Formula 1 TV Coverage Thread

[MBKF1 91]

VetteIfan said:

If they could just replace Crofty it would fix a lot of things. The Sky pre and post race shows are unwatchable Hamilton or no Hamilton, because Johnny Herbert couldn't offer "insightful analysis" if his life depended on it. But during the race, for the most part Brundle and Kravitz aren't too bad, so without Crofty the Hamilton circle jerk would be mostly absent. 

Although it's also quite obvious that Ted Kravitz has quite a big thing for Kimi. He always tries to hype up his race when in reality it's most of the time going nowhere. He also wrote in a recent article that he's around a tenth behind Vettel, and around 2-3 tenths behind Alonso. You don't need me to tell you that both those figures are very fictional. 

Yes, this post sums it up for me too, I couldn't agree more. As you say, Herbert's 'analysis' is utterly rubbish, and Crofty is getting tiring for me now. And even Ted's bias towards Hamilton is quite annoying, like When he asked Niki Lauda after Brazil Qualifying, he said 'something must have been wrong with Lewis' car'. It's like he wants the public to know who the real fastest driver supposedly is.

And yeah, he's always said he has a thing for Kimi, but that's annoying too.

On a brighter note though, Simon Lazenby has really grown on me. I wasn't keen on him at first but over the last four years he has got better and better and he does a very nice job of presenting, even though he can be a bit quiet at times (you can tell this if he suddenly brings the mic up towards him).

I've said it before and I'll say it again, but I think Sky's analysis team is lacking an insight from someone who wasn't an ex-F1 driver. That's why the BBC pairing of DC and Eddie works so well. They have that driver view which is supported from another angle by an ex-team principal. The Sky coverage is literally all ex-F1 drivers, and their extras are always ex-F1 drivers too, like Anthony Davidson, Paul di Resta, Bruno Senna, Jolyon Palmer, for example.

They could do with someone like Mark Hughes perhaps, who has a very good eye for the technical stuff. Just another view on things would be useful.

I'd love it if Jack Nicholls was lead commentator come 2017, I think he'd bring a very fresh look to the commentary, and he's pretty young too which is good.

[Platy 6]

I don't watch the pre-show for races much anymore, most of the good segments can be found online later anyway.

BBC's pre-race show for Brazil was awful. They spent most of it talking about whether Hamilton could win in the country of his hero. I know other countries are just as bad when it comes to favouritism to home drivers, but its getting farcical and part of the reason I'm losing interest to watch. So yeah, I agree with what's being said above and the article.

[f1since08 60]

BBC drop Formula 1:
http://readmotorsport.com/2015/12/17/bbc-withdraw-formula-one-coverage/

[Mexicola 9]

Ugh.                                                                                                                                                                                     

[Juice29 0]

*facepalm*                                     

[Liaveil 123]

Hopefully the presenters will go to ITV as well then. They'd be a bit redundant at BBC afterall. If it's still the same presenters/commentators (though a change from Edwards wouldn't hurt...) then it won't make a whole lot of difference to me. Though it would be even better if ITV would change doing the advert breaks mid-race to solely during the pre and post show and leave the race itself uninterupted.

[Hughesy 254]

Did you know last time ITV had F1 they missed over 31 races' worth of live action due to adverts, pretty shocking really....

[VetteIfan 0]

The one good thing about this piece of news is ITV might actually make Sky look unbiased and neutral. 

And yeah, the less said about mid race ad breaks the better. Spa '05 was one that stuck particularly vividly in my mind. In one ad break ITV managed to miss Fisichella's big accident and most of the safety car period which would go on to affect the rest of the race. Great race btw, no thanks to ITV's incompetence. 

[couger1981 89]

Looks like ITV will show 10 races live plus highlights

Link

[MBKF1 91]

Well I know ITV were a bit crap at times but at least it's still on free-to-air in the UK. ITV have actually got a fantastic motorsport presence now with Formula 1, MotoGP, Formula E, World Rally Championship, BTCC, Isle of Man TT, etc.

To be honest, I actually think ITV won't put ad breaks in their live races, and if they did I think they'd only do it if there was a Safety Car period. They don't put adverts in the Formula E races and they last 45 minutes, and that's on ITV 4.

[MBKF1 91]

Channel 4 to show Formula 1 for the next 3 years! 10 live races, and they will all be without any ad breaks. http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/channel-4-becomes-terrestrial-home-of-formula-1?hootPostID=dde274dfb372ab4d0ede906f68a35e34

[Lukedfrt 91]

Was not expecting that!                                             

[Mexicola 9]

Channel 4? Now that should be interesting.

[f1since08 60]

Such a shame the BBC lost the coverage and really makes you wonder what will happen with sport on the BBC as a whole. It'll also be interesting to see if any BBC personnel move to C4. If I were them, I'd go with the following if they could:
Presenter: Maurice Hamilton
Pundits: David Coulthard and Martin Whitmarsh
Commentators: Ben Edwards and David Coulthard
Technical Reporter: Gary Anderson
Pit lane reporter: Tom Clarkson

[MBKF1 91]

http://sniffpetrol.com/2015/12/22/channel-4-annouces-f1-plans/#.VnlUpPmLSHs

Channel 4 announce their F1 plans already.

[VetteIfan 0]

fIsince08 said:

Such a shame the BBC lost the coverage and really makes you wonder what will happen with sport on the BBC as a whole. It'll also be interesting to see if any BBC personnel move to C4. If I were them, I'd go with the following if they could:
Presenter: Maurice Hamilton
Pundits: David Coulthard and Martin Whitmarsh
Commentators: Ben Edwards and David Coulthard
Technical Reporter: Gary Anderson
Pit lane reporter: Tom Clarkson

Martin Whitmarsh as a pundit? I know tis the season to be jolly, but how much have you drunk?

[MBKF1 91]

If I were to predict a line up, I would go for something like this:

Presenter: Suzi Perry.
Pundits: David Coulthard, Susie Wolff and a non-racing driver, but not Eddie Jordan. Maybe Mark Hughes? At least I hope so, he'd be very insightful.
Commentators: Jack Nicholls and David Coulthard.
Pit Reporter: Someone we haven't heard of.

C4 (as far as I'm aware) seem to like to want to attract a younger audience, and getting someone like Jack Nicholls (who I think is 25) as lead commentator would certainly be a good move. I've said it before, but the man is pure quality, he'd be such a good addition to F1 TV coverage in the UK.

I reckon C4 are gonna do some sort of weekly magazine show as well, perhaps on a Tuesday evening for 30 minutes or something, similar to the midweek report that Sky F1 currently do.

[RevolvingPrawn 1]

My only requirement: No Suzi Perry.     

[APR193 0]

RevolvingPrawn said:

My only requirement: No Suzi Perry.     

Agreed. She's brilliant, but I'd much rather she take this chance to go to BT and MotoGP where she 1) is interested in the sport and 2) knows what she's talking about

[RevolvingPrawn 1]

She's awful :p She tries far too hard to be likeable but comes across way more annoying because of it to me. If the powers that be decide they still wanna go with a female lead, Natalie Pinkham or Lee McKenzie are both so much better and both come across far more comfortable being on screen than Suzi Perry does.

[MBKF1 91]

RevolvingPrawn said:

She's awful :p She tries far too hard to be likeable but comes across way more annoying because of it to me. If the powers that be decide they still wanna go with a female lead, Natalie Pinkham or Lee McKenzie are both so much better and both come across far more comfortable being on screen than Suzi Perry does.

That's the thing. I don't like her but I put her on my prediction because I can't honestly see anyone else doing the presenting role, but Natalie Pinkham would be fantastic actually. However I highly doubt she'll do it because of her new baby so she probably won't want to be jetting over the planet every 2 weeks. I think the role she has at Sky is pretty good for her, doing mainly the European races and the UK based F1 Show and Midweek Report.

[f1since08 60]

DC has been confirmed on Channel 4's coverage but it doesn't say what role. "An integral part" I'd guess means pundit and commentator again.

[MBKF1 91]

I would assume so, but I'm very glad he's going to still be covering F1, he's a gem for the BBC.

Whisper Films are going to be the team producing F1 for C4, the company is part owned by DC and Jake Humphrey I believe, and they produced F1 for BBC too. I highly doubt Jake will be the presenter (he wants to spend time with his family at home), but I wouldn't be surprised to see Jake presenting a weekly magazine show from the UK.

[couger1981 89]

Yeah i prefer DC over Brundle because Brundle seems to be biased towards Merc and anti Red bull.

[f1since08 60]

There's a couple of rumours going around that Ben Edwards and Eddie Jordan will be the only other ex-BBC presenting team to join C4. One of the bosses of Whisper has said that they don't want all of the BBC team.