Radio City did this for a couple of Liverpool European away games 2001ish. Century Radio bought the exclusive commercial radio rights, so City did "unofficial commentary" from the studio. I doubt most listeners would be able tell the difference on a European match.
Sky did this within the last year for one of England's cricket tours.
I don't remember the series but David Gower would mention how such-and-such were 'going upstairs' to do commentary even though they were all in the studio.
Sky did this within the last year for one of England's cricket tours.
I don't remember the series but David Gower would mention how such-and-such were 'going upstairs' to do commentary even though they were all in the studio.
There was a station Team Talk 252 which was based in Ireland that beamed off tube commentary back to the UK, they didn't even bother with crowd effects.
I'd imagine a few horse races are covered from a monitor when the mules disappear out of site
This is quite normal for overseas broadcasts or variations on broadcasts - such as club specific club 'Channels' to add their own coverage - Liverpool TV, Chelsea TV etc.
Usually done in a voice-over booth with just a monitor in front showing the world feed/outgoing mix of the match.
Some broadcasters/production houses will take the clean feed (ie with no graphics) and stick their own graphics over it then package that up with the local commentary and send it back out. Obviously they've paid for the rights...
If I remember rightly, Talksport described their France '98 coverage in a way which made it deliberately amibiguous if they were actually there or not, and Radio 5 Live - who of course were there - were so angry about this that they took the court action you speak of.
You remember wrongly. Talk Radio (as was) had official rights to the France 98 World Cup and had a couple of commentary teams on-site.
It was Euro 2000 and World Cup 2002 when the now-talkSPORT found themselves in the position where they had to do off-tube commentaries as they were unable to purchase the official rights. 4-4-2 has given a summary of what they did, but I will try and explain the rationale behind why this happened. The reason why they had to commentate in this way was because, at least for Euro 2000, UEFA had appointed the European Broadcasting Union (who you may know as the producers of the Eurovision Song Contest) as their rights sellers in Europe. talkSPORT's parent company at the time The Wireless Group were not members of the EBU, so were not permitted to place a bid for a share of the rights. Having no way of gaining official rights, the station was understandably less than pleased so decided to cover the tournament this way as it was the only manner in which they could do commentary on games from the tournament - leading to complaints from the BBC and a court case that concluded that it was permissible to cover sporting events in this way, provided that regular disclaimers indicating that you were doing it in this way are broadcast.
During the 2002 World Cup, not only did talkSPORT do "unofficial commentary" in this manner once again, but so did rival national commercial stations Virgin Radio (now Absolute) and the short-lived TEAMtalk 252 as 4-4-2 and Shrewn have mentioned. By Euro 2004, UEFA had begun to sell rights to their competitions centrally rather than through the EBU and so the problem that had hampered talkSPORT was no longer an issue - they've had no trouble in buying full, non-exclusive official rights to World Cups and European Championships since then. I remember seeing the tender documents for last summer's UEFA Under-21 Championship, and while rights to much of mainland Europe were being sold to EBU members through the EBU, this was not the case in the UK - meaning buying rights wouldn't be an issue for the now UTV Radio-owned talkSPORT or Absolute Radio for that matter.
You remember wrongly. Talk Radio (as was) had official rights to the France 98 World Cup and had a couple of commentary teams on-site.
It was Euro 2000 and World Cup 2002 when the now-talkSPORT found themselves in the position where they had to do off-tube commentaries as they were unable to purchase the official rights.
If I remember rightly, they did the commentary for the England games for the World Cup 2002 from a pub, so you had the background noise of the crowd at the bar as they had no rights to use audio from the stadium itself.
If I remember rightly, they did the commentary for the England games for the World Cup 2002 from a pub, so you had the background noise of the crowd at the bar as they had no rights to use audio from the stadium itself.
That was TEAMtalk 252 rather than talkSPORT. TEAMtalk were based in Leeds (the studios they used back in 2002 are now home to Sky Sports News Radio) and they did their commentaries on the 2002 World Cup from a pub in the city centre.
talkSPORT did their commentaries on Euro 2000 from the amusingly-titled Jolly Hotel in Amsterdam (this is why you often see references to talkSPORT commentating from hotel rooms on forums like this in relation to occasions when talkSPORT have done off-tube commentaries subsequently), but produced their commentaries on World Cup 2002 and all of the other commentaries they have done off-tube since from their main studio in Hatfields, London.
If I remember rightly, they did the commentary for the England games for the World Cup 2002 from a pub, so you had the background noise of the crowd at the bar as they had no rights to use audio from the stadium itself.
BBC Radio Wales did this for the Rugby World Cup in 2011, as talkSPORT had exclusive radio rights to the tournament. The presenters were in a pub in Cardiff chatting to the customers and describing the action they were watching on the big screen.
In this case the BBC were beneficiaries of the 2000 High Court ruling, having argued against it at the time.
The Premier League's international radio service, which is operated by talkSPORT, commentates on all matches "off-tube", although they do have live crowd audio fed in from each stadium.
Indeed, the BBC World Service who take commentaries from 5 Live each weekend, make a deliberate point about this on air using the line "our commentaries are live from the ground"!!
The Premier League's international radio service, which is operated by talkSPORT, commentates on all matches "off-tube", although they do have live crowd audio fed in from each stadium.
Indeed, the BBC World Service who take commentaries from 5 Live each weekend, make a deliberate point about this on air using the line "our commentaries are live from the ground"!!
So they are "official" then? ( albeit they choose to commentate from a studio)
Why not, Eurosport do it. Not watching Sky obviously, but watching the match in a studio.
Archie MacPherson used to commentate on Eurosport from a studio in Glasgow. On one occasion, I can't remember which game, it was bnil-nil with four minutes to go, so he left the monitor and recorded his post match report givuing the score as 0-0. Unfortunately, in the last foyr minutes, the score became 3-2!!:o
So they are "official" then? ( albeit they choose to commentate from a studio)
They are, talkSPORT Live's commentators and on-air trailers make a point of stating that the service is the "Global Audio Partner of the Premier League" on a regular basis. This gives them access to stadium audio feeds.
Having listened to and followed press articles about talkSPORT Live since its inception at the start of last season, you get the impression that the Premier League itself is very keen upon an international audio service being available (it is the first of its kind) and that at talkSPORT's end it is chiefly something that gives them credibility with both rights sellers and an international audience as opposed to being a major revenue generator as their exclusive UK Premier League commentary rights are (which are all done on-site incidentally).
I guess it wouldn't be financially viable for them to send three or more additional commentary teams to every Premier League game - the talkSPORT Live service provides commentaries in English, Spanish, Mandarin and for selected games a few other languages - which is why the operation largely works off-tube.
There was a football game on Sky in the mid 90s that was postponed at short notice with Martin Tyler already in place, they switched to broadcast a different game but Tyler commentated watching it on one screen on the gantry for the original match venue.
There's a tradition of using off-tube commentaries as a back up if Plan A has trouble.
In the 80s, possibly during Mexico 86, ITV had a technical problem which meant that the intended commentary from the ground wasn't possible, so Yorkshire's John Helm did an off-tube commentary over the World Feed.
In Radio terms, overseas Test Match Special commentaries have Kevin Howells sat in the studio watching Sky ready to take over if the ISDN circuit fails
There's a tradition of using off-tube commentaries as a back up if Plan A has trouble.
In the 80s, possibly during Mexico 86, ITV had a technical problem which meant that the intended commentary from the ground wasn't possible, so Yorkshire's John Helm did an off-tube commentary over the World Feed.
Brian Moore also had to commentate on ITV's opening live game of Mexico 86, Brazil v Spain, from the studio in London initially without knowing the team line-ups after Peter Brackley's stadium commentary was lost in the ether.
I also remember seeing a clip on YouTube of ITV's coverage of the 1986 European Cup Final where (I think) John Helm took over commentary from London for a brief period after the line to Moore in Seville was lost.
a court case that concluded that it was permissible to cover sporting events in this way, provided that regular disclaimers indicating that you were doing it in this way are broadcast.
What constitutes "regular"? i.e. how many, how often - is there a formal definition, I presume you can't just get away with mentioning it maybe once at the start of each half?
The BBC used to do some of the Formula 1 flyaway races off tube. There were occasions where Murray Walker would say something like "I can't quite see the pit lane from my commentary position" - no wonder, considering he was in a studio in London at the time!
The BBC used to do some of the Formula 1 flyaway races off tube. There were occasions where Murray Walker would say something like "I can't quite see the pit lane from my commentary position" - no wonder, considering he was in a studio in London at the time!
He mentioned one where they were pretending to be in South Africa during the apartheid era, only for James Hunt to have a rant about it and said "dreadful country - thank God we're not there"
The BBC used to do some of the Formula 1 flyaway races off tube. There were occasions where Murray Walker would say something like "I can't quite see the pit lane from my commentary position" - no wonder, considering he was in a studio in London at the time!
Not much different from now then, considering that the F1 commentators can't see 90% of the circuit 'action' clearly! They do have more tubes to look at these days, though.
What constitutes "regular"? i.e. how many, how often - is there a formal definition, I presume you can't just get away with mentioning it maybe once at the start of each half?
I think they had to do it at least every ten minutes. I remember the phrase used by Alan Parry during Euro 2000 on TalkSport was "This is talkSport bringing you unofficial commentary via our television monitors".
I remember around that time Emma B on Radio 1 was doing her show and there was football on the telly in the studio so she started mentioning when goals were being scored and so on. Then someone phoned in and told her she was watching a repeat.
What constitutes "regular"? i.e. how many, how often - is there a formal definition, I presume you can't just get away with mentioning it maybe once at the start of each half?
They were obligied to mention that they were doing unofficial commentary every 15 minutes plus at the beginning and end of each commentary and whenever a goal was scored.
The BBC used to do some of the Formula 1 flyaway races off tube. There were occasions where Murray Walker would say something like "I can't quite see the pit lane from my commentary position" - no wonder, considering he was in a studio in London at the time!
The sort of "fakery" the BBC eventually put a stop to.
Comments
I don't remember the series but David Gower would mention how such-and-such were 'going upstairs' to do commentary even though they were all in the studio.
India
I'd imagine a few horse races are covered from a monitor when the mules disappear out of site
Usually done in a voice-over booth with just a monitor in front showing the world feed/outgoing mix of the match.
Some broadcasters/production houses will take the clean feed (ie with no graphics) and stick their own graphics over it then package that up with the local commentary and send it back out. Obviously they've paid for the rights...
You remember wrongly. Talk Radio (as was) had official rights to the France 98 World Cup and had a couple of commentary teams on-site.
It was Euro 2000 and World Cup 2002 when the now-talkSPORT found themselves in the position where they had to do off-tube commentaries as they were unable to purchase the official rights. 4-4-2 has given a summary of what they did, but I will try and explain the rationale behind why this happened. The reason why they had to commentate in this way was because, at least for Euro 2000, UEFA had appointed the European Broadcasting Union (who you may know as the producers of the Eurovision Song Contest) as their rights sellers in Europe. talkSPORT's parent company at the time The Wireless Group were not members of the EBU, so were not permitted to place a bid for a share of the rights. Having no way of gaining official rights, the station was understandably less than pleased so decided to cover the tournament this way as it was the only manner in which they could do commentary on games from the tournament - leading to complaints from the BBC and a court case that concluded that it was permissible to cover sporting events in this way, provided that regular disclaimers indicating that you were doing it in this way are broadcast.
During the 2002 World Cup, not only did talkSPORT do "unofficial commentary" in this manner once again, but so did rival national commercial stations Virgin Radio (now Absolute) and the short-lived TEAMtalk 252 as 4-4-2 and Shrewn have mentioned. By Euro 2004, UEFA had begun to sell rights to their competitions centrally rather than through the EBU and so the problem that had hampered talkSPORT was no longer an issue - they've had no trouble in buying full, non-exclusive official rights to World Cups and European Championships since then. I remember seeing the tender documents for last summer's UEFA Under-21 Championship, and while rights to much of mainland Europe were being sold to EBU members through the EBU, this was not the case in the UK - meaning buying rights wouldn't be an issue for the now UTV Radio-owned talkSPORT or Absolute Radio for that matter.
If I remember rightly, they did the commentary for the England games for the World Cup 2002 from a pub, so you had the background noise of the crowd at the bar as they had no rights to use audio from the stadium itself.
That was TEAMtalk 252 rather than talkSPORT. TEAMtalk were based in Leeds (the studios they used back in 2002 are now home to Sky Sports News Radio) and they did their commentaries on the 2002 World Cup from a pub in the city centre.
talkSPORT did their commentaries on Euro 2000 from the amusingly-titled Jolly Hotel in Amsterdam (this is why you often see references to talkSPORT commentating from hotel rooms on forums like this in relation to occasions when talkSPORT have done off-tube commentaries subsequently), but produced their commentaries on World Cup 2002 and all of the other commentaries they have done off-tube since from their main studio in Hatfields, London.
BBC Radio Wales did this for the Rugby World Cup in 2011, as talkSPORT had exclusive radio rights to the tournament. The presenters were in a pub in Cardiff chatting to the customers and describing the action they were watching on the big screen.
In this case the BBC were beneficiaries of the 2000 High Court ruling, having argued against it at the time.
Indeed, the BBC World Service who take commentaries from 5 Live each weekend, make a deliberate point about this on air using the line "our commentaries are live from the ground"!!
Archie MacPherson used to commentate on Eurosport from a studio in Glasgow. On one occasion, I can't remember which game, it was bnil-nil with four minutes to go, so he left the monitor and recorded his post match report givuing the score as 0-0. Unfortunately, in the last foyr minutes, the score became 3-2!!:o
They are, talkSPORT Live's commentators and on-air trailers make a point of stating that the service is the "Global Audio Partner of the Premier League" on a regular basis. This gives them access to stadium audio feeds.
Having listened to and followed press articles about talkSPORT Live since its inception at the start of last season, you get the impression that the Premier League itself is very keen upon an international audio service being available (it is the first of its kind) and that at talkSPORT's end it is chiefly something that gives them credibility with both rights sellers and an international audience as opposed to being a major revenue generator as their exclusive UK Premier League commentary rights are (which are all done on-site incidentally).
I guess it wouldn't be financially viable for them to send three or more additional commentary teams to every Premier League game - the talkSPORT Live service provides commentaries in English, Spanish, Mandarin and for selected games a few other languages - which is why the operation largely works off-tube.
Bit more about that in this video - wasn't Andy Gray's first time!
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/9728717/coventry_v_swindon_1994/
In the 80s, possibly during Mexico 86, ITV had a technical problem which meant that the intended commentary from the ground wasn't possible, so Yorkshire's John Helm did an off-tube commentary over the World Feed.
In Radio terms, overseas Test Match Special commentaries have Kevin Howells sat in the studio watching Sky ready to take over if the ISDN circuit fails
I think for even publishing the league table you need a licence. May there is some nominal fee that has to be paid?
Brian Moore also had to commentate on ITV's opening live game of Mexico 86, Brazil v Spain, from the studio in London initially without knowing the team line-ups after Peter Brackley's stadium commentary was lost in the ether.
I also remember seeing a clip on YouTube of ITV's coverage of the 1986 European Cup Final where (I think) John Helm took over commentary from London for a brief period after the line to Moore in Seville was lost.
What constitutes "regular"? i.e. how many, how often - is there a formal definition, I presume you can't just get away with mentioning it maybe once at the start of each half?
Your thinking of fixture lists, which the Premier League, Football League, SPFL, PA Sport and Football DataCo charge a licence for.
However groups including Stan James and Yahoo! have challenged the legality of this, and the European Court agreed:
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf;jsessionid=9ea7d0f130d57e7d194e550a40beb2aa98024873d21b.e34KaxiLc3eQc40LaxqMbN4Oa3uLe0?text=&docid=119904&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=lst&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=527962
He mentioned one where they were pretending to be in South Africa during the apartheid era, only for James Hunt to have a rant about it and said "dreadful country - thank God we're not there"
Not much different from now then, considering that the F1 commentators can't see 90% of the circuit 'action' clearly! They do have more tubes to look at these days, though.
I think they had to do it at least every ten minutes. I remember the phrase used by Alan Parry during Euro 2000 on TalkSport was "This is talkSport bringing you unofficial commentary via our television monitors".
I remember around that time Emma B on Radio 1 was doing her show and there was football on the telly in the studio so she started mentioning when goals were being scored and so on. Then someone phoned in and told her she was watching a repeat.
They were obligied to mention that they were doing unofficial commentary every 15 minutes plus at the beginning and end of each commentary and whenever a goal was scored.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/media/2000/dec/05/broadcasting1
The sort of "fakery" the BBC eventually put a stop to.