BBC, I salute you

Some highs. Some lows. But with an event like this, as long as you don't mess up big style a la NBC, it's always going to be a success. BBC has been a success.

You must be joking, you must have let Team GB's great performance get to you, apart from Jonhson and Thorpe the Beed have been a joke!

Why so?

yes why a joke?

feck me I've watched it all from morning to night and it's been great

although I have not been on bbc1 etc

agree...coverage has been good albeit a little OTT re Team GB, but i guess that's inevitable...been hamstrung by the feeds and lack of timings/positions in cycling, open water swim etc but i gather not their fault...they're broadcasting to a mainstream audience of 10 mill+, always going to be 'dumbed down' to a degree for that reason

No, fairs fair, their coverage has been quite exceptional. Whatever sport you wanted was on the red button and they've aimed to show as much as they can live on BBC 1 & 3. I only preferred the cycling on Eurosport. Some of their magazine elements have been interesting, some less so but a lot of that's for an audience not necessarily familiar with some sports.

I found some of the commentary very funny but as stated elsewhere any nation is going to do that with it's own athletes. Garry Herbert in the rowing sounded at times like he was commentating on the Battle of Agincourt along with the horsey boys and girls. Like the light hearted bits with McEnroe and the likes of Matthew Pincent who has turned into a TV natural. Jake Humphreys very good too, just seems so comfortable and unfazed in front of camera and does his homework beforehand.

As many as 20 channels of live action when NBC struggles with one.

My only gripe is that I didn't find out about the Sky channels 450+ until yesterday reading a thread on here.  Shame the BBC main coverage only talked about online and red button but missed this crucial fact.

The coverage on the 24 HD channels has been brilliant.
To be able to just watch the event and listen to the commentary without endless intervention from presenters/pundits/celebrities/interviews/features has been pure bliss.

Agree with that.

The focus on the Brits has been a bit too much.  I guess that's because they are broadcasting mainly to an audience who are unfamiliar with the sports, so that's inevitable.  It becomes frustrating though if you are a fan of a particular sport/discipline which has no real British interest, so the coverage is minimal or non-existent.

I suppose that's what the red button options are, so on the whole the coverage has been great.

Some pundits though need to be replaced.  Off the top of my head the very worst are Denis Lewis, Tanni Grey-Thompson and Sonali Shah.  A total embarrassment.  Surprised Michael Johnson (by some way the best on TV), hasn't walked off set in frustration at having to sit alongside Lewis.

Some pundits though need to be replaced.  Off the top of my head the very worst are Denis Lewis, Tanni Grey-Thompson and Sonali Shah.  A total embarrassment.  Surprised Michael Johnson (by some way the best on TV), hasn't walked off set in frustration at having to sit alongside Lewis.

Totally agree with all that, those three in particular were useless.

However the overall coverage has been superb.  I only found out about all the extra channels (on Virgin in my case) a few days ago, but they are so much better than navigating around the painfully slow 'red button'.

Like others I only came to the 450+ channels at the start of the 2nd week.
They are by far the best things about 2012 Olympic coverage.

Brilliant, extensive coverage free from adverts.

Not enjoying the Team GB hype though. Making out that a medal in Taekwondo/BMX/Womens Boxing etc would be 'sensational' is pretty odd.

There's been no balance in the reporting. i.e. no figures for levels of GB investment versus say Australia.

the only thing i found odd about the bbc was the various evening shows which seemed to be the same footage of events just covered by a different presenter and guests

other than that we've never had it so good for extensive coverage

Agree a bit there elise. The two evening roundup shows could be done much better.

yes and gary lineker starting proceedings by covering the day so far at 7pm

could have a round up loop on the red button for the catch up

There's been no balance in the reporting. i.e. no figures for levels of GB investment versus say Australia.

Australia raise a greater proportion of their investment from taxation than GB does. Lottery funding picks up our slack. Not sure if there's time to make those comparisons between countries though and go through all the different approaches to funding. I'd prefer more athlete information, PBs, SBs, previous Olympic and World Champ performances, that sort of thing. Not sure if that's a BBC issue though.

one more; if gabby does that stupid sofa dance to "gold" again i'd like to see if she could fly off that 2nd floor balcony

Aug 10, 2012 -- 6:02PM, Danno wrote:

The focus on the Brits has been a bit too much.  I guess that's because they are broadcasting mainly to an audience who are unfamiliar with the sports, so that's inevitable.  It becomes frustrating though if you are a fan of a particular sport/discipline which has no real British interest, so the coverage is minimal or non-existent.I suppose that's what the red button options are, so on the whole the coverage has been great.Some pundits though need to be replaced.  Off the top of my head the very worst are Denis Lewis, Tanni Grey-Thompson and Sonali Shah.  A total embarrassment.  Surprised Michael Johnson (by some way the best on TV), hasn't walked off set in frustration at having to sit alongside Lewis.

Totally agree too. Been impressed with Claire Balding though, again, she does her homework. Never heard of Sonali Shah before and I never knew Tanni GT was a pundit. Comical having her give her views on the cycling. Surely Lewis won't get her contract renewed. Michael Johnson's face gives it all away, most nights.

Its free.  They cover everything.  I'm happy.
I'm not too fussed about studio presenters, but you need a bit of a summary, and info on what is upcoming.

I agree with Inner City Sumo. I would have liked more information on exactly what form all of the athletes had been in all year, what their season's bests had been (and when) etc.

Other than that though, I've thoroughly enjoyed it. The channels from 450+ have been superb and have allowed me to concentrate on whichever sport I want to watch exhaustively at any one time. I haven't bothered much with the mainstream coverage at all.  Only criticisms were those dreadful road race commentaries on the first weekend (can't believe the Telegraph gave Porter a 9/10!), and the cocking up on the 10km swim yesterday. In general though, I've got pretty much everything I've wanted from the coverage this year.

The host broadcaster is Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS), an agency of the IOC. It is using its own cameras, and crews subcontracted from other Olympic broadcasters, to cover the events.

The BBC coverage has been excellent. 

Having the Radio Times has been a big help.

They had an Olympics Special pull-out a couple of weeks ago.

It's made it really easy to keep track of all the events.

I haven't missed anything that I've wanted to watch, except when work has got in the way.

I've watched most things on the red button but sometimes it's been nice just to watch whatever they are showing on the main channels. I find that way I get to see sports I wouldn't normally choose to watch.

Athletics had too much studio chat for me,rather just watch the action,medal ceromonies etc,like it always used to be.
Each to their own though-fair enough.
MJ aside the studio chat was a joke anyway,and i switched to Eurosport once i realised this was gonna keep happening.

bolt night,it used to be track and field together,but because there was no brit interest in triple jump and jav,they put that on red button ,no commentary,i like the old format best,too many presenters all on mega bucks.

Being an aussie in aussieland, is this thread about the free to air coverage in england? Here in australia, as far as free to air goes, we have two channels...both showing the same thing but one in HD and one in SD. I've watched everyone second of the olympics shown on this channel and not one second of womens high jump, long jump, or triple jump has been shown. Basically you will only get coverage if your australian or Usain Bolt . On cable/satellite tv here you get 8 olympic channels. Next olympics I'm definately getting cable/satellite. One channel just can't handle it.

Wooky,we had 24 advert free,free to air dedicated channels in the UK,still not good enough for some people though.

WOW thats amazing!...Maybe I'll move to England for the next olympics then and I thought 8 channels on pay tv was good lol. Man if people complain about that then don't come to Australia.

Terrible reception on red button. Relatives have had same problem 300 miles away in Midlands area. This might just be a Sky issue.

I'm in the Midlands area and red button coverage has been fine.

If you have Sky then you have dedicated channels from 450 upwards. 

To be fair the main channel BBC coverage has been poor with far to many re-caps and b*llocks chat, but that is more than offset by the ability to watch live coverage of every single event either online or on TV.

Aug 11, 2012 -- 9:25AM, freeze_the_secret wrote:

Wooky,we had 24 advert free,free to air dedicated channels in the UK,still not good enough for some people though.

I've only had four channels - and that's after 7pm. Most of the day it's only three. Though there is the website too.

If you have Sky then you have dedicated channels from 450 upwards.


On Virgin Cable they're 574 onwards....as others have said, shame we all only stumbled across them late...should have been flagged up better

I have been surprised the Beeb didn't talk about the 24+ channels more. They were on Freeview as well as Sky and Virgin, so most people across the country would have had access to them.  But all the Beeb talk about is the red button.  (Even I might have missed them had my mother not had an argument with me about their existence!)   

Perhaps the presenters are scared everyone will go straight to the dedicated channels and miss out the more mainstream presenter-led coverage..

Probably because the BBC can hardly say '24 dedicated BBC Olympic channels on the Sky platform' like Sky news were shouting about.

But the channels aren't 'Sky' channels. Don't Virgin and Freeview users also get the same channels? (Albeit on different channel numbers.)   

They're 'BBC Olympic' channels, which the BBC can most certainly shout about.

Olympics and coverage has been nothing but brilliant.  Never thought I would look forward to it let alone miss it when it goes....wonderful.

Freeview viewers were left seething,did not have 24 channels and the red button only showed 3.

I've had enough of seeing Lewis and Jackson jumping around like complete knobs. It's about the athletes please BBC.

Aug 11, 2012 -- 8:02PM, the silverback wrote:

I've had enough of seeing Lewis and Jackson jumping around like complete knobs. It's about the athletes please BBC.

Yes, they've overdone that.  Don't ruin a great moment.

Yes Freeze, you're quite right. Certain Freeview HD viewers got access to them, but the 24 channels weren't available to general Freeview watchers.

Serves them right for being too tight to pay for Sky or Virgin!!

It has restored my faith in the BBC I just hope they learn from this and show more sport in general.

I think the evening program with gabby logan is v.good