Has anyone found difficulty in finding this on Eurosport. Its IS like hitting a moving target
Last night the 10 pm slot was postponed for repeats of the Olympics, and then something live appeared so it was cancelled and the 12pm slot moved back, then it suddenly appeared at 11pm and the 12pm slot reappeared too.
I'll stick to watching Bonneville on YouTube
Lorry an insight into the TV coverage from behind the dakar webfeed:
For the TV production teams present on the Dakar, the production of a 26-minute programme made available to all the event's partner channels accounts for a significant part of the day. As soon as the end of the morning, the race against the clock starts to deliver the “feed” on time. The editors are under immense pressure to put this jigsaw together throughout the day. With time difference constraints to take into consideration in order to satisfy European medias, the cut-off time is set for 4.20 PM (7.20 PM in London for example).
11.12 AM. The first images of the bike race arrive, sent by the satellite from the refuelling zone, located 230 km away on the Arica to Calama stage. “With the resources we have, Thierry, who is in charge of editing the bike stage report, can already get to work,” explains Christophe Briand, the programme director.
2.03 PM. Another dispatch point is located at the special stage finishing line, where the interviews take place with the day's movers and shakers. Alex, who, with Seb, coordinates the editing of the “feed”, retrieves the interviews from the server and sorts through them so that Thierry can insert them into his report. “Today, we are going to include the interviews with Chaleco, the day's winner, and Olivier Pain, leader of the general standings. We also have an interview with Jeremias Esquerre, who has made a big impression since the start of the rally and who is in 6th position today”.
2.42 PM. Now the images of the car race arrive from the fuel point on the special stage. For this part, Manu takes charge, with a broad choice of subjects for him to pick: the misfortunes of Roma and De Villiers, Carlos Sainz dropping out… Nothing escapes the helicopters' cameras and the film crews on the ground. In the mean-time, Ben, who provides the voice-over on the feed, prepares his text whilst keeping his eye on how the race is developing.
3.37 PM. The trucks are the last to start the special stage and the images are finally available. There is no time to lose for Olivier, the editor who works on the report for the category. Meanwhile, an editor is designated to concentrate on the graphical aspect of all the different items. In addition to the purely “news” part, there are also magazine subjects that round off the programme.
3.56 PM. News is the priority and during the night before stage 6, an assistance vehicle was involved in a road traffic accident. Etienne Lavigne provides information on the circumstances surrounding the accident in an interview recorded at the finishing line of the special stage. “The images have just arrived, we're going to open the news section with this subject,” says Seb, whilst continuing to write the script. There is less than half an hour left!
4.20 PM. The broadcast of the “feed” starts from the bivouac in Calama. At the same time, the images are sent to the production teams on Japanese, Polish or American TV. However, the day is not quite yet finished for Ben, who is still there, microphone in hand, commentating on the truck race. In order to have the very latest news, this is done almost live.
