Sky v BBC

Now that The Open has finally finished (more on that later) I thought I'd start the discussion thread that several suggested we should have. Here's my initial two-penn'orth.

1. The BBC coverage  on the commentary side seemingly aimed at people who have never watched golf on TV - or anywhere else - before. Talk about stating the bleedin' obvious!!
2. The editing and camera work were dreadful. Many times the pictures cut from someone just about to putt (having lingered on them lining it up for 30 seconds or so) only to cut away to someone else lining up a shot. Time and again we saw a tee shot, only for the cameraman to miss where it ended up. The classic was one of Sergio's shots which Mark James was convinced must have landed in a greenside bunker because no-one could see it, only for them to be puzzled that Sergio's putt from the back of the green was his second shot. He'd obviously overshot the green and everyone had missed it. And you can't blame the poor visibility with the modern technology at their disposal - unless they haven't invested in any.
3. Who on earth where the numpties who were doing the interviews and on-course bits (apart from Ken Brown and his bloody rubber duck)? They certainly don't appear to have any golfing credentials and had no credibility in my eyes. At least I was able to record it on Sky+ (or pause the live coverage to do something else) and then whizz through the boring bits. Why did they bother to charter a plane to give those pointless overhead shots (mostly obliterated by clouds)? That must have cost the licence fee-payers a pretty penny!
4. The timing of the coverage was pretty poor - if they can clear the schedules for tennis at Wimbledon, why can't they do the same for The Open? Peter Alliss was trumpeting that they will be showing highlights once Sky take over the coverage in 2017 (I read in my paper yesterday that there are suggestions the BBC don't want it next year so may pass it to Sky a year early) so why didn't they show highlights this time, especially on the days when most people work? I had to go out on Monday evening for a previous engagement and so set Sky+ to record the coverage only to discover that they had swapped channels for the play-off so I missed it completely!!!!!

Anyone else want to have a gripe?

I agree. We should all force white middle class people to pay £50 a month to watch white middle class sports.

I don't think this is a fair fight. If the BBC had channel capacity to show any sport event they could as often as they liked, we could compare like for like. Compare the coverage of the US Open tennis and Wimbledon if you like, but I just don't think it's a fair comparison with the golf, especially golf that's unexpectedly into a 5th day.

I saw a few shoddy edits, and there's no doubt that the BBC broadcast isn't as professional as it used to be, but that's an inevitable consequence of them doing 1 tournament a year as opposed to 30+.

It's hard to take exception with anything LP has listed out, and while there might be an explanation for some of it (only doing one tournament a year) it's not really an excuse - why bid for the rights if you can't do it justice?  


What the Beeb did better:
1. There was definitely more actually coverage of golf in the absence of ads (although there was still an unnecessary amount of filling and fluff on the days unaffected by the weather).
2. They didn't shoehorn in a stupid amount of swing analysis just so someone could say "using the Konica Minolta Biz Hub Swing Vision".
3. Their "colour" pieces about the location and it's surrounds tend to be more factual and interesting and less of a gawdy ad.
4. They were better at showing shots in order - none of this "and you saw a ball by the hole - here's how it got there" rubbish.

What Sky do Better
1. Interviewing golfers at the end of the round is a better feature with the Sky Cart so you have their scorecard on the screen and have clips for them to explain and narrate.
2. The graphics for the course layout are better
3. They use the shot tracker more often and better
4. they use more cameras and give more angles to view from

Of course some of the advantages and disadvantages on Sky come from their use of the host broadcaster feeds, but not all.

LP will be well and truly off Rose-Tinted-Spectacles-with-Blue-Shorts' Christmas card list now!

Personally I can't fault a thing she says. They may only host one event a year (actually I think it's 3 or 4) but that's no excuse. Not sure about the facts behind SJ's post. They give Wimbledon saturation coverage - sometimes showing on BOTH the mainstream channels - with digital TV though there is still a finite bandwidth they can surely do better than they did in terms of hours. I don't think it's unknown for Wimbledon to go into a third week (though rare) - but even pre-digital, when that happened the tennis fans got proper coverage of the final day.

MontysMerkin is just p*ssed that we didn't have to suffer more of Mrs Doubtfire in the commentary box

Agree totally with LP.

Key for me was the lack of a highlights package. They used to do this, but it obviously takes a bit of effort to put together, and i got a very distinct impression that the bbc really couldn't be bothered with its coverage.

Bob_the_Job wrote:It's hard to take exception with anything LP has listed out, and while there might be an explanation for some of it (only doing one tournament a year) it's not really an excuse - why bid for the rights if you can't do it justice?  


What the Beeb did better:
1. There was definitely more actually coverage of golf in the absence of ads (although there was still an unnecessary amount of filling and fluff on the days unaffected by the weather).
2. They didn't shoehorn in a stupid amount of swing analysis just so someone could say "using the Konica Minolta Biz Hub Swing Vision".
3. Their "colour" pieces about the location and it's surrounds tend to be more factual and interesting and less of a gawdy ad.
4. They were better at showing shots in order - none of this "and you saw a ball by the hole - here's how it got there" rubbish.

What Sky do Better
1. Interviewing golfers at the end of the round is a better feature with the Sky Cart so you have their scorecard on the screen and have clips for them to explain and narrate.
2. The graphics for the course layout are better
3. They use the shot tracker more often and better
4. they use more cameras and give more angles to view from

Of course some of the advantages and disadvantages on Sky come from their use of the host broadcaster feeds, but not all.

Bob, all that Konica junk is from the US coverage. They love that stuff.

A question, maybe someone can enlighten me.

The guys who work for sky on European tour events (eg camera men) I assume travel around the tour doing their job week in week out. Does the Beeb use these guys for the Open, or do they use their own team to do their one event per year?

Ray, I do not for certain know the answer to your question but I act for plenty of film/TV crew and they are almost always employees. I'm sure freelance teams do exist but seem rare.
Camera work is part of the production team and BBC Sport have their own production team so I suspect the camera work at all their events is done by the same individuals (ie not the same team Sky use)

I'm not sure who produces the Golf Channel coverage of European Tour events, but the commentators, by and large, are terrific. Editing and continuity is p1ss poor, but guys like Warren Humphries and Tony Johnstone are superb. When Ken Brown is on, he's always appropriately on topic, no rubber ducks.

They have a nasty habit of saying the coverage is live, when it's not, but always very watchable.

Seems the Beeb had to apologise for Alliss's latest aberration - pretty dated stuff from him these days.

From the graphics Kwini I think the European Tour feed is taken from Sky and then typically shown on tape delay hence "live" comments.

Didn't previously they stopped showing live coverage and went straight into a highlights package, similar to what they did with Wimbledon. But I think people wanted the live coverage until late, which is what we got this year.

None of the issues raised caused me any problems. Maybe I'm not as sensitive as some people though. I thought the coverage was good, my only gripe was starting late on Monday, but as I was working it made little to no difference to me.

I would say that until sky pulls off covering a golf event on a similar scale and show the same amount of coverage it'sa pointless aargument. Will sky show it better, I don't know, no one does. They have no track record of doing this for themselves.

I think the bbc do as good a job as they can realistically do. But Ialso understand why they cannot carry on ashowing golf live.

The point about commentary being aimed at people who haven't watched golf is surely a good thing, golf needs to draw people in get the casual viewer involved, it's unfortunately dwindling as a sport in this country due to its reputation and affordability. I don't think the move to sky will help it grow. It needs to increase participation and fans.

beninho wrote:Didn't previously they stopped showing live coverage and went straight into a highlights package, similar to what they did with Wimbledon.  But I think people wanted the live coverage until late, which is what we got this year.

None of the issues raised caused me any problems. Maybe I'm not as sensitive as some people though. I thought the coverage was good, my only gripe was starting late on Monday,  but as I was working it made little to no difference to me.

I would say that until sky pulls off covering a golf event on a similar scale and show the same amount of coverage it'sa pointless aargument. Will sky show it better, I don't know, no one does. They have no track record of doing this for themselves.  

I think the bbc do as good a job as they can realistically do. But Ialso understand why they cannot carry on ashowing golf live.

The point about commentary being aimed at people who haven't watched golf is surely a good thing, golf needs to draw people in get the casual viewer involved, it's unfortunately dwindling as a sport in this country due to its reputation and affordability. I don't think the move to sky will help it grow. It needs to increase participation and fans.

Not sure I follow your comment about Sky covering a golf event on a similar scale? They have at least 8 hours coverage a day at US Open/USPGA and cover Ryder Cup?

I believe (I could be wrong) that the beeb now uses freelancers for some of their camera operators as they don't need as many. My mate was in one of the cranes at Carnoustie, £800 a day but you had to stay up their for 6+ hours at a time. It was his first time shooting golf (bit of a blag) and it was hilarious seeing some of his efforts following tee shots.

My concern is that out of nearly 65 million people, only 9 million have sky (they don't say how many have sports included) so the days of sitting with your grandad on a sunday watching the golf (Flado in his pringle jumper for me) are under threat (more like gone I s'pose). As a shrinking, white middle class sport I don't think it's the right way to go for the long term.

But if you've got a few quid, get sky n f#ck em I say (seems to be the way to go these days).

Must say, I love a lot of the BBC Open stuff but I think Irvine is a poor anchor. I don't think there is room for the ego's of Both Alliss and James and I thought Alliss' commentary of the final holes Monday was awful.

At one stage, he proclaimed that no one, apart from Leishman & Johnson could win - ruling out Speith, Day & Louis who were all only 1 behind. He also didn't recognise when a few drives at 17 were bailed out to the 2nd fairway and proclaimed them as "straight up the middle" - all this allied to a bit of underlying bitterness that accompanies all his commentaries.

Hope Sky can rob the brilliant Madill, Ken Brown & Andrew Cotter.

Ashes viewers 2005 - max 8.4m  (Channel 4) (nearly 50% of the eyeball share at 1 point)
Ashes viewers 2009 - max 1.1m (Sky Sports)
Ashes viewers 2015 - 470,000 (Sky Sports)
Columbo film viewers on same day - 400,000 (ITV)

Grassroots cricket in the UK has seemingly dwindled since 2005 and the professional sport being removed from the Queen's crown jewels. Verified figures are hard to obtain though, probably because the ECB know full well what they would look like.The ECB of course have been receiving larger and larger TV deals every time negotiations come around. They also used to hide their grassroots funding under the boke umbrella term 'enthusing participation and excellence' which included all sorts including the ladies international team.

Sky have already destroyed competitiveness in football and the same will happen with cricket most likely once they get what they want with T20. So for the cost of not seeing every ball from a million different angles with everything analysed to death I think the BBC is most likely better for golf and sport in general.

Sand wrote:

beninho wrote:Didn't previously they stopped showing live coverage and went straight into a highlights package, similar to what they did with Wimbledon.  But I think people wanted the live coverage until late, which is what we got this year.

None of the issues raised caused me any problems. Maybe I'm not as sensitive as some people though. I thought the coverage was good, my only gripe was starting late on Monday,  but as I was working it made little to no difference to me.

I would say that until sky pulls off covering a golf event on a similar scale and show the same amount of coverage it'sa pointless aargument. Will sky show it better, I don't know, no one does. They have no track record of doing this for themselves.  

I think the bbc do as good a job as they can realistically do. But Ialso understand why they cannot carry on ashowing golf live.

The point about commentary being aimed at people who haven't watched golf is surely a good thing, golf needs to draw people in get the casual viewer involved, it's unfortunately dwindling as a sport in this country due to its reputation and affordability. I don't think the move to sky will help it grow. It needs to increase participation and fans.

Not sure I follow your comment about Sky covering a golf event on a similar scale? They have at least 8 hours coverage a day at US Open/USPGA and cover Ryder Cup?

But the US Open and PGA they are just basically showing the feed from the american network, and adding in a few other shots to keep the locals happy. The Ryder Cup pales into nothing compared to the Open. Its a few matches at a time to show, apart from the Sunday, when even then its only 12 matches ongoing.

SKy Ryder Cup coverage was very poor I thought. You saw about the first 5 matches tee off in Singles, but you didn't see anyone else.

Agree with Super on the Ryder Cup but I did think Sky's coverage of the US Open was good. Even though some didn't like the Fox pictures I thought it was fine.

The two quotes below just show that the Sky v BBC debate, just like everything else, is only about opinions

Bob_the_Job wrote:I'd be quite happy to be stuck with Alliss and never hear from Maureen Madill again.

John Cregan wrote:Hope Sky can rob the brilliant Madill, Ken Brown & Andrew Cotter.

Let's hope Sky do a good job when they get it, i'm sure we'll be having this same debate when they do though!

Golf is not a great television sport though is it?

Sunday often is. Thursday to Saturday often not no

Watching it live isn't much cop either. I was bored rigid.

John Cregan wrote:Hope Sky can rob the brilliant Madill, Ken Brown & Andrew Cotter.

I agree, those three are some of the best golf commentators around. The commentary team on sky is a disaster and just so boring to listen to. I will take some frivolous rubber duck action over david livingstone trying to hold together some seriously stilted conversation.


I have offered this hypothesis up before but I wonder if there is a political divide in the Sky vs BBC debate, bbc fans tending to the left of sky fans. Would anyone like to comment on this and confirm if there preferences reflect my hypothesis?

As ever Mac, you're looking for something that isn't there or relevant.

Cotter and Wayne Radar Riley are prob my favourite commentators. Most just describe what's happening but I like the insight that Riley brings, he is very good at setting the players expectations for a shot. For example he will look in a greenside bunker, assess the lie, the lip, how the green slopes towards the hole, and then make a judgement ranging from "he might fancy holing this" to "he'll be happy to get it out". I find that so useful as you often can't judge the difficulty of a shot from a TV tower.

I'm not sure 8 hours of live Open coverage appeals to a casual fan / non-golfer, whether BBC or Sky. The same applies to test cricket, even the Ashes.

Surely a highlights package at prime time is more attractive to the casual fan?

I find the Channel 5 Ashes highlights excellent, although of course it is all patched together from sky coverage and commentators. I watch this over the Sky highlights, and I wonder how popular this show is. The 2005 Ashes was compelling viewing, with both teams packed with world class talent, so it's a bit harsh to compare that with the 2015 edition.

To try to bring a little clarity to a couple of points that seem to have got a bit muddled ... in my opinion there are two aspects to the coverage; the actual visuals of the golf shown, and the hours of broadcast (and how "downtime" is filled)

So the visuals depend on who the host broadcaster is. Yes it's true that apart from the Ryder Cup, Sky haven't really had a "major" event yet. They have covered The Masters and US Open and PGA the last few years, but not as host broadcaster, so in light of the abovementioned 2 aspects, the actual "live" golf (and timings) are largely out of their control, but their "uptime" was always adequate along with highlight shows, and going on air before the host broadcaster was showing live pics, often augmented with red button coverage of feature groups and holes. Their "Masters Breakfast" was also a good addition to the schedule. Events that they are host broadcaster for on the Euro Tour, and particularly the Gulf Swing are always covered very professionally

BBC on the other hand had the same restrictions on them when they were doing the exclusive rights to The Masters, but never really had the highlights shows or pre-show chatter

As far as actual camera work is concerned, I don't notice much difference between BBC and Sky

And then it comes down to commentators .. while I've long been a supporter of the Sky coverage, I have always maintained that is despite the commentators, not because of them, and have often advocated them getting rid of the so-called A-team and using the B-Team. Rob Lee, Andrew Coulthart, Simon Barnes(?), Denis Pugh, iichard Boxall, Sarah Stirk, Radar Riley and Tony Johnston all preferable to Livingstone, Critchley, Murray, Harmon and Roe, and also Alliss, Brown and Irvine

liverbnz wrote:Ashes viewers 2005 - max 8.4m  (Channel 4) (nearly 50% of the eyeball share at 1 point)
Ashes viewers 2009 - max 1.1m (Sky Sports)
Ashes viewers 2015 - 470,000 (Sky Sports)
Columbo film viewers on same day - 400,000 (ITV)

On the day the Sky Open deal was announced I listed to a radio scotland debate about what effect this would have on golf. On the program they had someone who had carried out research on whether or not there was a link between TV viewer numbers for a sport and participation levels. They claimed there wasn't a link. I can't find there research anywhere and wondered if anyone else knew where to find this data?


I do remember not being all that convinced by the arguments but it would be good to read the actual paper. I think they argued that local club activism was the actual driver of participation numbers.

Can't stand Maureen Madill - strange! Andrew Cotter I can just about stomach but I much prefer Wayne Riley, Richard Boxall, Steve Beddow (even though he sounds as though his teeth don't fit) and even Ewan Murray and I have warmed to Rich Beem since he started - I even like Monty although I know a lot of people don't. Howard Clark is always stressing the negative (it's all doom and gloom) and David Livingstone is too much of a creep, but then he only does the links and not commentary. Sarah Stirk and Robert Lee  are pleasant mainly doing the studio links and at least they know what they are talking about and I can just about cope with Bruce Critchley on a good day. Mark Roe, Nick Dougherty, Paul McGinley and Claude Harmon III should be put in a box in a darkened room and never let out again!

Maureen sounded permanently miserable over the whole tournament

raycastleunited wrote:Maureen sounded permanently miserable over the whole tournament

 Always does! If she's that miserable, I'll do it - get paid to watch golf and talk about it

McLaren wrote:

liverbnz wrote:Ashes viewers 2005 - max 8.4m  (Channel 4) (nearly 50% of the eyeball share at 1 point)
Ashes viewers 2009 - max 1.1m (Sky Sports)
Ashes viewers 2015 - 470,000 (Sky Sports)
Columbo film viewers on same day - 400,000 (ITV)

On the day the Sky Open deal was announced I listed to a radio scotland debate about what effect this would have on golf.  On the program they had someone who had carried out research on whether or not there was a link between TV viewer numbers for a sport and participation levels.  They claimed there wasn't a link.  I can't find there research anywhere and wondered if anyone else knew where to find this data?


I do remember not being all that convinced by the arguments but it would be good to read the actual paper.  I think they argued that local club activism was the actual driver of participation numbers.

I don't really know if there is any research done on this or whether there is correlation = causation but I think if you restrict the amount of people who can view your show (this applies to anything, not just sport) then you are likely to have less people inclined to take it up. This is just common sense. Football is the most popular watched sport in Britain. It also has the highest participants. People play tennis for 2 weeks in July. I couldn't get near a driving range in Newcastle after the Irish Open. Monkey see, monkey do.

I could see an argument stating that it restricting viewers doesn't have 'that' much impact because as I say I don't know if there has been any research but saying it has no impact seems daft to say the least.

yeah try booking a tennis court for a fortnight after wimbledon! (although a fortnight playing tennis may be exhausting...)

Simon Holmes, Davie

For me the ideal team would be -

Rob Lee hosting (or Gary Lineker - I know you lot won't like him but he is genuinely enthusiastic about golf and I like that)

Commentary from Peter Alliss, Ken Brown and Andrew Cotter

Expert studio and/or on course stuff from Wayne Riley (who is excellent), Butch Harmon, Rich Beem and Nick Faldo

I'd take that on either BBC or Sky

The worst of them are Monty, Roe and Stirk

BBC - any day for me. I just can't stand those Sky muppets sitting round in their lounge suits statin' the bleedin obvious.

The woman with the short skirt and heels has some appeal, but it really shouldn't and I'm getting way too old for that.

Just when something interesting looks like it could happen, there's a commercial break and I get Bernard Gallagher trying to sell me some golf insurance (yet again) or Phil Mickelson trying to sell me a trip to California (even yet again). Then we are back with the golf again, and someone telling me that "he isn't going to like that" when his ball disappears into a bush. Or "he caught it a little fat" as it plops into the water 60 yards short of the green. Then it's back to the short skirt who is interviewing somebody I've never heard of, then back to Bernard Gallacher and Phil Mick, then back to the bleedin' obvious for another five minutes. Then I get fed up and go down to the pub.

Give me the BBC please. Maybe politically incorrect, maybe risque, but it doesn't treat me like I'm imbecilic and even if the Open coverage doesn't start at 6.30am, what I get is plenty for me.

Like the cricket, I'm sure the decision to remove golf from terrestrial tv will cost the game in the medium and long run, and in 20 years we'll be wondering where all the golfers went.

George great post

You mean you've never heard anything imbecilic on the BBC? I'd like one of the TV boxes you have please. It obviously has a Mark James and Sam Torrance filter on it

When did Sam Torrance last appear on the bbc coverage?

Davie wrote:You mean you've never heard anything imbecilic on the BBC? I'd like one of the TV boxes you have please. It obviously has a Mark James and Sam Torrance filter on it

Yes, that's true. But at least the BBC's imbecilic comments are free, whereas I have to pay Sky to be treated like an imbecile.

George1507 wrote:

Davie wrote:You mean you've never heard anything imbecilic on the BBC? I'd like one of the TV boxes you have please. It obviously has a Mark James and Sam Torrance filter on it

Yes, that's true. But at least the BBC's imbecilic comments are free, whereas I have to pay Sky to be treated like an imbecile.

Great repost! Although not quite true as we all know that the BBC licence is the only thing we are forced to pay in this country. Everything else is a choice.

McLaren wrote:When did Sam Torrance last appear on the bbc coverage?

He was the worst commentator. Strewn with errors and bad calls and the worst Woods lickspittle I've ever heard. Good riddance.

Liver, how's that??

liverbnz wrote:

George1507 wrote:

Davie wrote:You mean you've never heard anything imbecilic on the BBC? I'd like one of the TV boxes you have please. It obviously has a Mark James and Sam Torrance filter on it

Yes, that's true. But at least the BBC's imbecilic comments are free, whereas I have to pay Sky to be treated like an imbecile.

Great repost! Although not quite true as we all know that the BBC licence is the only thing we are forced to pay in this country. Everything else is a choice.

Great, if that's the case, I'll not bother paying my Income Tax, NI, Road Fund Licence, Mortgage, Utility Bills and council tax. Man, I'm going to be minted.

Super, exactly.
If you choose not to have a tv you can choose not to pay the tv licence.
Just like if you choose to not have a car or not have a house or not have any taxable income, and so on.
I can't see that the tv licence is any more or less of a choice than anything else.

super_realist wrote:

liverbnz wrote:

George1507 wrote:

Davie wrote:You mean you've never heard anything imbecilic on the BBC? I'd like one of the TV boxes you have please. It obviously has a Mark James and Sam Torrance filter on it

Yes, that's true. But at least the BBC's imbecilic comments are free, whereas I have to pay Sky to be treated like an imbecile.

Great repost! Although not quite true as we all know that the BBC licence is the only thing we are forced to pay in this country. Everything else is a choice.

Great, if that's the case, I'll not bother paying my Income Tax, NI, Road Fund Licence, Mortgage, Utility Bills and council tax. Man, I'm going to be minted.

You can choose not to work or buy a house, but you still have to pay your licence.

You can choose not to have a tv

Furthermore, even if you have a tv, you can choose not to pay your tv licence. You simply don't have to let the TV licencing bods in or be in the position where they can prove you have a tv, i.e seeing it through the window.

MustPuttBetter wrote:You can choose not to have a tv

You're right, although that also includes a laptop, phone, tablet or any other device that can watch or record live programming. You also have to go through a quite arduous process in order to do so - opt out of your licence that is.

super_realist wrote:Furthermore, even if you have a tv, you can choose not to pay your tv licence. You simply don't have to let the TV licencing bods in or be in the position where they can prove you have a tv, i.e seeing it through the window.

Maybe in Scotland, but in more developed parts of the world they can tell if you are watching TV without having to see it happening. What they can't tell is whether you are watching it live or not.

Sounds like a fishwives tale.

"More developed"? Norn Irn, are you kidding? That's the most backward region of the UK