Why are ITV4 ignoring Bradley Wiggins in the Tour?

[Globalti]

Well? Why? He's doing better than ever yet last night was the first time they gave him any coverage at all.

 

[PaulB]

Eurosport were largely ignoring him yesterday too. It may be to do with his name. Contador, Cancellara, Nocentini, Voeckler, Sastre, all these names conjour up romance and mystique but Bradley Wiggins sounds like the speccy kid who got knocked about a bit at your school. Hence, they don't mention him a lot but you are absolutely correct. He's not getting near enough the recognition he deserves in getting a Union Jack on the leader board.

 

[Tim Bennet.]

There's no room in the brain of Mr and Mrs Sherwin-Liggett for anything other than Lance Armstrong.

Yesterday, all they could think about was whether LA would be in yellow if he could get enough time on Cansellara. They kept jerking themselves off and exclaming "Lance is in yellow on the road!" whist dismissing Bertie and forgetting about the bloke up the road who had time on them both.

So I think it's expecting a bit much to mention some bloke who's coming forth when their love child is back in the race.

 

[dan_bo]

They had a good chat with him straight after yesterday's stage- He was still jumping about and kicking the team van with the adrenaline rush bless him.

 

[Wigsie]

Eurosport were largely ignoring him yesterday too. It may be to do with his name. Contador, Cancellara, Nocentini, Voeckler, Sastre, all these names conjour up romance and mystique but Bradley Wiggins sounds like the speccy kid who got knocked about a bit at your school. Hence, they don't mention him a lot but you are absolutely correct. He's not getting near enough the recognition he deserves in getting a Union Jack on the leader board.

I presume you either mean the Bradley bit or the 'ins' part of his name?
If not its go time

 

[yenrod]

Liggett & Sherwen make far too much of LA, like I admire him etc..but come on: nationalism - its always these commentators make a deal about (americanism) for some inane reason.

 

[yello]

Are ITV being limited by the coverage they are getting? Because Brad's getting bugger all coverage here either. Yesterday the commentators kept thinking he was Vande Velde, his TT was all but ignored... they obviously are not expecting him to be there! .

 

[accountantpete]

The commentators have to work with the feed they are supplied in the studio and used to have to evesdrop on the Race Radio to pick up vital bits of info - obviously the feed has to cater for umpteen nationalities so I'm not surprised that Wiggins doesn't get a mention.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Get on the ITV forum and make some noise, they can't ignore it then.

 

[mocker]

http://www.hipsternascar.com/2008/12/is-bradley-wiggins-mod.html

 

[PaulB]

I presume you either mean the Bradley bit or the 'ins' part of his name?
If not its go time

Sorry, Wiggsie, mate. Besides, you don't want me to bleed all over your shoes!

 

[Cathryn]

I'm getting annoyed about it too. There's some great tour coverage in the papers but it's ALWAYS accompanied by a photo of Lance!! For goodness' sake. It's our best ever British tour (well, that i've watched) and they're ignoring Brad completely, and ignored David Millar's doomed but gorgeous attack yesterday!! Grrr...it makes my blood boil.

 

[Sittingduck]

Is it me... or do they seem to show an insane amount of commercial breaks? Seems like 1 every 8-10 mins

 

[Crankarm]

Is it me... or do they seem to show an insane amount of commercial breaks? Seems like 1 every 8-10 mins

Yup that's about it. They also show lots of previous footage from the day before plus the ads breaks are sometimes 4-5 mins, loads of the fecking things. And the thing that annoys me is that as soon as the riders go over the top of a col they cut to ads. I emailed ITV last year about this asking why we couldn't see more descents. Their response was they have to fulfil their obligations to their sponsors and commercial backers. My response well there won't be any sponsors, backers, etc if you don't have any viewers because your coverage is so crap! Anyway after that they started showing a few more descents. I note today on the live stage they showed some of the descent down the Tourmalet which was good.

Basically I think ITV are cash strapped only being able to pay peanuts. To make their 1 hour highlights programme up to the hour they fill it with ads, repeat footage and stuff that is cheap to make. Not a single bike ad apart from Halfords in the commercial break which is strange .

Anyway wrt Bradley Wiggins, Ligget and Sherwin couldn't stop talking about him on yesterday's stage on the Tourmalet. Also they were desperatley trying to locate Cav in the main group thinking he might have made up time to ride out for a sprint with Tor Hushold. They don't control the pics but there were a few shots of Bradders on the live programme. Not too much LA coverage.

Quite a few Christian Van de Velde for one calls Wiggins -> Brad, which might give the impression he's a yank for the uninitiated which might be a reason he's shunned in the picture count in preference to LA chief yank.

ALERT!!!! Shouldn't this thread be in Racing and not gracing the walls of the Cyclechat room?

 

[zimzum42]

The Eurosport coverage I'm getting here in Asia has Harmon and Kelly mentioning Wiggins a fair amount. They aren't messing their pants over him, but they do mention him a decent amount.

Great coverage though, not too many ads, good balance of insight and banter in the commentary, very happy!