Grand Prix returns to BBC

[stephenhannan]

Starting 2009 the formula one circus returns to BBC after 12 years.

In truth the ITV have not done a bad job, and even the advert breaks have rarely spoilt the actual races.

I do hope that Martin Brundle follows over, but less than sure about James Allen.

Maybe with the BBC which is better known throughout the world we may have less resistance from some teams and drivers for on the spot interviews and of course maybe the sunday evening races will not be cut short due to Corrie thus the full round up may be achieved.

[Dirk Gently]

This is good news. The contract is due to run for 5 years apparently.

I agree with your points except about ITV not doing a bad job. The ad's have been well controlled for the most part but the cutting short of the finishes has been shockingly poor to the point that once last year the credits were done away with & the F1ITV logo came up as the chequered flag came down. All for the sake of a bloody soap!

[stephenhannan]

This is good news. The contract is due to run for 5 years apparently.

I agree with your points except about ITV not doing a bad job. The ad's have been well controlled for the most part but the cutting short of the finishes has been shockingly poor to the point that once last year the credits were done away with & the F1ITV logo came up as the chequered flag came down. All for the sake of a bloody soap!

Every time the cutting short happens my Wife ( A Big Schumacher fan ) rings up the ITV to complain. The standard answer is that Corrie is more popular than F1 and that as such they have no intention of rescheduling this, late race or otherwise.

I see now that the new contract is for 5 years or as Murrey Walker would put it.

" Not one, not two, not three, not four but five years"

[Pip Madeley]

About bloody time - the adverts during the races did my head in.

[Dirk Gently]

Your Wife impresses me greatly. Mine would never complain about such a thing. Don't get me wrong, she liks to watch a Grand Prix but she also watches Corrie.

@Murrey.

[Larry]

This is good news.

well it certainly is for the BBC they have lost the rights to premiership/fa cup games to itv from next season so they needed to win back the rights for another major sporting event.

[Pip Madeley]

Maybe Grandstand will return?

[Jonno]

I hope we get the return of the iconic theme tune - the Fleetwood Mac track. I'm glad it'll be back where it belongs and it's one less thing I need to watch on ITV. I'm sure the Beeb would have put the reruns of these two latest races on at lunchtime rather than late afternoon - I tried to avoid it yesterday, but heard the result before I saw the race. And no, I'm not getting up at 7am on Easter Sunday to watch it - I like it, but not that much!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I hope Martin Brundle, Mark Blundell and Louise Goodman move over too*. But I'd be quite happy if I never saw or heard from James Allen ever again.

*Steve Rider too really, although I don't like him all that much, it's just odd to see him on ITV.

[enzo1701]

Hmm... I must be the only person that is actually really bothered about this. I think people place too much emphasis on the adverts. Remember that the BBC will cut to coverage of other sports too ("while there's a lull in the proceedings, let's cut across to the Oval for some cricket/Old Trafford for some football/etc). And if Grandstand returns, that will DEFINITELY happen.

The ITV team have done a great job for the last 12 years and I'm really worried that we'll end up with Suzi Perry on BBC.

The only good thing that I'm looking forward to is coverage of practice on the red button... but unless they take into consideration the stirling work that ITV have done, and take on their commentary team, it's not going to be as good.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

I can't really remember anything particularly changing when it moved over from BBC to ITV in the first place, apart from them bringing in an extra slew of presenters who weren't really needed.

The race pictures themselves are delivered as-is by Bernie Ecclestone's concern to whoever pays for them, and the commentary team was pretty much the same on both channels too, so the only real difference ITV would have made was with all the pre-race buildup, but I don't remember that being hugely different on either channel either.

If Martin Brundle goes over to BBC I doubt there'll be much of a difference this time either, apart from not missing loads of things due to ad breaks. Yes, the ad breaks weren't as bad as everyone thought they would be, but it will still clearly be better without them.

I'd be interested to know what great things you think ITV did with the license.

[enzo1701]

It's a tricky one to answer because I only really got into F1 in 1998 when Hakkinen and Coulthard dominated the season. I remember watching F1 in 1996 and 1997 (for Hill and Villeneuve) but I don't remember much about the coverage apart from Murray Walker having to stop "because I've got a lump in my throat."

I honestly don't remember who Murray Walker co-commentated with before ITV and Martin Brundle. All I seem to remember is early commentary which was done over a telephone link-up.

Was ITV better than BBC? Probably not. But ITV have been around when F1 started making it big on the internet. www.itv-f1.com is millions of times better than the BBC's F1 pages (which led for about a month with news that Graham Hill's statue had been recovered) - although neither are as good as www.autosport.com 's. I was sad to see Tony Jardine defect to Sky to present coverage of the inferior A1GP series.

However there is one thing about BBC taking over that I'm scared of. That they won't get Martin Brundle but get Ben Edwards (Sky motorsport commentator) instead. I know that BBC will get their own staff on board as they will want to distance themselves as much as possible from the last 12 years of ITV coverage... so no archive footage and no grid walks.

The actual coverage itself is going to be unaffected. But ITV's pre-race build-up and post-race analysis is worth watching on even the dullest of races. (Oh and the girl in the opening credits wears tight silver pvc... so I'll miss that)

[Jonno]

Martin Brundle and Murray both moved over from BBC to ITV in 1997. Brundle replaced James Hunt after his death, so there shouldn't be a real reason why he can't move again.

What will be interesting to see is whether the Beeb promote it from BBC2 where it was usually on (British Grand Prix probably excepting) to BBC1.

[enzo1701]

Martin Brundle was still competing for Jordan Peugeot in 1996 though, he wasn't on the commentary team at all with the BBC.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Brundle

[Jonno]

Sorry, my bad, I could have sworn it was Brundle! So, can anyone with a better memory than me tell me who replaced James Hunt alongside Murray for those last couple of seasons on the Beeb?

[enzo1701]

Jonathan Palmer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Palmer

According to Wikipedia it was only in 1996 that BBC started showing full coverage of F1 (the race and qualifying), and then lost it the following year to ITV.

[stephenhannan]

There is no doubt that over the years the ITV have done great service to popularising F1. The Beeb only took real notice in the year Damon was expected to win 1996. Even in the Nigel Mansell Days you rarely got a full viewing of the race and often just clips were shown as part of Grandstand.

The 1976 James Hunt year got little to no coverage. Often fly away races were discarded down to a news flash only.

However I suspect things have changed. Upto 1996 each individual channel had to attend the race and set up their own cameras, connections etc. It was only when ITV was able to tap into local coverage and add their team to supply commentry did the costs reduce and the potential move forward. The Beeb will obviously have access to the same network.

On top of this I suspect the profile of the Beeb worldwide will encourage some teams and local producers to open up and cooperate to a better degree. It's sad nowadays to see MB struggling to interview drivers on the grid. I bet with BBC worldwide distribution the team owners will do all they can to appease their sponsers and push their drivers to do interviews and of course the sponsorship logo's on the suits and caps will will be more important than ever.

I hope the Beeb does treat this seriously. MB has been the best and most educated side kick ever, far outweighing the cumbersome and predudiced James Hunt. JH's best attribute being the constructive dismissal of over confident or less able paying drivers. The latter of which were in greater numbers back in the cash strapped 70's and 80's.

i doubt if we will ever get another character as great as MW, but anything has to be better than JA who's only progression has been to replace talking about Jenson Button at every opportunity to gushing about Lewis Hamilton.

there are 22 hard working professional drivers out there supported by 11 teams, test drivers and other team members. Lets hear more about these people.

[Jonno]

Thanks for the info on Jonathan Palmer - my memory certainly failed me on that, but I have to say that I find it hard to believe about the Beeb barely showing any races until 1996? I started watching with the British Grand Prix in 1986 (Mansell won) and yes, it may be a long time ago, but I could swear I recall watching just about every (daytime) race live. I even recall setting my alarm in the middle of the night for the Australian GP (when it was the last race of the season) that year when Mansell needed a point or two to confirm the title but his tyre blew and Prost pipped him by a point or two.

What's more, the highlights programme tended to be much earlier in the evening than it has been on ITV. Oh well, interesting that everyone seems to be slating the Beeb now!

[Zbigniev Hamson]

There is no doubt that over the years the ITV have done great service to popularising F1. The Beeb only took real notice in the year Damon was expected to win 1996. Even in the Nigel Mansell Days you rarely got a full viewing of the race and often just clips were shown as part of Grandstand.

The 1976 James Hunt year got little to no coverage. Often fly away races were discarded down to a news flash only.

However I suspect things have changed. Upto 1996 each individual channel had to attend the race and set up their own cameras, connections etc. It was only when ITV was able to tap into local coverage and add their team to supply commentry did the costs reduce and the potential move forward. The Beeb will obviously have access to the same network.

On top of this I suspect the profile of the Beeb worldwide will encourage some teams and local producers to open up and cooperate to a better degree. It's sad nowadays to see MB struggling to interview drivers on the grid. I bet with BBC worldwide distribution the team owners will do all they can to appease their sponsers and push their drivers to do interviews and of course the sponsorship logo's on the suits and caps will will be more important than ever.

I hope the Beeb does treat this seriously. MB has been the best and most educated side kick ever, far outweighing the cumbersome and predudiced James Hunt. JH's best attribute being the constructive dismissal of over confident or less able paying drivers. The latter of which were in greater numbers back in the cash strapped 70's and 80's.

i doubt if we will ever get another character as great as MW, but anything has to be better than JA who's only progression has been to replace talking about Jenson Button at every opportunity to gushing about Lewis Hamilton.

there are 22 hard working professional drivers out there supported by 11 teams, test drivers and other team members. Lets hear more about these people.

I'm quite sure some of your assertions are wrong here. While it's true that the race coverage was quite poor in the 70s, I'm sure by the time Mansell was on the scene every race was given full live coverage on the BBC. I'm also pretty sure that the race pictures were controlled and delivered as a package to the world distributors long before 1996. I can clearly remember many times on the BBC that they would complain about the local directors.

It's true that the BBC didn't used to show the qualifying sessions until '96, but apart from that nothing much else changed, and Hill was a serious candidate in '95 and (particularly) '94 as well, so there's no reason why they should have given him more coverage in '96 unless they had a crystal ball.

[Dirk Gently]

The only problem I foresee is that most, if not all, TV stations around the world have ad breaks & so the BBC will probably get breaks in tranmittable matterial & will have to fill those with something.

[stephenhannan]

I'm quite sure some of your assertions are wrong here. While it's true that the race coverage was quite poor in the 70s, I'm sure by the time Mansell was on the scene every race was given full live coverage on the BBC. I'm also pretty sure that the race pictures were controlled and delivered as a package to the world distributors long before 1996. I can clearly remember many times on the BBC that they would complain about the local directors.

It's true that the BBC didn't used to show the qualifying sessions until '96, but apart from that nothing much else changed, and Hill was a serious candidate in '95 and (particularly) '94 as well, so there's no reason why they should have given him more coverage in '96 unless they had a crystal ball.

actually I have been thinking about this and you might be right. Maybe I got the Damon Hill win year mixed up with the Mansell win year of 1992.

That year it was almost certain that Mansell would win as the Williams of 1991 was by the end of the year outstanding in a time when wholesale replacement of the car was not an annual thing.

What I do remember was there was a big announcemet on the Beeb sometime during the 90's announcing that they were going for the first time to cover all the races live.

Maybe before that they used recordings and applied overdub.

I do know that back in the 80's all you did get to see was snippets of the races inside Grandstand with perhaps only the big races such as Silverstone and Monaco shown in full.

To respond to Dirk

I'm sure again that the ITV did announce that they recieved live coverage from the local agency and that this was uninterupted. The decision to show adverts is at the descression of the broardcaster. Furthermore as I understand it they have to meet a certain number of minutes per hour which I believe is 7 and that they can choose the time to break the transmission locally at the race in order to fit them in with the anticipated progress of the race.

In truth the ITV have not as I have said before done a bad job in that I can't really recall a major incident being missed except I believe the Schumacher/Coulthard coming together in 1998 at Spa which as I recall it was not caught live, but cameras were there to cover and replay.
( Interesting but Coulthard did admit some while afterwards that maybe he had slowed a little )

[stephenhannan]

Jonathan Palmer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Palmer

According to Wikipedia it was only in 1996 that BBC started showing full coverage of F1 (the race and qualifying), and then lost it the following year to ITV.

facinating story about the Jonathon Palmer impersonator here

[Zbigniev Hamson]

In truth the ITV have not as I have said before done a bad job in that I can't really recall a major incident being missed except I believe the Schumacher/Coulthard coming together in 1998 at Spa which as I recall it was not caught live, but cameras were there to cover and replay.
( Interesting but Coulthard did admit some while afterwards that maybe he had slowed a little )

I remember 2 or 3 years ago there was a race where, as I recall, so much had happened in the closing stages of the race that they kept postponing the ad break until it got to the point where they simply HAD to go to the break to meet their targets/obligations and missed the chequered flag! There was quite an uproar about that and they vowed never to go to a break again within the last 5 laps (or something like that). My memory of when and where this was, and indeed to full details, is rather hazy though I admit.

[enzo1701]

I remember 2 or 3 years ago there was a race where, as I recall, so much had happened in the closing stages of the race that they kept postponing the ad break until it got to the point where they simply HAD to go to the break to meet their targets/obligations and missed the chequered flag! There was quite an uproar about that and they vowed never to go to a break again within the last 5 laps (or something like that). My memory of when and where this was, and indeed to full details, is rather hazy though I admit.

In fairness ITV have missed a few items over the years but they always came back after the break and showed it. I know the incident you're referring to Zbigniev... I'm sure it was a nailbiting battle for second place between Jenson Button and Alonso or Schumacher, possibly at Imola, but I could be wrong.

[Zbigniev Hamson]

Obviously you can't avoid the possibility of missing some action if you include ad breaks during races. This is perfectly understandable and most of the time it's not a problem and seeing a replay 2 minutes late is fine. But to cut to a break right at the end of a race is just stupid.

Anyway, I've been quite happy with ITV's coverage, but I'm quite happy to see it go back to the BBC and looking forward to seeing how that goes. Of the things I'd like to change with the sport at the moment, who provides the coverage is fairly well down on my list anyway.