Paralympics Coverage by Channel Four

[Bouncy Castle]

Outrage against the commercial breaks during the opening ceremonly last night?

Now comes this from a mate of mine on another forum:

I'm watching the cycling at the moment,our bloke was at the top of the leader board and the ad breaks came on,so we missed the Chinese bloke who broke the world record to take the top slot.

[Penfold]

This is how the BBC will go if the licence fee gets withdrawn.

[chillicamper]

I'm finding the ads a tad annoying I think the coverage seems to be quite good - just breaks at crucial points are very distracting

[SimStars13]

It seems better than the "horror" stories I heard about the american coverage - postponing races 'til prime time, breaks at key moments and dodgy commentary...

[Sister Jennifer]

Paralympics on a commerical free channel here. Woot!

[Will of Lancre]

Be glad you aren't living in France. None of the major channels there are covering the Paralympics.

[Bouncy Castle]

NBC which has the rights to show it in the States, are getting serious anger from viewers as they're not showing it until after the games have finished, and will then show a 90 minute compliation of the best bits.

[Conforumist]

There's no coverage here either. I can't believe that people would not watch these events the same way the watch the non para Olympics.

I just checked and Canada has a Gold and Silver so far. It would have been nice to see that.

[wicked woman]

Crazy attitude, especially as there are quite a few wounded veterans in the American team. Would have thought the media should honour that.

[Conforumist]

Canada went from 2 medals this morning to 6 by the end of the day! That's already a 3rd of the total of the non-para Olympics.

Why would they not televise these events?? I'm sure the viewership would be the same, or more.

[Sister Jennifer]

Lucky the ABC is covering it here. It's more relaxed & really embraces what sport is about. Not so much the sponsors & celebrity that the Olympic athlete's have to put up with. The commentators are really good. They have a 'superlative' money jar on the desk with is funny. I love watching the Paralympics.

[janet]

Hate the ad breaks but Claire Balding (Head Girl) has such a calming influence....she should be available on prescription.

[Will of Lancre]

Hehe, I clearly spend too much time on FB - I was just about to "like" your post, Janet.

[Batty]

I agree about the interruption of the coverage by all the adverts, but it must be generating a lot of income for channel 4.

I have to feel sorry for Jody Cundy, who was not allowed to restart his event yesterday, when his bike slipped from the gate and sent him sliding off the track. Athough he rasied his arm to signal a false start within seconds of it happening, he was not allowed to do so.

The rules state that all of the judges have to agree to the restart, and the Spanish judge was the only judge that refused the request - and as Jody was the last cyclist to take part in the event, it left the Spanish cyclist in first place - with a gold medal.

4 years of preparing for the event, all for nothing.

[Conforumist]

I'm just watching the opening ceremonies.
I'm sitting here wondering what kind of a nightmare it might be for the Olympic committee to decide which para-Olympian can enter which event?