WOC2015

[Domhnull Mor]

I wasn't advocating that we directly target the average man on the street (I agree that it's a waste of time) but any available media should at least be accessible to/by them and the means to do so (the access point location) needs to be communicated. Not all of these media are directly associated with the event organisers and not everyone who may be interested in WOC has the contacts that can point them to these, as ER pointed out. I'm simply interested to see how real-time media will be made available, in whatever format, and how access points to this will be communicated to the armchair supporter or the man on the street with an interest in what is going on. If live TV coverage is to be available in 2015, it is hardly likely to be via a UK broadcaster. However, if it is available via broadcasters in other countries, should this be announced? These are not questions that can be answered now but it is worth keeping them in mind so that the armchair supporter in 2015 has the opportunity to experience the events via all available real-time media.

[Becks]

It's worth nothing that here in the USA, WOC was on cable TV this week. A tiny channel which no one has, but it was possible to go to a sports bar and watch a review broadcast with commentary from Clive Allen and BJ or another Aussie (may have been Julian Dent, poor memory). I didn't make it to a bar with the right channels but there have been viewing parties across the country, and guys who normally turn up to watch baseball were very inquisitive about who these new faces were, and why they were watching people run around forests looking at piece of paper. It was pretty easy to explain as the production was (Apparently) very good, taking the best buts from svt/yle and condensing them into a shorter review format.

Is this possible for WOC2015? People watch it on the local news in Scotland, say that looks like fun, and they can go at home and watch it? It might be on in the odd pub too.

Obviously this isn't going to attract thousands, but I was surprised about it having any positive effect at all over here.

[andypat]

I'm pretty sure the people who would have the answers to this are still in Finland finding out about all that important stuff. No doubt in due course they will put it on the WOC 2015 website, possibly even before WOC 2014, but a wee dose of realism here please.

[Domhnull Mor]

That's exactly why I said that these are questions that can't be answered now but should be kept in mind. It is, however, useful to make the points now as part of the process of gathering information and impressions from this year's event.

[Becks]

Obviously not suggesting these questions need answering now, just wanted to let people know that random cable coverage was surprisingly successful, as far as I could tell.

[andy]

Obviously not suggesting these questions need answering now, just wanted to let people know that random cable coverage was surprisingly successful, as far as I could tell.

The big big question with all of the TV stuff is: who pays for it?

If you can get foreign TV companies to pay for the rights then you're dancing, if not it's quite expensive to pay them to show things

[Domhnull Mor]

Exactly.

The question is could we take advantage of this in some way so we can reduce the amount of services we have to provide ourselves?

[Gross]

Speak with the Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian & Swiss Team Leaders.... they'll have a way in to their own TV companies.... look at the team compisition - If Finland has a lot of Swedish speakers you might get something from YLE Swedish etc etc.

[graeme]

The big big question with all of the TV stuff is: who pays for it?

Yup, the TV costs will make or break the WOC budget. Around £100k one way or the other.

[Becks]

I'm relatively certain that USOF wouldn't have paid to get the coverage there, but I might be completely wrong. From the announcement it sounds like the IOF. I don't really want to say too much because I really know nothing at all about how it came about, just that it was cool.

[Freefall]

Fact can be stranger than fiction. US coverage came about when a TV producer at some sports event spoke to Brian Porteous thinking he was something to do with lacrosse. Brian corrected him and after describing orienteering I understand some sort of deal was struck to show WOC 2013 in the USA. Is there a link to this by any chance?

[graeme]

http://universalsports.com/?s=orienteering

Don't know if it still works.

Regarding the TV deal, do you know which way the money goes, from IOF to TV or vice versa?

[Paul Frost]

I spent some time looking at the WOC2013 site before and during and making some notes and taking screenshots about how they presented things. Two years away is a lifetime in web development so I'm not making any detailed plans yet for how the 2015 site will look and work by then.

The current site is more a brochure presentation and has limited pages. The current photos are ones taken by Martin Ward during 2013. So I didn't have a massive choice and even less if you want good composition, pin sharp and a good expression on face. It never occurred to me that there was an imbalance of male/female, I used them as they came along. It was just coincidence that many of the images of females were not good enough.
Edit: In the interest of fairness I've moved Cat to the home page and Murray to the training page.

I agree that the live coverage was not presented in an easy to understand and consistent way. I think some of the problem is the language issues, I don't speak anything apart from english (and some would say even that's debatable), so I found it hard to work out what was going on and where. Copyright issues are probably another can of worms, with income generation probably needed to fund the service. Unfortunately we live in a culture where many people are reluctant to pay for anything and expect everything for free.
I'm not directly involved with negotiating the costs of a TV company to provide coverage, but what went through my mind watching all these "free" links getting shared around was how on earth 2015 was going to be able to provide the service people expect. If any prospective income from televising was going to be slashed by people sharing "free" feeds.

The technology we all like to see (GPS tracking and video etc.) is very expensive to provide and we have a relatively small audience that want to watch it and an even smaller one that is prepared to pay for it. Answers on how to solve that problem on a postcard please, or reply below.

[Becks]

I understand what you're saying Paul. I think the biggest problem with paying for coverage this time was that for the first race, it completely failed. So when people come on saying, "where do I pay?" someone says, it doesn't work, use this free stream instead.

Certainly most people over here were very happy to pay for coverage, but this and the fact that the site didn't accept US credit card format pretty much screwed it. The paid coverage once it worked was a lower quality stream than Svt, so I watched SVT and listened to the paid coverage.

[graeme]

The technology we all like to see ... is very expensive to provide ... Answers on how to solve that problem on a postcard please, or reply below.

I read it on the internet, so it must be true

we have secured a budget to provide live TV coverage expected of the WOC.