Masters coverage feedback & Davis Cup explanation
This year’s Masters was a bit out-of-the-ordinary for many reasons – not least the ‘unlikely’ victory of long-shot Zach Johnson (anywhere between 60-1 and 200-1 depending on your bookie) whose 289 (one over par) winning score was the equal highest in Masters history.
Despite being a golf lover, I’m ashamed to admit I fell asleep before the closing stages – (I hasten to add I was not on duty at the time) which was a shame as it meant I missed Johnson ‘turning into a spigot’, as one writer put his emotional greenside celebrations.
That would have given a nice weepy symmetry to my weekend - have any of you ever seen so many grown men cry as in Saturday’s edition of Joseph?.
(And on the subject of 'the stage', is it just me or has anyone else noticed Johnson’s close resemblance to actor ?)
In my defence, I took the decision to head for my bed after watching a seemingly iron-willed Tiger smash his club round a tree on the 11th while refusing to slip to bogey and then sink the putt for his eagle at the 13th, convinced that I had just watched the turning point of the final round.
I was sure that with one more par five to come, Woods had finally made the decisive move that would lead to his fifth Green Jacket.
Which was a shame, because I missed the drama that unfolded – though the nice thing about our website is you can go back and read the in a way you can’t in newspapers.
And in a way that also documents the true, gloriously unpredictable, nature of golf.
This from my colleague Matt Slater on Friday night, the halfway stage.
Anyway, hats off to Matt and Rob Hodgetts for their entertaining commentaries, which - like many of you out and about this fine Bank Holiday weekend - I followed on my phone. Indeed, the volume of live sport and fine weather combined to produce a record-equalling day on Saturday for our WAP service (more than 200,000 people).
One of those people, Kevin, emailed us to say: “How crazy is this - I am working four hour drive from Augusta and the best way to keep up-to-date real time is on my cell phone with the 91ȱ! Thank goodness for the 91ȱ! Keep up the good work!”
Anyway, unlike me, many of you did manage to stay awake for Sunday night’s thrilling climax – our peak audience was up from 3m in 2006 to 3.7m in 2007.
Indeed, the TV viewing figures for each day were all up on last year - sometimes by quite a margin. For instance on Friday, the average increased from 1.8m to 2.3m.
One suspects the figures might have been higher had we been able to show more of the action.
But the Masters organisers, who have worked hard to keep the tournament as special as it undoubtedly still is, are very strict in what they allow to be shown and we were only allowed to start our live coverage from 9pm on Thursday and Friday, 8.30pm Saturday and 7.30pm on Sunday.
However, we did take quite a big step forward this year as we were able to stream that video coverage live on the website (but only from the time our TV coverage started). .
And for the first time we were also able to show a live stream exclusive to the web from the famous Amen Corner (11th, 12th, 13th holes).
Tens of thousands of you took advantage of this service – such as David James Green who wrote to say: ‘Hi just found out how to download the software to watch the Masters live on the internet. Can’t wait til 17:30 to watch the golf from Amen Corner then I will watch the coverage on 91ȱ ONE & TWO tonight. Great work, Cheers.”
Still, we were forced to include a few restrictions to our video coverage which some of you found frustrating.
It was only available for UK users as the 91ȱ only has the rights to show the Masters in the UK. And the feed was only available in broadband in the Real player format.
This is because the pictures were encoded on location in Augusta which meant only one stream was available. In keeping with 91ȱ online guidelines, whenever there is only one feed of an event it will always be provided in the Real format. And having a single stream is also why we were unable to provide a narrowband alternative.
From a technical point of view the coverage worked very well, with the feed only suffering minimal interference between 1530 and 1600 on Thursday.
For those of you who still have more questions, to access our content, plus links to download both Real and Windows media players.
Lastly, switching to tennis for a moment - an apology to those of you expecting to see the last two ties of the on TV and on our website on Sunday.
Previous viewing figures have shown that broadcasting the remaining matches of a tie that is already won (ie, “dead rubbers”) attracts only a very small audience so we opted not to screen them.
Apologies if you missed out on seeing these games, but editorially we took a decision based on previous experience and a belief that the British public would not be that interested in seeing them as the tie had already been won 3-0.
