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Effects of Highlights Packages

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    Effects of Highlights Packages

    Interesting article by Jonathan Liew

    https://www.theguardian.com/sport/bl...ennis-football

    It made me realize how dependent I've become on these short capsules and that it might be distorting my perception of what I've seen.

    OTOH I have usually followed the event on a minute by minute Guardian page or Cricinfo if it's not on TV so I'm rarely unaware of context.

    Thoughts?

    #2
    That is a damn good piece (if rather depressing).

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      #3
      The Amazon tennis packages are an extreme case, though. Shockingly badly done.

      The problem with tennis highlights is that you can predict the outcome by the time left. You know they only have enough time for a couple of games so this must be the final set. You're watching for the quality of the play not the uncertainty of outcome.

      I'd also mention boxing as a case where highlights always distort the real momentum within a fight.

      Football, as I think we have discussed before, suffers in games where a team has a lot of dominance but creates few chances. It can make a game seem fairly even which really wasn't.
      Last edited by Satchmo Distel; 15-09-2020, 08:50.

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        #4
        Yes, that's a good article, though he's wrong about cycling. However I'll forgive him if he hasn't heard of Cosmo Catalano ('Cyclocosm'), who has this down to a fine art.
        https://www.cyclocosm.com/category/htrww/

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          #5
          I have a lot of respect for a TV channel's highlights of a day of Test cricket when they show you a series of dot balls and the stares from bowler to batter, or making a thing about a change in bowler. You'd never get that in a short video (wicket, wicket, boundary, boundary, near miss, shot of the captain on the balcony), but the way Test cricket has changes in pressure (also known as the 'contest between bat and ball') is a critical feature of the format.

          As cricket regulars know, T20 is essentially a run-scoring contest. Test cricket is long drawn out battle for taking wickets or making the most of them. One day is sort of a bit of both and sometimes neither. It's T20 that best fits the short highlight format.

          A grand prix or ​​​an IndyCar race works well in a 20-30 minute format too. You can do them in 4-8 minutes but, as with Test cricket, all you will see is the start, the big offs, collisions and retirements, some overtakes and maybe some pit stops*. The longer format again lets you see the pressure building.

          I suppose it depends on your level of understanding and engagement with the sport. Pressure is such a key component of any sporting contest. That's why snooker fans enjoy an exchange of safety shots, and the layperson wonders what the hell they're doing with their lives.

          * Edit: I realise that this now sounds like a hell of a Test match. So it stays.
          Last edited by Kevin S; 15-09-2020, 10:11.

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            #6
            Even watching tennis as live suffers. Mrs G loves her tennis, but also loves her sleep so we stopped watching the US final after the third set. Having avoided the sports bulletins as soon as we turned on Prime and saw the programme length it was obvious it had been a long five setter as there was still a good two hours of tennis to watch.

            She was quite happy to sit through and let it unfold, I'm the impatient sort and would have been quite content to fast forward to late in the final set and watch the denouement. It was all I could do to stop myself looking up the result.

            Not really what the article is about though.

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              #7
              Fast forward has a lot to answer for. This football match I recorded while at work is very cagey - fuck it, fast forward to the goals. Especially if you're tired and tetchy.

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                #8
                Well, I like having that option tbh. even though you do lose something the moment you avail yourself of it.

                Rather off-point, but one of the reasons I see little full-length sport on telly these days is I'd only be willing to devote the time to that if it were live, and I'm not willing to pay for the premium telly channels which have snaffled an ever growing proportion of significant live sport broadcasting (nor, in this COVID 19 age, am I going to spend time in the pub watching it either). It's only a few years ago that the tennis slams were live on Eurosport for UK cable viewers, included in my basic cable package - now that's gone.

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                  #9
                  It's a shame you no longer get the tennis on Eurosport. It;s still on over here.

                  Eurosport is dead weird though. In Romania they own the rights for the premier league, so I used to be able to watch that for free. However, recently my TV provider switched to the purely HD version of Eurosport - and the EPL is not available on HD, for reasons that I have never figured out (it;s not available on any other channel in Romania, so it's not like there is a separate HD rights package as far as I can tell). The HD channel also doesn't have language options, so I can only get Romanian commentary now.

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                    #10
                    One advantage of telly highlights from the dark ages was the lack of information on screen. You could skip from the 3rd minute to the 30th of a football match, or omit a run of games in a tennis set or a round of boxing, without knowing anything except whatever the voiceover might add. You could also enjoy playing detective ("where did those shadows on the cricket pitch suddenly come from?").

                    And while I'm on this old fart track, there was (and sometimes still is, on free TV) the pleasure of a family row when the prolonged 5th set knocks Antiques Roadshow out of the schedule. You'll never get that from your packaged highlights.

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                      #11
                      Originally posted by Evariste Euler Gauss View Post
                      That is a damn good piece (if rather depressing).
                      Seconded, thanks for sharing Satchmo. I'm going to be looking in to Tom Richardson and his “highlights industrial complex” further.

                      I have to say that Sunday was probably my most fulfilling experience of televised sport since the NZ Super Rugby finished (though even that lost it's crowds for the final set of games) as I spent many hours crossing between the live coverage of the Tour de France and the England v Australia ODI.

                      Trying five minutes of the desultory, bloodless MOTD afterwards was a horrible contrast.
                      Last edited by Ray de Galles; 15-09-2020, 12:12.

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                        #12
                        Does anyone know if MOTD viewing figures have gone up or down since the restart compared to pre-COVID? I'd think the lack of atmosphere would make highlights truly pointless.

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                          #13
                          They've gone up in this household! Sorry, couldn't resist.

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                            #14
                            Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
                            A grand prix or ​​​an IndyCar race works well in a 20-30 minute format too. You can do them in 4-8 minutes but, as with Test cricket, all you will see is the start, the big offs, collisions and retirements, some overtakes and maybe some pit stops*. The longer format again lets you see the pressure building.
                            The old 80s/90s Grand Prix format of a 30-40 minute show was absolutely perfect. Long enough to give context but cut out all the boring stuff.

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                              #15
                              I guess with football highlights I'd rather have three minutes of different bits of the match without replays than five minutes which is actually 100 seconds shown three times from different angles.

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                                #16
                                Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post

                                The old 80s/90s Grand Prix format of a 30-40 minute show was absolutely perfect. Long enough to give context but cut out all the boring stuff.
                                Sky do this pretty well these days. Its an hour show, but with 3 ad breaks, and basically is the grid line-up, the start, 40-45 minutes of the race, the latest standings and brief interviews at the end with drivers/team principals. No waffle, no analysis (though that does occur during the race obviously) and it's a damn good package.

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                                  #17
                                  One of the highlight packages from the weekend games had it's first action from the 30th minute!

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