Raycom Sports’ broadcast sponsored by Alltel Wireless is the most amateur broadcast of major college athletics ever witnessed. To call it a joke, would be an understatement. The picture quality witnessed during the Kentucky vs. South Carolina game and the Alabama vs. Auburn game Saturday was pathetic on anything larger than a 20” tv screen.

Watching the broadcast on my 48” HD television was impossible. The picture was fuzzy, and simply low resolution—by contrast Andy Griffith and I Love Lucy and Dragnet, television shows filmed in the 1950’s and 1960’s, look superior to Raycom’s broadcast.

As a benchmark, the commercials look better than the broadcast. Local television station filler commercials look better.

And there is no comparison to low def or HD broadcasts on the major networks like NBC, CBS, ABC or ESPN. Watching the Senior Bowl practice sessions on the NFL Network was more enjoyable than this lamentable, contemptible, deplorable and woeful broadcast.

Raycom is an embarrassment to the people of Alabama. To have this joke headquartered in this state is worse than being home to Richard Scrushy.

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The link between the state and the company goes beyond its headquarters here. It along with the equally inept and laughable Community Newspaper Holdings Inc. (CNHI) are both investments of the Retirement Systems of Alabama (RSA).

David Bronner, head of the RSA, likes to talk about making the state better. If he is serious, then he should improve Raycom’s quality. As it is, his job directing media company investments is worse than Mark Gottfried’s leadership of this Alabama basketball team.

13 thoughts on “Raycom sucks”

  1. I love this website, and I usually make it here daily. I agree wholeheartedly about the Raycom thing, but don’t know what good it does to rant about it. But again, Raycom/Lincoln Financial/Jefferson Pilot…all equal bad broadcasting. I seriously got the thought watching today that I might could invest in some HD equipment, rent a microwave truck for an uplink to a local news station and do a better broadcast.

  2. While the Raycom broadcast isn’t that great, it was better than the Ole Miss/State game that was broadcast on FSN South that same day.

    Admittedly, I’m not watching in Hi-Def yet, so I don’t have any of the down/up convert issues that you Hi-Def users have.

    I suspect in a few more years Raycom (who will take over for the Lincoln Finacial Football games next year, yes?) will upgrade to Hi-Def equipment. But that stuff is expensive man….

  3. Lincoln Financial no longer has anything to do with these games. What you see now is directly from Raycom. Don’t be surprised if it just gets worse – they are a joke.

  4. Wholeheartedly agree – unbelievable that these clowns are still stuck in the 19th century with low-def feeds. I predict when the current analog spectrum is discontinued in 2009 Raycom will STILL be in low-def. Utterly embarrassing.

  5. I am so happy that some people are speaking out about this. I’m an Arkansas Razorback fan and everytime we have a game on that is on Raycom, it just makes me sick. I cannot believe that they do not have the equipment for Hi-def yet. Likewise, games on FSN, though not as bad, are still horrible to try to watch. I sincerely hope football is not low-def, it will be even harder to watch than basketball.

  6. At least they broadcast alabama games that would normally be unavailable for television viewers relying on major networks.

  7. You guys have it all wrong!! It’s not a Raycom Sports problem—The problem happens to be with your local station that is broadcasting the game!
    Here is why: Raycom will be broadcasting and has been broadcasting this past year most of its SEC/ACC football and basketball games in HD. However, the problem is the local stations that carry and have contracts with Raycom Sports do not have the capability to take a HD feed from the satellite in which Raycom is buying sat time from. Therefore, these stations have to pick up the feed on an old anolog C-Band satellite signal, which has horrible picture and audio. Most local TV stations can only carry the HD signal to which they are an affiliate to, NBC, CBS, etc.. So unless your local station makes the move to recieve another HD signal on an alternate satellite than your going to be out of luck for some time.

  8. Raycom Sports is so awful looking. It is ruining people’s lives -people that want to watch major college basketball games on tv, but are forced to watch Raycom’s drastically inferior product. Raycom sucks. Raycom Sports sucks at delivering good, quality television. Raycom Sports, however, is amazing at delivering shitty looking television.

  9. Once again, Raycom does a tremendous job of delivering shit poor coverage of another Alabama game. Absolutely pathetic. Couple of tips to the Raycom guys. 1)Don’t show stats during plays. I know you guys worked endless hours trying to dig up those hard to get numbers and don’t want the tireless effort to go in vain, but try waiting until you won’t interrupt a play before you tell us how many yards someone had last week. 2) If you’re going to mimic the first yard yellow line and do your best to show us “roughly” where the first yard marker would be on the field, at least don’t move the camera while you have it up. I let the first time slide but after the 9th time of seeing a yellow line following the players running down field it was annoying.

    Don’t keep up the shit work, guys. Later

  10. Does anybody have any suggestions as to who we could contact and complain to. Is it actually a problem with my local provider or Raycom. I would be happy to send an email or call and add my voice to those who would like to see some improvement. I am in the Louisville KY market and am also greatly disappointed with the signal, it is almost unwatchable on my big screen HDTV.

  11. Even though Raycom was in HD tonight for the UNC/Duke the announcers are still horrible. I had to mute them and just went to ESPN360.com to listen Dicky V. The HD didn’t even work for most of the first half. Pathetic.

  12. Raycom is a fucking joke. I would rather beat it with sand paper, than be forced to watch a game through this network. What a joke of a company.

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