TV Coverage in the USA

With all the messing around from Dorna, WSB and DGM will there be some
half way reasonable TV coverage in the USA this year? Or are you all
expecting to watch it on the web?

We've been screwed over in the UK by the French and German national TV
companies. In order for Dorna to get a contract in those regions for
free to air TV, they demanded that MotoGP is not shown on Eurosport (Sat
and Cable). So we're left with the BBC showing less coverage with poorer
commentators and some of the coverage on the digital button side
channels where you can't record it. When all that was done, the French
then reached an agreement to allow Eurosport France to go ahead anyway.

The good side of all that should be increased coverage of WSB and BSB on
Eurosport.

 

That's not true. I've recorded stuff on the interactive channels no
problem. The issue is that the EPG that's broadcast doesn't always
contain the correct timings, so it can be hit and miss when setting up the
recording in advance.

That doesn't suprise me at all.

Let's hope so.

Actually I'm hoping that Whitam/Burnicle will do BSB (like they did last
year), and Moody/Rhyder will do WSB instead of that annoying stand-in pair
they had last year - but full time as well. I suspect Mamola will stick
to the MotoGP paddock somehow. Maybe working for TVE?

 

There's a rumour that Freeview 301 and 302 carry the BBC Red button
channels. But that you never know which one. I was talking about Sky+
and Virgin+ customers; the people who bought sat or cable so they could
get Eurosport. And they can't record programs on the red button. I
believe (but I'm not sure) that even if you hook a recorder up to Sky
and Virgin (the non PVR versions) you still can't record it.

 

Not a rumour. It's fact.

That depends on the EPG that's pushed out, but it was about 25% success
rate when I tried it at the end of last season. The commentary team are
also different, and better (than the "normal" BBC lot).

Sure, it's a degredation in service compared to what we're used to.
Question is, what are you going to do about it?

I've the standard (non-PVR) service from Virgin, and I can record from the
red button if I happen to be there, switch to interactive, then hit record
on whatever device. Obviously that limits the usefullness greatly.

In my case though I'm often in at 8-9am Sunday mornings so I can set up
the recording, then go out to play. I generally watch the races in the
evenings.

Surely for sure, I'm really pissed off at Dorna et al for dropping
Eurosport. However, I've spent time looking at how I can work around the
issues. In my case, I didn't want to get a new TV with freeview built in,
so I went and bought a PVR.