Goodwood 81st Members' Meeting - 13th/14th April 2024

[ChrisA]

Originally Posted by billy bleach

Just caught it on ITV4. Great racing but the Tv commentary was dreadful. The “American” car description by number “the 166 car” was grating but for me even worse no real knowledge of what they were watching particularly the female commentator.

The female commentator I think was Alice Powell, not sure who was with her. Agree with you about the commentary.

[Aysedasi]

I thought it was fine. Bearing in mind the intended audience. It's actually quite a big ask nowadays to expect commentators to have extensive and detailed knowledge of the cars/drivers that they're commentating on. It would be nice, but I think as we get older, we become just a tad unrealistic in our personal expectations as we peer through our rose-tinteds.....

[billy bleach]

Originally Posted by Aysedasi

I thought it was fine. Bearing in mind the intended audience. It's actually quite a big ask nowadays to expect commentators to have extensive and detailed knowledge of the cars/drivers that they're commentating on. It would be nice, but I think as we get older, we become just a tad unrealistic in our personal expectations as we peer through our rose-tinteds.....

Messers Jones, Walker, Titchmarsh, Rhodes, Addison, Pye seem / seemed to manage it. A quality event like Goodwood deserved better

[Peter Mallett]

Of that list, Murray and Addison were/are tv commentators. The others are more circuit commentary/magazine journalists. In the case of Marcus Pye, he is a walking historics encyclopedia. So, IMO, different animals. The problem, if there is one, is that they are using TV commentators to cover both trackside and TV.

I haven't watched the TV programme so can't comment specifically.

[Derwent]

I like Alice Powell. At least she is a racer. The couple who were doing the links and no race stuff were out of their depth, purely professional presenters, The guy looked like a Bay Watch throwback!

[SSmith]

Originally Posted by Derwent

I like Alice Powell. At least she is a racer. The couple who were doing the links and no race stuff were out of their depth, purely professional presenters, The guy looked like a Bay Watch throwback!

The presenting team was David Green and someone whose name I've forgotten. David Green is a Motoring Editor at The Times, holds a race licence and is a former Britcar champion, and has been a TV presenter for years (and was a model for various agencies). He knows his stuff and has done presenting work for Goodwood for about 4-5 years.

That being said, something did feel slightly off in the broadcast at this year's MM.

In terms of comms, I thought it was ok this year but could have been better.

I think the biggest problem was not playing to the strengths of their broadcast team rather than it lacking talent (although we should have heard from more expert voices). If younger voices don't get a shot, the discipline has no future.

To improve what Goodwood tried to put together, it would have made more sense to have Ben Edwards and Alice Powell as "Commentary Partnership 1" and Bruce Jones and Harry Benjamin as "Commentary Partnership 2". An established expert guiding a young talent.

Ben Edwards and Bruce Jones are consummate professionals and know their stuff, while Alice Powell is a very good pundit and co-commentator with a decent knowledge and an open-mind to learn. Harry Benjamin is someone who has a great enthusiasm for racing which he communicates well in other disciplines but perhaps this excitement got the better of his commentary at 81MM. A lot of the races became a bit of a ramble. His historics knowledge will undoubtedly improve - the key point for the future is that he is invested in historic racing and has a passion for it.

They also underused Ed Foster. Rather than struggle in comms over who had made a pitstop (for example the 5-10 mins wasted questioning whether the Craig Davies / Ash Sutton Ford Mustang had pitted in the Gordon Spice Trophy), why not throw it down to the immensely knowledgeable Ed Foster in the pitlane? Ed could have said, "Craig Davies is out the car, I'll go and have a chat with him. Craig, how was that stint?" Our understanding of the race would have been enriched and everyone would have known what was going on.

Ben Edwards and John Watson's commentary of the Lauda tribute was fantastic. Given they could clearly invite guest experts into comms, why did no one invite Marcus Pye into the commentary box alongside Ben Edwards or Bruce Jones for the Can-Am tribute on Sunday (I'm aware he was in the Shadow MK1 on Saturday)? Leaving it to people who clearly had minimal knowledge of Can-Am was not a smart move.

The other observation was in terms of information on screen. I dislike the current minimalist timing tower. They had a perfect system that showed pretty much the whole field one year (maybe SpeedWeek 2020 and Revival & MM 2021?). I found myself glued to TSL to have any comprehension of who was where in qualifying as well as the race.