DCI Finals Broadcast Changes

I saw this the other day, and I have struggled to find the right words to say:

dci.org: Drum Corps International places ESPN2 airing of World Championships on hiatus
(originally found from drumlineblog.com, which is a great source for other marching info)

I am really disappointed that I will not be able to watch these going forward, and it saddens me to know that there are many others that will not have the opportunity to see drum corps at all as a result of this.

Even though I try to make it to as many drum corps shows as possible during the summer, I still look forward to the ESPN2 (and formerly PBS) broadcast every year. I still have the recording from this year sitting on our DVR in case I get the urge to watch it for a 4th time.

I have always had a love/hate reaction to the broadcast. Overall, I loved that it existed. Having marched a number of years I always found the "special interest" segments to be really cheesy, but they are necessary for people that are not familiar with the drum corps activity. I really dislike how they cut down the show times to make everything fit in two hours. With the special segments and commercials I do not think they showed an entire performance for any of the groups. Some were trimmed only a few minutes, but for some of the corps they only showed a 30 second clip (out of an 11 minute show).

There probably is not very much money in the drum corps business overall, so I understand that it can be hard for DCI to fund everything. I have heard that the costs for hosting a show are rising as well, making it difficult for organizers to make a profit. With all of this, I hope that DCI is not using this to drive people to their paid video content. While it may help finances in the short term, I worry about it changing the 'soul' of DCI.

I am sure this kind of discussion (or whining :) happens up every time a free service goes away, but this one hits close to home for me.