Yeah itv are just entering into hbs's world feed with their graphics and overlaying it with their own way too big scoreboard, so those player graphics you referred to is also on the main host feed, it will probably be on rte as well if they are doing the same thing as itv.
RTE are taking the host graphics lock stock and barrel, they're using graphics in the same style for their own studio presentation as well instead of their normal ones.
They had a dreadful problem on the Spain v Holland match where the commentary was a good bit ahead of the pictures - so we knew about the penalty before Costa even made it to the penalty area. I'd say a lot of viewers went over to the BBC as a result.
Not sure why they only had Liam Brady out of their "A" team of pundits, leaving Richard Sadlier and Ronnie Whelan to fill the Giles and Dunphy shaped gaps, though "senior analyst" John Giles did come in late to do Chile v Australia (with Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill) and did a bit of post-match on the Spain v Holland game as a result.
Agree about the commentary situation - could understand it in a couple of years when they only have England games and a few more UEFA qualifiers but considering they've had the FA Cup and European football this year surely they've got more names they could be using - unless these other two did all the Europa League games.
ITV had brilliant ratings on Thursday though - 8.2m on average from 7-11.15pm, and an average of over 11m for the match itself. With that in mind the BBC averaging 8.2m (peak 11.4m) for the Spain v Holland match (easily the pick of the group games) seems rather underwhelming.
Also thought the BBC cut away from the stadium far too swiftly after the final whistle - would be understandable if they didn't have the extra 10 minutes but cutting from the atmosphere to three of the dullest men on the planet just doesn't do the tournament (and that match) justice.
Last edited by Brekkie on 14 June 2014 1:26pm - 3 times in total
ITV's commentary team is greatly depleted without Peter Drury and Jon Champion. Only really Clive Tyldesley is a recognisable voice now. I've never heard of the other two lead commentators that have been on today. Equally their co-commentators have been depleted as well. Clarke Carlisle is hardly a good enough player to be co commentating on the World Cup and Lee Dixon is multi tasking doing some co commentary as well!
I think Peter Drury is at the IBC for HBS hes apparently the commentator for the World Cup final, it could be the other big player BEIN Sports have the other English commentators although the last World Cup they just took the host feeds commentator.
Jon Champion is the lead commentator for ESPN in the US it seems. Peter Drury is i think being wasted on BBC 5 Live.
As for the other two ITV commentators Sam Matterface is the lead TalkSport commentator and has done some freelance work for ITV. Joe Speight commentates on ITV 4's Bundesliga highlights according to the underwhelming reaction on Twitter.
As for Clarke Carlisle, a lower league journeyman commentating on World Cup matches
A quick look online tells me that Jon Champion is not the lead commentator on ESPN. The lead is apparently Ian Darke and they also have Adrian Healy and Derek Rae, meaning 4 British commentators. The only non Brit is Fernando Palomo.
The world feed commentators are John Helm, Dave Woods, Peter Drury, Kevin Keatings, John Roder, Gary Bloom, Martin Fisher and Dan O'Hagan.
It shows you how few commentators that ITV have that they had to use Dave Woods' world feed commentary for their Spain v Holland highlights.
If the BBC have 5 commentators, and are able to use that many to cover all matches, (including highlights of ITVs) then presumably ITV would only have needed one more to cover all their live matches! If ITV always choses the world feed when Lee Dixon is co-commentating, it wont seem so out of place, I suppose, it will in effect seem like they have three commentary pairs.
Alistair Mann and Arlo White will also commentate for ITV on live matches, with Andy Hinchcliffe co-commentating with either of them. They'll be offtube, possibly from London.
Apparently as ITV aren't producing any highlights programmes they will use world feed commentary for the BBC matches.
Here's Ian Darke calling the Brazil 'penalty' from the opening match!
I'm in Spain at the moment and the difference in how the Spanish networks cover football to the UK is clear. While in the UK the coverage is male dominated, often with ex players turned presenters, here they are not afraid to use female presenters and reporters. Sara Carbonero on Telecinco is considerably easier on the eye than Adrian Chiles - although my Spanish isn't good enough to know if she has any idea what she is talking about, but I assume she is knowledgeable about the game.
Is there any reason why the UK coverage is so male dominated?
