Discussion
gwood said:
i love watching f1 on itv but those adverts are really annoying, why cant it be on constantly like football. so i was wondering does any one else watch f1 on something other than itv???
Ah well in the good old days it was on the BBC, so no adverts. Then ITV scooped up all their advertising dosh and outbid them. Still, at least these days, as no-one overtakes after the first 400 yards, you don't miss anything 
Im not so sure the BBC was the "good old days" though. Yep you never had adverts, but from what I remember we rarely (apart from the British GP?) saw qualifying let alone live qualifying, and race coverage was sandwiched into a slot on Grandstand that started about 5 minutes before the race and ended immediately after with no build-up program etc.
In an ideal world I guess BBC would have kept F1 coverage AND invested into it like ITV have with regards to covering qualifying and doing an hour's pre-race buildup etc, but it didn't happen.
In an ideal world I guess BBC would have kept F1 coverage AND invested into it like ITV have with regards to covering qualifying and doing an hour's pre-race buildup etc, but it didn't happen.
Edited by LocoBlade on Monday 28th May 22:36
LocoBlade said:
Im not so sure the BBC was the "good old days" though. Yep you never had adverts, but you rarely (if ever?) saw live qualifying if any at al, and race coverage was sandwiched into a slot on Grandstand that started about 5 minutes before the race and ended immediately after with no build-up program etc.
Fair point, but you got Murray Walker and James Hunt Mind you Martin Brundle is good too.It's a shame another channel doesn't cover it, like Eurosport. They used to, I remember the Allard Kalf, John Watson days before Ben Edwards took over from Allard. I'm pretty sure (might be wrong though) that ITV and Eurosport had F1 coverage at the same time for one season as I remember switching from Murray on ITV to Watto on Eursport when ITV went to ad breaks. I still do the same today with the MotoGP coverage.
For the 1992 season onwards BBC covered ALL the GPs live and virtually ALL the Saturday qualifying sessions live as well. Hunt died half way through the 1993 season so his acerbic comments disappeared from that point. BBC took on board Jonathan Palmer as his replacement but unfortunately, TV "commenting" was not the good doctor's strongest point.
ITV have added very little extra to the quality of the F1 coverage since they took over ten years ago - the exception being the replacement of Palmer with Brundle (who was still an active driver during the BBC's tenure).
ITV have added very little extra to the quality of the F1 coverage since they took over ten years ago - the exception being the replacement of Palmer with Brundle (who was still an active driver during the BBC's tenure).
Edited by Eric Mc on Monday 28th May 23:01
I quite liked Jonathan Palmer's commetry along side Murry's. I seem to recall he wasn't the inital replacement to James Hunt, so maybe it was who ever was first was really bad 
I didn't like Brundle very much at the start and wished ITV had kept Palmer, now Brundel is much better and really appreciate what he has to say - especially compared to his co-presenter
I didn't like Brundle very much at the start and wished ITV had kept Palmer, now Brundel is much better and really appreciate what he has to say - especially compared to his co-presenter
LocoBlade said:
Im not so sure the BBC was the "good old days" though. Yep you never had adverts, but from what I remember we rarely (apart from the British GP?) saw qualifying let alone live qualifying, and race coverage was sandwiched into a slot on Grandstand that started about 5 minutes before the race and ended immediately after with no build-up program etc.
In an ideal world I guess BBC would have kept F1 coverage AND invested into it like ITV have with regards to covering qualifying and doing an hour's pre-race buildup etc, but it didn't happen.
You can't compare the two because TV has progressed a huge amount over the years and I feel that in today's braodcasting world, the BBC would do a far better job of F1 coverage that ITV. Apart from the adverts which would vanish In an ideal world I guess BBC would have kept F1 coverage AND invested into it like ITV have with regards to covering qualifying and doing an hour's pre-race buildup etc, but it didn't happen.
Edited by LocoBlade on Monday 28th May 22:36
they would make sure that the Canadian qualifying would be shown live on BBC2, unlike ITV who have stuck it on one of their 'let's repeat all our shite channels, I think it's ITV3, 4 or some other channel! Why, because they won't put it on Saturday prime-time, they'd rather keep some shite about veiwers home videos or some reality TV shite!!!Also, take a look at the digital (red button) service that the BBC offers it's sports coverage viewers. A fantastic opportunity to fill this up with pre-post qualifying/race interviews, etc. I think the BBC is the only choice for F1 and it would also mean being able to visit the BBC F1 web site without all the crap online banner adverts and popups too
Mr_Yogi said:
I quite liked Jonathan Palmer's commetry along side Murry's. I seem to recall he wasn't the inital replacement to James Hunt, so maybe it was who ever was first was really bad
I didn't like Brundle very much at the start and wished ITV had kept Palmer, now Brundel is much better and really appreciate what he has to say - especially compared to his co-presenter
tell me your joking??I didn't like Brundle very much at the start and wished ITV had kept Palmer, now Brundel is much better and really appreciate what he has to say - especially compared to his co-presenter
JP was a complete Pr ick and still is, ( all be it a rich one).He was the cock Mk1!!!
I remember the 95 british gp qualifying. shumacher did a cracking lap, JP pipes up not only will that be hard for Damon to beat it will have been devastating to watch blah blah blah. only for DH to go 7/10ths faster and stuck it on pole with seconds to go.....
ah jp such a cock(mk1)
TheOriginalGT40 said:
You can't compare the two because TV has progressed a huge amount over the years and I feel that in today's braodcasting world, the BBC would do a far better job of F1 coverage that ITV. Apart from the adverts which would vanish they would make sure that the Canadian qualifying would be shown live on BBC2, unlike ITV who have stuck it on one of their 'let's repeat all our shite channels, I think it's ITV3, 4 or some other channel! Why, because they won't put it on Saturday prime-time, they'd rather keep some shite about veiwers home videos or some reality TV shite!!!
Also, take a look at the digital (red button) service that the BBC offers it's sports coverage viewers. A fantastic opportunity to fill this up with pre-post qualifying/race interviews, etc. I think the BBC is the only choice for F1 and it would also mean being able to visit the BBC F1 web site without all the crap online banner adverts and popups too
Agreed I also think BBC would most likely make a better fist of it now than ITV are, I was just pointing out that the majority of the old BBC coverage does tend to be looked on with rose tinted specs some of the time. they would make sure that the Canadian qualifying would be shown live on BBC2, unlike ITV who have stuck it on one of their 'let's repeat all our shite channels, I think it's ITV3, 4 or some other channel! Why, because they won't put it on Saturday prime-time, they'd rather keep some shite about veiwers home videos or some reality TV shite!!!Also, take a look at the digital (red button) service that the BBC offers it's sports coverage viewers. A fantastic opportunity to fill this up with pre-post qualifying/race interviews, etc. I think the BBC is the only choice for F1 and it would also mean being able to visit the BBC F1 web site without all the crap online banner adverts and popups too
I have almost 20 years' worth of recordings of the GP highlights on VHS tapes - 1983 to 1996 with the BBC and 1997 to 2003 with ITV - so I have direct proof of the different eras of coverage of both channels.
BBC only started covering the entire F1 series in 1978. At that time most races were covered by their highlight programme, "Grand Prix" with only four or five races being shown live. Qualifying wasn't covered at all. Many of the highlight programmes were actually shot on cinefilm and often Murray Walker added the commentary to the race after the race was actually over. On many occasions, Murray would not actually travel to foreign venues, merely watching the live feed as it came in to the BBC TV centre in London and then doing a commentary on the edited highlights. The highlight programme usually went out sometime after 9.30 pm on Sunday.
Murray initially worked completely on his own but James Hunt joined the set up in 1980 - something which Murray was not too happy about at the time.
As the years progressed, BBC improved their coverage, showing more races live and sending Murray and James to more and more overseas races. Saturday qualifying began to be shown as part of Grandstand. 1992 was the first year where ALL races were shown live and 1994 was the first year where Murray and the team were present at all the foreign races.
Some of the improvements in coverage were merely down to improving technology, such as on-board cameras, which began to appear on some cars from about 1986. As camera technology became better and cheaper, more cameras were allocated to the events by the host broadcasters as well.
It was the BBC who built up the massive TV following for F1 in Britain but, as always, having done all the hard work and developed the technology and techniques required, they had it taken away from them by Bernie. That is the way he works.
BBC only started covering the entire F1 series in 1978. At that time most races were covered by their highlight programme, "Grand Prix" with only four or five races being shown live. Qualifying wasn't covered at all. Many of the highlight programmes were actually shot on cinefilm and often Murray Walker added the commentary to the race after the race was actually over. On many occasions, Murray would not actually travel to foreign venues, merely watching the live feed as it came in to the BBC TV centre in London and then doing a commentary on the edited highlights. The highlight programme usually went out sometime after 9.30 pm on Sunday.
Murray initially worked completely on his own but James Hunt joined the set up in 1980 - something which Murray was not too happy about at the time.
As the years progressed, BBC improved their coverage, showing more races live and sending Murray and James to more and more overseas races. Saturday qualifying began to be shown as part of Grandstand. 1992 was the first year where ALL races were shown live and 1994 was the first year where Murray and the team were present at all the foreign races.
Some of the improvements in coverage were merely down to improving technology, such as on-board cameras, which began to appear on some cars from about 1986. As camera technology became better and cheaper, more cameras were allocated to the events by the host broadcasters as well.
It was the BBC who built up the massive TV following for F1 in Britain but, as always, having done all the hard work and developed the technology and techniques required, they had it taken away from them by Bernie. That is the way he works.
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