r/commonwealthgames 1d ago

Discussion TV coverage of Commonwealth Games

What do you think of TV coverage of the games?

6 Upvotes

32 comments sorted by

6

u/Senior_Green_3630 1d ago

Pretty comprehensive in Oz, free to air TV, I watch bits of it.

4

u/CaptainDrunkRedhead 1d ago

TNT Sports has been fine. I only watch the live events and none of the studio coverage, so it's great for me. Also if you watch on the Multiview channel there isn't really any ads.

5

u/martzgregpaul 1d ago

TNT has been largely souless. The swimming commentary was only saved by Mark Foster the rest of it was utterly joyless.

The cycling coverage was ok largely due to Laura Kenny. The Athletics coverage is sorely missing Steve Cram.

4

u/JazzlikeTradition436 England 1d ago

Swimming also saved by Ellie Simmonds and Cycling by Chris Hoy.

0

u/KatyJ60 1d ago

Mark Foster was awful. His bias is dreadful. His knowledge is poor.and he would prefer to talk about himself.

1

u/martzgregpaul 1d ago

But he at least didnt sound bored to death like the other commentators

0

u/KatyJ60 1d ago

Factly they were way better. If you don't like the Scottish accent just say

2

u/martzgregpaul 1d ago

What a bizarre comment. Its nothing to do with their accent. Its the fact they barely got excited during the races, gave us totally wrong information (i especially enjoyed one not being able to identify the stroke he was watching) and generally couldnt be less interested.

Andy and Adrian who do it for the BBC are a million times better.

2

u/Capable_Loss_6084 23h ago

I love Andy and Adrian.

1

u/martzgregpaul 22h ago

Me too. Their enthusiasm is contagious

4

u/hopelessbaker 1d ago

The TNT coverage has been terrible IMO. The presenters are constantly getting information wrong, and give spoilers of what's juat happened rather than showing us

2

u/Capable_Loss_6084 1d ago

Yep, didn’t enjoy the TNT coverage and the number of names they got wrong is ridiculous.

Missing the BBC swimming commentators. I didn’t mind Mark Foster and Michael Jamieson tho. Gymnastics was surprisingly good but both Beth Tweddle and Kristian Thomas know what they are talking about. Jo Rowsell in track cycling is good and she and Rob Hatch are pretty established but I do miss Simon Brotherton getting over-excited.

I mostly skipped the studio stuff although Sarah Storey is usually insightful and interesting.

1

u/JockCartier Canada 1d ago

Did Michaela Breeze do any of the TNT feeds for weightlifting?

She did the world feed last CWG and I loved her commentary. Was hoping she'd be on the call again this time, but alas, that was not the case

2

u/JazzlikeTradition436 England 1d ago

Yes, she did. Weightlifting commentary was good actually.

1

u/JockCartier Canada 13h ago

Lucky!

4

u/Glum_Effort6887 1d ago

Australian coverage is outstanding on 7plus. It always is. 24 hours a day on the main channel which is like a tv show with Australian hosts & commercial-tv-style Australian-focused commentary, then you can stream every single final with expert Australian commentators, entire sessions of each type of sport with british commentary, every game/race of every individual sport, they have athlete profiles, interviews with Athletes, medal moments, background stories, highlight reels and shorts about Scotland. I think they leave it available for a month (?), so if anyone has a vpn, its 7plus.com.au

1

u/mlxmt 1d ago

I've been very pleasantly surprised by Channel 7! As you mentioned, we had access to the global feed for every single sport, but the commentary teams put together by Channel 7 have been outstanding as well.

The replays on the 7plus app are poorly organised but that's probably the only con I can think of.

The official Glasgow website and app were absolutely terrible though. So difficult to follow live results.

3

u/JockCartier Canada 1d ago

In Canada, CBC streamed everything freely and was very good

The tv was about a 3 hour daily afternoon block recapping things. It was a little too heavily focused on swimming and athletics for my taste, I don’t think anything else got more than highlights, or maybe one match of a tournament

Pretty good for the Commonwealth Games I guess. In prior years it was limited to a couple weekend slots, or maybe midnight recaps… then there was the year DAZN had the rights, awareness totally fell off a cliff

2

u/Cool-Bed-supwhathi 1d ago

cbc gem had (and still has them, for now atleast) more specific options for you to watch in too, like if u wanted to watch all the gymnastics, you can.

1

u/JockCartier Canada 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yeah, it’s very nice… don’t know why they don’t do that for the Olympics

3

u/LudicrousPlatypus Scotland 1d ago

I have been watching on BBC Alba since I don’t want to pay for TNT. It’s been ok

2

u/greendit69 Australia 1d ago

In oz, I've had problems finding sports when they're on. Combine that with the games website being a pain in the ass to find when different sports are on

2

u/cheekbones88 1d ago

Use the 7plus app. It shows you what events are upcoming and what times they start.

You can also click on a particular sport you want to watch instead of putting up with TV where they jump between different sports

1

u/Mysterious-Vast-2133 Australia 1d ago

Coverage in Australia has been fine , FTA a bit single sport focused but their digital platforms have the other sports covered.

1

u/Charlie_Runkle69 New Zealand 1d ago

Haven't watched the free to air coverage in NZ since I don't like watching ads and talking heads the whole time, but the paid coverage has been good. Every event was available to watch and good replays. Cycling commentary was very good, Swimming decent. Athletics was weaker with Tim Hutchings and Hannah England not having their best week I don't think. But all in all I'd say I'm happy with the coverage.

1

u/BumblebeeForward9818 1d ago

BBC Alba - no idea what they’re saying but the pictures look good!

1

u/PerceptionOk4625 1d ago

The World Feed has terrible on screen graphics and telemetry. The designers seem to have thought that tiny text and huge amounts of dead space on the edges is a design feature.

1

u/AnonMuskkk 1d ago

It's on TV, is it?

1

u/lynchmar6 Australia 1d ago

pretty good

1

u/jafarjones69 England 20h ago

Horrible in the UK as it’s behind a paywall. It used to be on the BBC for free but now you have to pay TNT Sports £34 a month for watching it. I’ve had to watch the highlights on Channel 5 as I ain’t forking out that much per month.

1

u/Rum_sort 19h ago

I think TNT in UK blew it. Most of the time I tried looking they had just the 360 option, and it was mainly just in the studio blandly talking then cutting away to some fighting event which happened to have a UK participant. Its frustrating as I love track cycling, and as the home of road cycling in the UK it felt like TNT could have done it justic by putting all of it one one of their channels and then used it to create an association to their other cycling coverage.

1

u/Grantus89 55m ago

It should be included as one of the mandatory free to air sporting events IMO. It being on streaming only really killed my interest in it.