Dear Pluto,
Thank you very much for this e-mail and your very interesting remarks. It's always good to have some constructive feedbacks to try to improve our work.
First of all I would like to explain to you what is our purpose in the new editorial angle of the ERC programmes for this new season.
At the end of last year we had a feedback from the top management of Discovery/Eurosport, who are not rally specialists, that they don't understand nothing about what's going on in the rallies when they watch our highlights. This is something to take into consideration.
Honestly, when you watch a rally highlights trying to have the same feeling than a non-rally fan, it's pretty complicated to follow the story: you see many cars passing through from right to left, from left to right, not a the same time and in different places, and you listen to different timings, from the special stages together with the classification in the stages, then the overall classification, which is different from the previous one with different timings and gaps. All together in a maximum of three minutes for each stage. As it's hardly possible to listen to complicated things together with watching impressive pictures, most of the time, the viewers take pleasure in watching the actions (which are always nice and spectacular) and they don't listen carefully to the commentary, because it's too complicated to understand all these numbers and names. I add that, unfortunately, as you've seen yourself, most of the time the commentators are not following the information from the script and they are spoiling the great job done by our producers. Believe me, they are giving the right information and the commentators have all they need to know to do a proper job, but we are often very disappointed when we listen to the commentary.
All this means that it's not easy to make a clear and understandable Rally highlights, but it's rallying and we'll not change it.
Therefore we have to find a way to make things easier to understand and to follow for non-rally fans, which are our main target. Rally-fans will always watch Rally programmes as long as they are loyal to the sport.
The first point we have to do is to focus on the battle for the podium. In every motorsports you see mainly the battle for the win, because that's what matters for everybody. In a Formula 1 race you have two hours to show the rest of the field, in MotoGP you have 45' (but 90% of the time you follow mainly the top 6 : Marquez, Lorenzo, Rossi, Pedrosa, Dovizioso and Ianone), but in our case we have only 24' to show what happened in the day! And when you take out the time to show the Juniors and the ERC2 categories, the boards with the standings, some beauty shots and the pictures from the Service Park, there is only something like 15' left to show actions from the stages, which is very few!
To let the commentators and the viewers enough time to see and take attention to a competitor, it should be shown not less than 30", then it's easy to understand that we don't have some much choice if we want to show in a proper way the battle for the podium.
But I understand your point regarding the number of drivers and cars shown in the programmes and, from Ireland on, we'll give more exposure at least to the competitors who are regular ERC contenders.
Concerning the overall time instead of showing the stage time, I know that it's new and that it can be disturbing. As I've explained earlier, it's to try to make things more understandable for non-rally fans and to talk only about one kind of timing. When you watch a Formula 1 race (if you do so
), you don't care about each lap time, what is important is the gap between each car and what is the overall classification. If the driver who is fourth sets the fastest time in the 22nd lap of the race, but stays fourth, who cares? We can consider that each Special Stage is like a lap in a Formula 1 race, and we focus only on the overall classification. This is the way we try to make it more simple for people who are not used to rallying.We surely can make it better and make some evolution, as you wrote. Maybe we can to focus more on the evolution of the gaps between each driver. We have to think about it. But I hope that you understand our effort and the way we want to go to make rallying more familiar to all kind of viewers.
It's not easy and your remarks can help us a lot to improve what we're doing.
Concerning the helicopter shots, they are very important for the promoter of the ERC rallies. As you may know, they are backed most of the time by the tourism office of their country or region. Then showing the country side and the beauty of the landscape is crucial to secure the financial side of the rally. On another hand, I think that the beauty of the places where the rallies take place is a real asset of rallying compare to the other motorsports, and it's something that viewers like, as it is for the cycling Tour de France.
Unfortunately I will not be in Ireland this weekend as I have to work on the 24 Hours Motos in Le Mans for the Endurance World Championship, but I'll be back in Greece.
Please do not hesitate to send again your point of view about our work, it's very much appreciated.
Thank you again.
All the best
Gilbert
