin and a crucial restart as they suffered from commercials, something that has made the move over to ONE too.
Let’s not forget too that despite the huge promotion and move of content onto HD so many don’t even have access to ONE.
As my colleague Benjamin Conkey wrote regional viewers are missing out.
Watching ONE while waiting endlessly for the qualifying from Malaysia to start, it dawned on me, for the likes of the A-League would a move to ONE be more beneficial to being on Fox Sports?
Obviously in terms of pure numbers it would be a huge plus for the FFA in terms of exposure, as it is for the ANZ Championship.
But the coverage itself would be a huge step down from what football fans currently enjoy on Fox Sports and SBS. Next weekend watch the opening round of MotoGP on Fox Sports and then on ONE and see the difference yourself.
When ONE was first launched pundits and fans alike pondered whether the dominance of Fox Sports was under threat. Let’s hope not.
Commercials and delays aren’t part of the sporting coverage revolution. Neither is interviewing Australian Idol rejects during quarter time of an AFL match.
ONE HD is a platform for proper sports coverage but not the answer as yet. The same old bad habits of the free to air channels sporting coverage are still painfully evident.
The potential is there and don’t get me wrong it is a positive direction for sports coverage, and I’m sure I’ll feel more positively about my set top box purchase when the Malaysian GP is shown live Sunday night.
In the end having to head out to meet friends at the same time as when ONE was going to show its delayed qualifying telecast and despite a shiny new box on my increasingly crowded TV stand, I reverted back to watching a live stream of qualifying on the net, just like I and so many other F1 fans have done in the past.
Just like old times.
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The Crowd Says (7) | Page 1 of Comments
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- Explore:
- F1, motor sports, ONE HD, sports on tv, TV
April 5th 2009 @ 3:41pm
Brett McKay said | April 5th 2009 @ 3:41pm | Report comment
Adrian, as a Roarer said in reply to comments on Ben Conkey’s article, it’s obviously going to take time for ONE HD to bed in. Ten would also be limited under the terms of contracts (especially for AFL) existing prior to the introduction of ONE, so while it mightn’t be ideal this year or even next, it’ll be in future broadcast negotiations where ONE starts holding its own.
They’re showing F1 races live now, they’ll have the IPL come April, they’re already showing the ANZ Champs netball (can we get “netty” back into the venacular), and who knows what they’ll start bidding for in the future.
As you say, a 24-hour FTA sports channel is a huge development in the Australian sporting landscape. We just need to give it time. (Especially those of us who can’t see it yet!!)
April 5th 2009 @ 4:53pm
Rellum said | April 5th 2009 @ 4:53pm | Report comment
I have been thinking lately (a rare occurrence) that with the two new teams coming to the A-League there will be, for the first time in the history of the comp, two games being played at roughly the same time. And with two more teams coming in the season after there should be more clashes in the schedule.
This should be the perfect opportunity for One HD to show the game that Fox doesn’t show live. It is an opening for the A-league to get on FTA sooner than the next TV deal.
April 5th 2009 @ 6:39pm
WorkingClassRugger said | April 5th 2009 @ 6:39pm | Report comment
Plus the Super 14 is up for a new TV deal so there another sport that can gain access to FTA. They just need to come to a arrangement Fox. Imagine all Austrlian games shown hopefully live.
April 5th 2009 @ 7:45pm
Brett McKay said | April 5th 2009 @ 7:45pm | Report comment
WCR, even if the S14 games were shown on 60 or 90 minutes delay, it would be acceptable to most followers used to watching sport on delay nowadays (not to mention keeping Fox happy). I have a vague recollection that one of the reasons Ch7 stopped showing S14 games was that Fox wouldn’t let them show the games any earlier than a couple of of hours after kickoff..
April 14th 2009 @ 3:01pm
Clipper said | April 14th 2009 @ 3:01pm | Report comment
hey Adrian,
Good article, I’d just like to add though that now British F1 is back with BBC, it will be up to Ten to decide when to go to commercial break rather than last year they mirrored ITV’s commercials.
At the moment I’m giving One HD a 8/10 with their broadcasting of F1, If they were to show delayed qually with no apparent reason, like no AFL matches clashing then I would have to throw up the questions on their commitment to F1.
We all know that AFL is more a priority than F1 (in 10′s eyes), and I guess IPL would be in front of F1 when that fires up, so we might see more delayed qually in the next couple of months.
April 16th 2009 @ 1:21pm
John Cook said | April 16th 2009 @ 1:21pm | Report comment
Great Article Thanks…
As an F1 fan I also see an improvement with coverage, but its still lagging a long long way behind the rest of the world.
We still get delayed coverage of Qualifying, in spite of the fact we have an extra dedicated 24 hour sport channel now..
and their are way too many commercial breaks, especially during qualifying (2 ad breaks in a 10min qualifying session? come on Ten!)
January 15th 2011 @ 7:27pm
julie wright said | January 15th 2011 @ 7:27pm | Report comment
what crap coverage of the netball. an international test series, world class sport and we miss most of the third quarter due to ads. cheap arse one hd can’t send a commentary team, we have to put up with amateur jamaican locals who barely know the rules and can’t even pronounce the names of some of the world’s best netballers. a professional would at least check pronunciation before the telecast begins, after all, it is their job, they are being paid to do this. lift your game one hd. Julie from Adelaide.