TV coverage for archery?

[Blackdog67]

Trawling throught the TV channels last night desperately looking for something of interest I stumbled upon Horse and Country TV (Sky channel 280) where they were covering the national clay pigeon shooting championships.

Are the major archery competitions ever filmed? and if so have the GNAS or anyone else ever tried to get any of these channels to give the sport some coverage?

There is a link on the Horse and country website for suggestions and i have suggested they take a look at archery but I'm not really sure they would be the right people but I thought it might be worth a punt!

If you do want to check out their site here is the link

[Hidden Hippo]

Archery was shown on Eurosport (I think) during the last world cup and FITA put up highlights of the major events (psat and present) on You Tube - they go under the name ArcheryTV.

[englishwarbow]

Clay pigeon shooting=guns=macho. Football=morons who are overpaid=big money. Archery=bowls=no coverage, sorry but it ain't where the money goes...

[Hidden Hippo]

There's plenty of bowls coverage on BBC at the right time of year - you can't escape from it. However, there is truth in the assertion that guns are more macho - who would choose a bow over the loud bang of a gun (other than an archer) - and are probably more widely accepted by the masses as a viewing option (plus you get to see clay pigeons exploding).

[worthipa]

Originally Posted by englishwarbow

Clay pigeon shooting=guns=macho....

And your evidence for this ridiculous assertion is ....?

[Ski]

This may not be exactly what you are looking for - but you can click on this web page and sign up for news alerts for the Olympics.

Beijing 2008 > Sport

There is also Archery TV on the internet.

If we keep pusing and writing to the BBC they will eventually put on some coverage. (it will take a lot of effort though)

Ski.

[Watch_Man]

Clay pigeon shooting is something we are very succesful at and is not an elitist sport, certainly it is open to everyone in our part of the Country. Many clubs offer have-a-go type events as we do in archery.

The reason it gets coverage is because it is a 'country persuit' and so is relevant to the Country channel. I must admit to being a closet fan of Country TV, watching the sheep dog trials from Wales.

Eurosport did have coverage of the World Cup finals and I thought it was a good effort, hopefully something we will see more of. In the H2H type matches it can be quite exciting and it is possible to squeeze all of the finals into a relatively short time slot.

[Exarcher]

I doubt the BBC will ever be pushed !. I worked for them for 15 years and still work in the Film and TV industry. I have talked with senior producers at Horse and Country TV about coverage of archery, they seemed more interested in the Field Archery discipline as it is closer to their image.
The whole problem with TV coverage of the sport is the number of cameras needed to cover an event. The channels look at the profile of the event, the number of veiwers, the manpower and hardware needed to cover the event and overall how much TV time they fill for what cost. The only economic way of filming an archery event is to slow it down to one archer shooting at a time which still needs two cameras either manned or on a remote control (expensive !) to cover the archer and the target being shot at.
For years FITA have changed the format of championship events to try and attract TV which is why the 70m head to head has evolved.
I talked to the Canadian TV producers who were covering the 1997 FITA World Championships when I shot there. they found, apart from the finals where they only had two archers to cover, that the rest of the tournament was immpossible to get the coverage they needed. On a field where there are more than two archers they found they always missed the important stories.... the 'underdog' knocking out one of the favourites or the World Record pass shot by 'an unknown'. FITA officials had given the TV producers a list of names to watch ( heavily U.S biased ) but on the whole these archers didn't perform. This meant the coverage of the event looked poor because some of the noteable peformances had no pictures to tell the story.
I've thought long and hard for years how to get archery onto TV and to be honest I think it would mean changing the sport to something akin to darts or become a multi million pound professional sport like golf with millions of participants world wide. Archery has come a long way since I shot my first arrows in 1967 but it's still got a long way to go before it will ever have more than a few minutes TV coverage a year.

[Blackdog67]

Thanks exarcher for such a comprehensive explanation. I have watched the head to head footage on Archery TV and that makes great viewing but I can see what you mean about earlier stages, it would be difficult to cover.

Perhaps the best hope of increased coverage would be medal winning performances by Team GB in Beijing?

Anyway I shall continue to watch Archery TV and keep an eye on the BBC coverage of the Olympics.

Having said all of that though summer is just around the corner so hopefully I will be spending so much time shooting that I won't have time for TV anyway!!

[TJ Mason]

Originally Posted by englishwarbow

Clay pigeon shooting=guns=macho.

Have you ever tried clay shooting? It's no more macho than archery. Give it a go, it's a blast (literally)!

My view is that field archery represents the best option for getting TV coverage. It has a similar visual appeal to golf, and a level of variation that you just don't get in target archery.