The question! TV or not TV?
By TMX Archives on 30th Apr 08
TV or not TV that is the question that T+MX editor John Dickinson poses as he plays with his Sky Plus box
WHAT'S the greatest invention ever? The wheel? Good one. The internal combustion engine? Even better. The Wonderbra? Now you're talking – but come on, all the above are SO last century.
Move forward a step or three and you will surely come up with Sky Plus, the (almost) idiot proof TV recording device that has finally revolutionised my goggle-box useage. No more missed progs, no more losing-out on control of the remote from wife and daughter, which is such a non-contest that I refuse to even enter the fight.
No, just a click or two of a single button and I can cheerfully spend my Sunday elsewhere and come home safe in the knowledge that the MXGP, MotoGP, World Supers etc., are all recorded and stored on the hard drive – and all spring to life with just one more touch of that magic key. Sometimes I record things I am not remotely interested in – just because I can!
Video recorders were a total waste of my time. The machines and programes were all so damned complicated that only someone either very brainy – or six years-old – could ever suss them out. How many times did I come home to find that the race meeting I had been so eagerly anticipating was not the programme recorded – if indeed anything was recorded at all. Not many actually, as I gave up on videos almost immediately.
So back to Sky Plus. Last weekend I recorded the MXGP from Spain, but never got round to viewing it on Sunday. On Monday at work, discovering what a glorious mudbath it had been, I had the luxury of going home at night and doing my Monday evening chores, (wash pots, feed cats) before sitting back and pressing Play at around 11.15pm. It was well past midnight when I had finally finished replaying the glorious footage of the second leg of MX2 – and I actually had sympathy for the MX1 brigade who said the equivalent of: "Sod this for a game of soldiers!” and attempted to exit Bellpuig, stage left.
What a difference a week makes though and on Sunday evening I switched on to witness some fabulous flat-out racing in Portugal that, if every MXGP could be guaranteed a similar track and similar weather, the sport really could be a major spectator draw, both trackside and TV-wise. With Kenny Kay's dulcet tones keeping me nicely informed, I actually found myself warming to the Youthstream ideal. But as Bellpuig so amply proved, there is no guarantee and like it or not, the weather is and always was a major flaw in this grand design. Take snooker from wherever. Please take it. Damned boring it may well be but it is never, ever, going to be rained off. One camera, a few bods droning on and TV schedules are filled for a week at minimum cost.
At the other extreme is that dullest of dull racing known as F1. I took the trouble to watch Sunday's race from Barcelona, recorded of course and on fast forward for the most part as there is a limit to the amount of time I wish to waste in my life. As I suspected, once the flag had dropped and the first corner melee had sorted itself out there wasn't a single overtaking move in the entire race. At the end, one of the many commentators (how many does it take?) tried to justify the procession by insisting it had been an incident packed race. By which I guess he meant that one engine blew-up and one car left the track to crash violently. Cue an even slower procession behind the Safety Car.
Why this dross continues to draw the audiences it does is one of life's great mysteries to me. I guess it keeps Bernie's bank account topped-up in these hard times. I mean, you never know when you will be down to your last billion and I suppose we've all got to do our bit.
In glorious contrast the MXGP from Portugal featured genuine racing, genuine overtaking and genuine excitement. If only Billy Mac's crew hadn't hung out that ‘No mistakes!' pit signal he wouldn't have crashed!
I didn't hit fast forward once. Ditto the World Superbikes from Assen. So again it was well past midnight when the boom from Troy Bayliss's big Ducati had finished reverberating round the living room.
SKY Plus has a lot to answer for...