The BBC has totally lost the plot. The attempt today to try and cover the UK (and 16 other countries' monarch)'s jubilee river pagent must go down as one if the darkest days in the Corporation's history.
The attempt was to try and mix an unusual live event with light entertainment and the result was a total disaster.
It wasn't as if they didn't know what was going on. It had been meticulously and wonderfully planned by the organisers over three years. The production team just f****d up big time (before you complain, that's a technical term in television land..).
The weather didn't help, but the format sucked, and having one 'expert' commentator who didn't seem to know a skiff from a narrowboat, let alone the stories and backgrounds of these wonderful vessels, didn't help.
The right format would have been to cover just the pagent, without the useless celebs, and play in short packages on the boats taking part, from the Thanes clippers to the Dunkirk 'little boats', there were a thousand stories to tell. Instead the BBC rolled out the usual inane range of celeb presenters that plaster our screens every day, even resurecting the totally useless Anneka Rice.
As the weather deteriorated, so did the coverage. I'm not sure if tge Director was drowned half way. Metaphorically he certainly was.
It was like watching the fleet at Scappa Flow ( check it out on Wikipedia..) slowly sink.
God knows how much was spent on this by the BBC - certainly northwards of three million I estimate. And the coverage was so bad they won't even be able to make it back via a BBC Worldwide DVD...
The BBC is fast being replaced by Al Jazeera as the world's best broadcaster.
The new Director General has a job on their hands.
Addition: Apparently a BBC spokesman said: "We're very proud of the quality and breadth of the BBC's coverage of this extraordinary event." enough said.
The attempt was to try and mix an unusual live event with light entertainment and the result was a total disaster.
It wasn't as if they didn't know what was going on. It had been meticulously and wonderfully planned by the organisers over three years. The production team just f****d up big time (before you complain, that's a technical term in television land..).
The weather didn't help, but the format sucked, and having one 'expert' commentator who didn't seem to know a skiff from a narrowboat, let alone the stories and backgrounds of these wonderful vessels, didn't help.
The right format would have been to cover just the pagent, without the useless celebs, and play in short packages on the boats taking part, from the Thanes clippers to the Dunkirk 'little boats', there were a thousand stories to tell. Instead the BBC rolled out the usual inane range of celeb presenters that plaster our screens every day, even resurecting the totally useless Anneka Rice.
As the weather deteriorated, so did the coverage. I'm not sure if tge Director was drowned half way. Metaphorically he certainly was.
It was like watching the fleet at Scappa Flow ( check it out on Wikipedia..) slowly sink.
God knows how much was spent on this by the BBC - certainly northwards of three million I estimate. And the coverage was so bad they won't even be able to make it back via a BBC Worldwide DVD...
The BBC is fast being replaced by Al Jazeera as the world's best broadcaster.
The new Director General has a job on their hands.
Addition: Apparently a BBC spokesman said: "We're very proud of the quality and breadth of the BBC's coverage of this extraordinary event." enough said.