In article <
[email protected]>, NC <
[email protected]> wrote:
> AFAIK, its ITV2 only this year. Not even the option of
> setting the VCR to record ITV(1) in the middle of the
> night to get the repeated highlights programme which was
> offered last year.
ITV are apparently doing a weekly highlights programme.
> So, either you get digital TV (Freeview, Sky, Cable) or
> you do without.
Cost of a freeview decoder is, what, 60 quid? I
appreciate that there are people for whom it won't work,
but for a large part of the population, it's a trivial
amount of money.
> Its a shame that the worlds most famous cycling race
> doesn't merit any coverage on national, available to all,
> UK TV, whereas one can find two channels devoting
> themselves to extensive coverage of a football
> competition.
You only have to look at the desperate, and short, ad breaks
when it was on C4 to see how small the actual audience is.
You can argue as to the reasons for this, but it is
currently a fact. Whereas I was at the cinema last night
during the Portugal/Holland match, and it was _empty_.
And most sports with a serious drug problem experience
problems finding an audience outside the hardcore. Athletics
has plummeted as a TV ratings winner since people realised
that the winner of a sprint will usually either be
disqualified for drug use or found the following year to be
a drug user, and cycling will find itself in a similar state
if it doesn't clean up its act.
ian