In the UK there are two rights holders. Traditionally the BBC had all four days of the Masters for years. But a couple of years ago, with the contract up and the BBC needing to save money, Sky Sports was allowed in. So now the BBC only has highlights of the first two days while Sky Sports has live coverage. Then both networks have live coverage of the final two days of the tournament. It should be noted that Sky Sports shows just about all golf coverage in the UK with exclusive coverage of the US Tour and the European Tour. Sky has presentation and commentary teams at all these events. The BBC shows a couple of European tournaments and the Open every year. But that's about it. The BBC gets much bigger ratings than Sky being free to air (it's also important to realise that Sky Sports is a premium channel and not "basic cable" as ESPN would be).
Both operations are very full, with commentators in booths at Augusta, as well as full presentation teams out there as well in similar looking "cabin deck" studios over-looking the practice greens. And both broadcasters offer "red button" services through TV showing the Amen Corner coverage, with Sky also offering the featured groups coverage. I think these employ the host broadcasters' commentary teams. Obviously both have to adhere to the regular Masters rules in coverage, so live coverage doesn't start until CBS coverage starts, with a few minutes of "bonus footage" ahead of time. Once coverage starts properly, the same pictures are used on each channel, although each broadcaster uses its own commentary teams and has its own variants on the graphics packages. The BBC fills during commercial breaks throwing back to the presentation team. It's true that neither broadcaster has anyone actually out on the course during play. I suspect that only CBS gets that privilege. Although the BBC has Ken Brown who gets out on the course before play to look at different holes. So he was out early on Saturday to show us where Tiger had taken his two shots on the 15th on Friday, looking for the actual pitch marks. They do also both have post-round interviewers in the clubhouse as well. On Saturday when the Tiger story broke, both channels had extensive coverage of the story and criticism was levelled at the organisers. The BBC showed the clip of Nick Faldo from earlier that morning (although I didn't see them show his later 180). In general both broadcasters are very respectful of Augusta - perhaps because of it being an "institution" or perhaps because they're buttoned down on what they can and can't do. That said, there was, as has been mentioned, some comment on how the game is played very late leaving little additional light for playing extra holes during a playoff. And Peter Allis (the BBC's veteran golf commentator), kept noting that all the spectators' umbrellas on course were identical openly musing that perhaps non-approved ones were banned, and only expensive approved umbrellas could be used. Adam On Tue, Apr 16, 2013 at 6:45 AM, Hank Fung <[email protected]> wrote: > This was a woman (Hazel Irvine?) and her in studio guest. > > Hank > > On Apr 15, 2013, at 6:21 PM, Bob in Jersey <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hank Fung, to moi: >> >> It should be noted that only the CBS version seems heavily edited. On the >> BBC Two coverage they had a commentator during what normally is a >> commercial break vocally criticize the playoff format, preferring a multi >> hole playoff, and also complaining that the Masters always seems to want to >> hand out green jackets in the dark. But since no one in the US is watching, >> I guess that's ok. >> >> > Golf club brass will prolly tell you it's within the rules to gripe about > those things, but it's different when the gripe is about the club's > membership policy... and meanwhile, we don't know if the Beeb pays Augusta > National directly for the rights, or sublets them. This page from a Brit > site > <http://www.golfandcourse.com/news/masters-bbc-tv-schedule-tv-times>could > suggest that only an oncourse person is reporting back to a group in > the UK. -- BOB > > -- > -- > TV or Not TV .... 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