For the first time, Irish eyes tuned in to TV3 to watch the Six Nations instead of RTE.
Unfortunately, while the broadcaster impressed many by unveiling Joe Molloy as the anchor for this year’s coverage and scooping Ronan O’Gara as a pundit, things got off to a rocky start.
Viewers missed the beginning of Wales’ emphatic victory over Scotland thanks to advertisements running on a bit longer than they should have. It was only 20 seconds but, believe me, that is a long time in the world of live broadcasting. You can bet that the producers in the studio began to feel the pressure right about the time when the match was kicking off.
However, while we had initially thought that it was an error on TV3’s part, it turns out that they were powerless on this particular occasion. As it happens, the host broadcaster, the BBC, experienced a delay in its World Feed, thus delaying TV3’s coverage.
A statement from a Six Nations spokesperson read: “We would like to inform you that the issue relating to the delayed start the NatWest 6 Nations television coverage of Wales v Scotland which affected a number of broadcasters worldwide was not due to individual broadcasters.
“There was a delay in delivery of the World Feed from the host broadcaster (BBC) which affected some of our partner broadcasters worldwide including TV3 in Ireland. This was regrettable but we hope that it did not take away from the enjoyment of what was a phenomenal contest in Cardiff. We will ensure that this issue is rectified and does not re-occur for future matches.”
https://twitter.com/openlyGAAman/status/959830586658615296
https://twitter.com/TheBearWeir/status/959844499210911744
https://twitter.com/11Duffer/status/959820999171690498
Hard to know which is worse……tv3 coverage or Scotland rugby. #TV3Rugby
— padraig crowley (@crowleypc) February 3, 2018
However, TV3 couldn’t quite escape other critiques, ranging from their picture quality to the post-match analysis to generally not being able to live up to the standard set by its predecessor. We’ll chalk it off to teething problems for now.
For everyone’s enjoyment, we can only hope the coverage and analysis improve in the weeks to come. Then again, if Johnny Sexton keeps doing what he does best, the coverage will remain very much a secondary matter.
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