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But you are exactly right……damn few people are tuning into the Tour now for the first time. Even the casual Tour viewer has watched the race before, in all likelihood. There is no need to cater to noobs.
When i watch F1, i do’t have someone explaining DRS or pit stops every week. It is insulting to the majority of your viewership. A good commentator can make the sport accessible for everyone without talking down to the viewers.
Uncle Phil was great for the sport in the 89’s and 90’s……but the sport, and more importantly, the viewers, have changed and he has not kept up. We don’t need to new treated like dummies.
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Yeah, it’s ridiculous. They show story about a card signed by the former classmates of an athlete, or some reality tv like drama. Meanwhile, only a small frame in the bottom of the screen shows the very same athlete is competing for a medal.
A bunch of interviews and commentary without paying attention to the actual events. It gets worse if there’s a popular American athlete in the competition.
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I would be ok with it if this was the only problem. The bigger problem is all the worthless fluff. They cut away this morning to show us 30 second clip of a sweeper truck, then cut to some guy in a suit to give the same fluff analysis that Bob Roll was already saying. On top of that, there is constant ads. Not just ad breaks, but having them promote NBC/Comcast stuff during the race.
I quit watching the Tour a decade ago because the TV coverage was so bad. I thought they had corrected their mistake when they brought it Peacock, but I guess not.
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I agree with this but other broadcasters show that they could do both (like GCN or the world feed used to do). Like in any field, some people are good at explaining the basics without sounding condescending or being boring to more knowledgeable audiences.
In my opinion, it’s not necessarily because they target to new fans but the main problem with NBC is that the commentators don’t have a lot to say. Partly, because they aren’t up-to-date with the current peloton besides the main protagonists and events. They just say very general things about the most popular riders.
For example, today they talked a lot about the heat but any person knows that exercising in the heat is much harder. I bet that was unnecessarily repetitive, even for new watchers.
Also, when they cut to the studio for no reason, they’re forced have to talk about something. There’s not a lot they could analyze in the middle of the stage, when the break already formed and the race enters in that steady pace. Regular commentators can talk about the scenery, history, food, etc but the guys in the studio are put on the spotlight with no material. They end up repeating the same thing over and over. The studio is fine for pre and post race analysis. Maybe a just few small interactions in middle.
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But that’s the feed NBC and everyone else is given. There aren’t 100 countries flying around and in cars or on bikes filming this and broadcasting it. One company films it and puts out the video feed.
They all use the same race feed, yes, but many countries do indeed have people on the ground filming their own things (probably why they are trying to force us to watch it, they spent a lot of money on it). They even cut away to their car, driven by NBC employee Steve Porinio, who was following behind the truck telling us about what a great driver the sweeper driver is (they cut away to him a few times). They also have Christian Vande Velde riding around on the back of a motorcycle who they kept cutting away to for his on the road reporting. Neither of those people are in the world feed.
NBC is constantly throwing in flashbacks, talking heads, pre-race interviews, etc. The world feed that Peacock used to show, and what you can now see on Flo, is nothing like the Peacock version. They mostly only show the live race feed. Last year the only cut aways I remember were to show Nicolas Roche’s final sprint clips for the end of the stages.
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This morning it was good on my phone. Then tried from a computer and low resolution. Low resolution again in the afternoon, after my ride.
Pointed vpn to London and signed up for ITV. That was good but couldn’t AirPlay the iPhone browser tab to AppleTV. Tried mirroring and same issue.
Pulled out a computer and went back to SBS. That worked and great resolution on big screen.
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Didn’t need to say more.
Yes they all have people on the streets. The castles, random people, street sweepers are the same feed.
Apparently I do need to say more. The NBC car and motorcycle have cameras which they use to film. The sweeper was filmed by the NBC car because it was no where near the race apparently. Steve Porinio’s in car clips are not a part of the world feed. Nor are CVV’s clips.
I watched 2 hours of the NBC feed today and then 4 hours of the world feed. The only thing they have in common is the race the feed, NBC inserts their own footage which they film themselves.
Edit: Because I am bored and want to make sure I am not crazy , I went and found the Steve shot of the sweeper. It’s at 1:49 of the Peacock replay. Just over 167km to go. Steve says he is ahead of the race behind this truck, goes on for about a minute talking about stuff no one cares about. I then went to the world feed and found that same time period (167+km to go). No sweeper trucks. At that time they were showing van der Poel getting his radio fixed.
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Weird hill to die on, but you do you.
You could just admit you are wrong, but you do you.
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You’ve provided no evidence that I am. Every example you have of NBC content is with on screen talent and commentary, not random footage. The world feed includes random footage.
I’m past years id put the world feed on at work and then since the GF prefers the NBC one we’d watch that at home in the evening. All the weird stuff is in both.
If you’re gonna hate something it helps to actually understand what you’re hating.
If you want to watch the ITV replay without the constant ad breaks you can use Firefox, select picture-in-picture, and then full screen the picture-in-picture. Works for me anyway. Unfortunately I can’t seem to chromecast it onto a TV.
Inspired by this thread, I just found that I can get ad-free Peacock for only $6 more per month. I just tested on yesterday’s replay and there are no commercials anymore. That should ease my suffering.
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Not sure your various device’s technical limitations, but based on my experience watching sbs for races over the last six months the variable was the VPN, not the device
I use NordVPN and some of their Aussie servers are great for streaming with sbs while others are unwatchable. My habit is to just disconnect and reconnect the vpn until I find a server that’s performing well that day
I had tried saving the good streaming ones but they didn’t seem consistent day to day
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You claimed that everyone just shows the same feed and individual companies do not have on the ground people filming. You said both versions showed the sweeper in particular. That is incorrect and I provided evidence, and could provide more, but you are unwilling or unable to watch anything outside of NBC to see for yourself and refuse to listen to someone who did.
I watched 2 hours of NBC and 4 hours of the World feed yesterday. Did you? I am fully aware of the differences, you apparently are not and will not accept that someone who has watched both might know what they are talking about.
Enjoy the Tour.
Flo + vpn (Canada) = better than peacock
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I’ll also note it looks like flo is posting (whole?!) stages on YouTube shortly after the stage……I was still on VPN - but perhaps with a few hours delay you can go vpn + yt = less than anything else
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Also Flo allows you to rewind all the way to the start no matter how late to the live stream you are!
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