it’s finally some good sense from the corporation.
Poor old hard done by Hugh, he’s milking this to the full. Maybe the BBC should have been honest with him and the viewers when he wasn’t present at the Track Cycling World Championships a week ago.
Maybe instead of stating before the TV coverage that A bit of a changing of the guard in the BBC Sport cycling team as the irrepressible Hugh Porter moves on to pastures new.
and then showing a tribute video they should have been more honest.
Something like. You’ll be glad to hear that Hugh Porter is no longer commentating on the cycling for us. He had become an embarrassment to us and himself so it was time to say goodbye
.
No I won’t be missing Porter’s not so dulcet screeching tones when the BBC show cycling. As I Tweeted after the World’s it made the championships a joy not having him there…
Have to say the Track World Cycling Championship s have been much more enjoyable without Hugh Porter.
— Toxic Web (@Toxic_Web) February 24, 2013
Just have to hope that ITV follow suit and bin him from their cycling coverage. Again as I posted last year the final couple of stages of the Tour of Britain were so much more enjoyable without his commentary.
The BBC have finally seen some sense after some awful appearances last year by Porter. Yes on the road in the Olympics there was trouble with communications but that has nothing to do with his incessant hyperbole. How many times can there be the moment of truth
in one race? Well with Hugh there’s a lot, normally at a time when bugger all happens.
The voice of cycling
? It’s an awful voice that you have to turn down when it gets ear-piercing, to then have to turn up when Chris Boardman correct him. OK, I know it’s been his life, both as a competitor and for a good few years now a commentator. But just because someone has been doing it for a long time doesn’t mean they should continue if they’re useless.
And that’s the stage we’ve reached with Porter.
And if as his apologist claim he lives and breathes the sport can you tell me how he would state in the Tour of Britain that he’d never heard of the team Saur-Sojasun when they’d been in the Tour de France a few weeks earlier. Did he not watch the biggest race going?
His replacement Brotherton might be dull in comparison and suffer from typical BBC commentatoritist – in that he doesn’t know when to shut up, though Porter wouldn’t let him get a word in actually
– but far from driving away the casual viewer, his lack of screeching out the wrong name and number of riders and race winners will see them sticking around to watch more.
I for one know a relative newcomer to the sport – taking an interest around the 2009 TdF – who loves watching but was seriously put off because of Porter. They enjoyed the last Worlds.
The claim is the BBC is befuddled yet no one is more befuddled than Porter commentating on a sport he’s meant to be an expert in. Someone has to be honest with Porter because for once the BBC has actually got rid of an employee due to incompetence.