Eclipse Award Show

[sealord]

Wow! I just watched my first Eclipse Award presentation show and was it AWFUL!! I finally dumped Time Warner cable for DishTv and got TVG just in time to see the disaster unfold. It was about as professionally done as my cub scout award banquet back in '82. Pinncay, Jr. was drunk, the black TVG host was inappropriate (atlthough hilarious at times) and the Jerry O'Connell stunk up the joint. One presenter brought his own Emmy and couldn't even pronounce Miesque's Approval! All in all a bad day for the Thoroughbred Racing World. Yes, there were some bright moments, but mostly terrible. Please tell me this was just a bad year.

[PaceAdvantage]

I'll agree that the production value wasn't on par with an Oscar telecast, but it is what it is....what did you expect?

BTW, I think the biggest problem is the fact that there aren't really a lot of people in the crowd, so when it's time for applause, or an appropriate laugh at a joke, there isn't much reaction. It was also interesting that at more than one point in the show, it seemed that most in the crowd weren't paying much attention to who was speaking on stage....I believe Larry King had to tell everyone to basically shut up when he was about to speak....

It was entertaining though, for a horse racing fan such as myself, even if at times that entertainment was purely unintentional! :lol:

[DarrenClarke]

:bang: Sealord, wish I could tell you this was a bad year, but i'd be lying. This is the typical show, and JerryO' Connell is always awful. Guess they cant get anyone else.

[PaceAdvantage]

Although Gary Stevens did say that Pincay had had a few drinks, he didn't seem drunk to me....the one who really seemed to be a bit "out of it" was the host, Jerry O'Connell....For a self-professed horse racing fan such as himself, you'd think he would know how to pronounce Edgar Prado's last name! :lol:

And that was just the start of his stumbling and bumbling.....

[098poi]

Wow! I just watched my first Eclipse Award presentation show and was it AWFUL!! I finally dumped Time Warner cable for DishTv and got TVG just in time to see the disaster unfold. It was about as professionally done as my cub scout award banquet back in '82. Pinncay, Jr. was drunk, the black TVG host was inappropriate (atlthough hilarious at times) and the Jerry O'Connell stunk up the joint. One presenter brought his own Emmy and couldn't even pronounce Miesque's Approval! All in all a bad day for the Thoroughbred Racing World. Yes, there were some bright moments, but mostly terrible. Please tell me this was just a bad year.

I watched for an hour or so and then fell asleep. I was willing to give it a pass on some levels because this is not an entertainment crowd that you see at most awards shows. However the black TVG host who seems like a nice enough guy, blew any air of class or dignity to the event when at one point he picked his hand up to the crowd and rubbed his fingers together and made a comment about how this (breeding or something) will mean more money for you guys. He was trying to be humorous but it came off a bit tacky!

[Snow Chief]

Was Ken Rudolph, the TVG guy, drunk as well? he seemed out of his mind, although hilarious

[Valuist]

How about the idea of a Red Carpet. I thought the ESPY's were over the top in self-congratulatory nonsense but this takes it to a new level.

[Forego]

Far worse than the actual ceremony was the never-ending "pre-game show."

Particular "favorites" of the evening, overall:

1) Ken Rudolph interviewing the bellmen
2) Matt Carrothers regaling us with the story of how he left his phone in his car. Wow. What compelling TV...
3) TVG completely ignoring the media awards...are they that unimportant? I think not. Perhaps TVG didn't care to publicize the fact that HRTV was recieving an Eclipse Award...what do you think?
4) TVG wasting no opportunity to hijack the Eclipse Awards, and make the entire evening all about themselves. Their ceaseless self-promotion reached its apex with their doofus Executive Producer (whose previous job was making sure R.D. Hubbard always had a fresh supply of alcohol and Thoro-Graph numbers) serving as a presenter.

Let's face facts. TVG is perhaps half a notch better than Public Access TV. When you're forced to watch TVG, the mute button is your best friend. So is anyone actually surprised that their "coverage" was so laughable?

Good luck to all in the Pick Six tommorow (at one of the racetracks TVG "talent" is forbidden to mention...except in October and November),

Edgar Pray-doh :lol:

[BIG49010]

The awards have an East Coast bias, that is what I was thinking the hole time, I was watching. Prado sealed the fact when he won the jockey vote by 80 or more votes.

Ken made some very off color remarks, his bit about the women in the room being hot in today's work world gets you fired! Pincay's drunk opening of the winning envelope was great also.

All in all just another display of how out of touch the world of horse racing is with it's fans.

[SmartyParty]

Although Gary Stevens did say that Pincay had had a few drinks, he didn't seem drunk to me....the one who really seemed to be a bit "out of it" was the host, Jerry O'Connell....For a self-professed horse racing fan such as himself, you'd think he would know how to pronounce Edgar Prado's last name! :lol:

And that was just the start of his stumbling and bumbling.....



I agree! Let Merv Griffen host it next year!

[PaceAdvantage]

The more I watch TVG, the more I think to myself, "Man, people would have KILLED for this kind of thing 20 years ago, and now that we have it, all we want to do is bash it....."

Like I said in another thread, I just don't understand some people anymore....

[Forego]

Well, understand this: In my opinion, TVG can and should be exponentially better than it is.

In their infancy, they tried to attract the non-fan. That strategy failed miserably.

Now they don't seem to know who their audience is...or who they'd like their audience to be. End result: TVG has little or no appeal, to the hard-core fan, to the person with zero interest in racing, or to anyone in between.

TVG has not created "the next generation of racing fans." Plus they have dropped the ball when it comes to servicing the needs of the true fan. Therefore, they have failed.

TVG should be the horse-racing equivalent of CNBC...a non-stop flow of information, 99% of which is geared to the sophisticated viewer. Instead, you have TVG doing a comical ripoff of Jim Cramer's show. Brilliant...

As for the Eclipse Awards...when they ran on ESPN (albeit on about a 10-day tape delay), the telecast was all about the awards. This train wreck on TVG the other night was all about TVG.

So I'm not "bashing" TVG. I'm merely pointing out that -- instead of focusing on the nominees, and on the winners -- TVG chose to focus on itself.

TVG was given a golden opportunity to serve the already-existing fan base as well as to grow the fan base; to introduce racing to an entirely new group of people. On both counts, in my opinion, it has been an abject failure. And its' Eclipse Awards show was just the latest example of that.

[dutzman]

I believe that Jerry O'Connel pronounced Prado...Pray-do....last year also......

[PaceAdvantage]

Forego, it's funny you should mention CNBC, because among traders, they are considered nothing more than a joke themselves and bashed along much of the same lines as TVG.

[Kelso]

Forego, it's funny you should mention CNBC, because among traders, they are considered nothing more than a joke themselves and bashed along much of the same lines as TVG.


As well they should be. They go weeks at a clip with nothing of substance being revealed/observed/opined between the hours of 9 and 5, eastern. Worse yet, I'm sure many innocents who stumbled upon the channel have lost plenty after hearing Go Go Bartiromo and Pom Pom Pisani leading the cheering for an advancing market. (The term "value" means even less to them than it does to most chalk bettors.)

They're particularly laughable when the producers allow the talking heads to ask questions or make comments that aren't on the teleprompter ... leaving them hopelessly trying to sound as if they understand anything about what they're asking or saying. Most of them ... with but few exceptions ... are clueless rip 'n readers just treading water while waiting for a shot at the broadcast network.

But, as with many North American tracks (and as I've learned from reading this forum), there's no real competition to make them have to improve their product. Sure glad somebody invented the screen crawl and the mute button.

[PaceAdvantage]

But, as with many North American tracks (and as I've learned from reading this forum), there's no real competition to make them have to improve their product. Sure glad somebody invented the screen crawl and the mute button.

Case in point....lol

For the record, I do not watch CNBC while I trade....but I have been known to watch TVG while I wager on horses.

[Forego]

Ah, I get it. You're telling me CNBC is to traders what TVG is to horse racing.

Great...thanks for clearing that up. As Ken Rudolph might say, "I appreciate the knowledge."

So let me see if I get this: each time a stock makes a significant upwards move -- no matter the stock, no matter the move -- CNBC covers that news with their own version of Mr. B., whose insight consists of mumbling, "congratulations to the winning shareholders?" I guess so...

Just an aside here: as lacking as CNBC may or may not be, they at least know the basics. They know the names of the big players in their industry...Bill Gates, Ben Bernanke, Steve Jobs, Henry Paulson, etc.

The other day, as Mr. B. was going through his perfunctory, robotic "congratulations" after an Aqueduct race, he congratulated the winning owner: Moss McGee.

One would think that an "expert commentator" would recognize the name of Maggi Moss. She's only the winningest owner in thoroughbred racing. Yet, in Mr. B.'s world, which seems to extend all the way from Inglewood to Los Alamitos, Maggi Moss is Moss McGee. Beautiful.

Back to CNBC. Maria Bartiromo is who? Nancy Ury? You mean to tell me Maria is a pleasant, attractive girl who works for idiot producers who put her on air, alone, for five hours on a Monday, without a format, so she's left to do nothing more than read viewer e-mail aloud while distributing a steady stream of "props" and shoutouts?" I'll have to try to catch that...

Look, there are people out there who trade for a living; and those people are all far more "business news-savvy" than I. But for all its' faults, real or perceived, I think it's safe to say CNBC (or Bloomberg, for that matter) does a far better job in serving the needs of the trader than TVG does in serving the needs of the horse player.

TVG has dropped the ball. TVG is a joke. It is what it is, and it will only get worse.

And when TVG "covers" an awards show, the coverage should focus on the nominees and the winners...and not focus on TVG patting itself on its' collective back, as it did the other night.

[PaceAdvantage]

All I'm saying is, if you check out a trading board or two (I favor elitetrader.com myself), and do a search on CNBC, you will get opinions that are REMARKABLY similar to the negative opinions many on here have towards TVG.

I also said I personally don't watch CNBC all that much, especially during trading hours, unless there is some breaking news I'm interested in hearing more about...

I don't think I ever passed judgement on CNBC myself, just pointed out the opinions of other traders on other message boards....