Channel 10 and Formula 1
Several years ago, after enduring the woeful coverage of Formula 1 on Channel 9 with the twin wonders of Daryl Eastlake and Alan Jones, Channel 10 bought the broadcast rights and promised a new era of Formula 1 coverage. It sounded great, and I was looking forward to being able to watch races live (or close to live as they put it in the press release), and with improved coverage.
At first, they were good. Neil Crompton actually knew what he was talking about, and the races were shown live, or at 10:30 (after the Sunday night movie). I’m a realist. I know that they’re not going to broadcast something that doesn’t rate spectacularly well right in the middle of prime time. But at least it was within an hour or so of the race running, and at a standard time.
Then, Big Brother started. It consistently ran over time, which meant you had no idea when the race was going to be broadcast. Of course, BB was ratings gold, so it gets precedence. But still, it was annoying, particularly for those of us who think that BB is an horrific show. But, it was just indicative of the lack of care/attention they were paying to Formula 1.
And that brings us to today. The race is in Malaysia, which is in a similar time zone, meaning that it is run at 3PM Perth time. And when are they showing the race? 10:30 PM! OK, so there must be something that rates really well at 3PM, to take precedence? Let’s look it up. Hang on, “City Slickers II”???? WTF?
OK, so you don’t care anymore Channel 10. It’s not rating? OK. Don’t show it. Let the rights slide and let Foxtel show it. They do a good job with the MotoGP.
Sigh.
Watson induced humble pie
As much as it pains me to say it, Watson’s throw was simply brilliant. Fast, hard and accurate. Totally game changing.
It’s hard not to see South Africa’s performance as a continuation of their susceptibility to pressure in big games. True, the game was just a group match, but the two points that get taken through to the next stage are important, and you could tell that each team desperately wanted the win.
Scouta
Even though I’ve had an account for a few months, I’ve only just really started looking into Scouta, an audio and video recommendation service that was developed in Perth, and founded (in part) by Richard Giles. The basic idea is that you can watch videos/listen to music, and tag it, as well as rate it. Then based upon your voting, you get recommendations. You can also subscribe to your recommendations list via iTunes (something that I presume will work better when they release a plugin shortly!)
While I’m not exactly a fan of the design, I think the service is pretty cool, and it’s great to see them getting some recognition from the big news sites. It’s also great to see that it’s privately funded. Congrats to Richard.
Whither the Australian "death" bowler
In the past year, Australia has gone from being able to strangle the opposition’s scoring at the end of an innings, to being having one of the most expensive bowling attacks in the world. Now, this article doesn’t attempt to show why, but it certainly makes for alarming reading.
One of the most (for me at least) interesting tidbit is about bowlers like Rana Naved-ul-Hasan and Chaminda Vaas. The former is horrifically expensive during the first 40 overs of the game, but in the last 10 overs he is transformed into a miser. Vaas, on the other hand, is almost unplayable with the new ball, but turns into a regular pie-chucker in the last 10.
No doubt the teams have this type of statistics up the wazoo, but it makes me wonder why anyone is bowling Brett Lee in the last 10 overs, when his economy rate skyrockets. Of course, that’s not going to be an issue in this world cup. Unfortunately.
On a side note, I wonder what that does to all of the sponsors plans for the tournament. No doubt companies like 3 Mobile and Weet-Bix would have large campaigns centered around Lee for their advertising during the cup. Time for a few new ideas I think.
Cottesloe
</embed>