Phumelela Media Executive Ken Rutherford has slammed the ‘very avoidable’ sequence of technical errors that led to the incorrect feed being transmitted on Supersport on Saturday as ‘highly frustrating’.
The racing broadcaster Tellytrack has an agreement with Supersport to broadcast some of the country’s major Gr1 races via the Supersport platform as a means of reaching a wider target market and promoting the sport.
In an ironic twist, the subsequent rebroadcast of the Gr1 Cape Flying Championship from Kenilworth has proven to be one of the best quality productions yet of a major feature event.
The broadcast included interesting interviews with the big race jockeys, as well as quality footage and interviews with the winning connections.
Much of the actual broadcast at around 4pm on Supersport 7 showed what appeared to be a live feed of a largely deserted Turffontein Grandstand.
In an interview in Cape Town on Monday, Ken Rutherford explained that the error was out of Tellytrack’s direct control.
“ I can only apologise to viewers for the inconvenience. This is so frustrating for us. And besides being a waste of money, it is damaging to the image of the sport of racing. Our landlord Telemedia are responsible for taking the feed and transmitting it via Supersport. It is totally unacceptable as we pay good money for this facility, and this is really such a basic mistake,” he said.
Steve Bretherick, Technical Director of Telemedia had apologised for sending the incorrect content to Super sport.
It appears that they had become confused between the monitors in their control room and then which incoming receivers they were using. When routing the race course they had sent Turffontein instead of Kenilworth.
They were, rather bizarrely in hindsight, apparently satisfied that the feed contained pictures with horses and a race track.
Rutherford was meeting with Telemedia this week to discuss control measures as well as possible financial and reputational compensation.
