Jenson up for a BAFTA

well not him personally, but ITV have been nominated for a sporting bafta for their coverage of the 2006 Hungarian GP (Jensons first win)

http://www.bafta.org/site/page129.html (scroll down to sport)

You have got to be kidding?! That was one of the low points for ITVs coverage last year imo. What should have been a momentous day for Jenson will be for me at least indelibly linked with the horrible memory of James Allen's verbal orgasm/diarrhea/dean scream.

A low point for British sporting television really, no matter how extraordinary a drive it was for Jenson that day.

Me too. A great moment for Button, but I was appalled by JA's absurd bawling. It tarnished the whole occasion.

I'm afraid if James Allen wants to be appreciated at all on this bb, he's going to have to find a cure for cancer.

Originally posted by Orin
Me too. A great moment for Button, but I was appalled by JA's absurd bawling. It tarnished the whole occasion.

Fully agree. Its amazing how one person can ruin a moment, where the likes of MW was able to fully capture the emotion of the moment.

"and ive got to stop.............because ive got a lump in my throat"

immortal words my friends.

Originally posted by F1 Tor.
I'm afraid if James Allen wants to be appreciated at all on this bb, he's going to have to find a cure for cancer.

He wouldn't have to go that far. It would be sufficient for him to retire from the commentary box. If he were to personally pay for all his ITV recordings to be over-dubbed by someone less annoying before retiring from public life I might actually begin to respect him.

Originally posted by F1 Tor.
I'm afraid if James Allen wants to be appreciated at all on this bb, he's going to have to find a cure for cancer.

Nah, I think we're fair here on this BB, if he merely were to return to the pitlane to replace that braindead ****** Ted Kravitz and for someone who had a sense of propriety and or / clue about F1 without feeling the unending need to sensationalise everything - maybe someone like Ben Edwards or heck, one of the guys from Five Live who are frankly superb.

Originally posted by kar


Nah, I think we're fair here on this BB, if he merely were to return to the pitlane to replace that braindead ****** Ted Kravitz and for someone who had a sense of propriety and or / clue about F1 without feeling the unending need to sensationalise everything - maybe someone like Ben Edwards or heck, one of the guys from Five Live who are frankly superb.

Yes find a commentator not a tabloid journo public schoolboy trying to be cool and street.

Quite apart from the Allengasm at the end, my abiding memory of that race was relying on the live timing over t'internet to work out what was going on because it was quite clear ITV didn't have a clue because they were too busy getting over-excited about Jenson.

If the BAFTA's for anything they should give it to the Hungarian weather, as that's what made it an exciting show.

LTRFTW

I remember being pretty excited during that race and for once JA didn't annoy me as he seemed to share the same level of excitement. I dont even remember him having is audiogasm at the end as I was too busy screaming at my wife and listening to her screaming at me. (I'm English, she's Japanese so it was a perfect win for us).

Still in more sober moments, I cant understand how he could be nominated for anything other than most ill-informed, pointless rambler - guess there isn't that many decent commentators in sports overall. At least he's slightly less ******** than that Mark Blundell geezer what does some talking before the race innit.

Originally posted by fifi
well not him personally, but ITV have been nominated for a sporting bafta for their coverage of the 2006 Hungarian GP (Jensons first win)

http://www.bafta.org/site/page129.html (scroll down to sport)

I concur with what most people have said - Allen's commentary was a buttock-clenching embarrassment. Quite what BAFTA think there was to be proud of with that display of verbal-wanking from Allen/ITV I am not sure.

Originally posted by F1 Tor.
I'm afraid if James Allen wants to be appreciated at all on this bb, he's going to have to find a cure for cancer.

It would take a lot more than that for me to appreciate him. An end to war, global warming and Ron Dennis would be heading in the right direction though...

Actually, if Bafta want to give F1-Itv a Jenson-related award, then Jenson's commentary when he sat out of the race at the Monaco GP 2(?) years ago was surprisingly impressive.

I was loving Allen's commentary for that race, and I really don't like Jenson at all. My most memorable moments from the last couple of years are punctuated by Allen's commentary.

- Kimi's drive at Nurburgring with the flatspot

- Kimi's overtake on Fisi at Suzuka

- Jenson's win at Hungry

- Fred/MS battles at Imola and Turkey

I really don't understand the majority here being against someone for having a passion for f1.

The cynics out there will say that he is just putting it all on but for me this guy is genuinely excited by this stuff, why wouldn't you be ?

I agree Allen made a fool of himself when Button won, but I don't understand why you guys get so angry about it?

It was farkn hilarious.

Originally posted by HoldenRT
I agree Allen made a fool of himself when Button won, but I don't understand why you guys get so angry about it?

It was farkn hilarious.

I think the anger comes from the obvious bias toward JB by Allen. But he's as fickle as he is foolish and no longer bleats on about JB now that he's driving a dog of a car.

Originally posted by rfus
I really don't understand the majority here being against someone for having a passion for f1.

The cynics out there will say that he is just putting it all on but for me this guy is genuinely excited by this stuff, why wouldn't you be ?

Listen to Alan Green commentate on football for BBC radio.

There is a man who has true passion for the sport, has never played at the top level, (proving you don't need to to be a good commentator), is able to raise the level of excitement or calm it down to reflect the action, is knowledgeable and insightful, and manages commentate fairly on both teams (be they both English, or English team v. non-English team) and make you feel like you are there. The guy is a professional.

If you compare Allen to Alan the difference could not be more stark.

Nobody's arguing the guy has no passion, but Alan Green proves you can do passion and not sound like a demented child....James Allen simply attempts to prove the opposite.

Thank goodness for Brundle, who does his best to resurrect the situation...but you can't polish a turd.

As much as I agree about JA ... Davidson was just as bad. While I think he could make a great commentator with a bit of polish he was extremely wobbly at times.

Have to agree it was probably the worst commentating from ITV of the whole year !!

Originally posted by kamix
As much as I agree about JA ... Davidson was just as bad. While I think he could make a great commentator with a bit of polish he was extremely wobbly at times.

Have to agree it was probably the worst commentating from ITV of the whole year !!

And with the bar set seriously low all season, that really is quite an insult.

Originally posted by kamix
As much as I agree about JA ... Davidson was just as bad. While I think he could make a great commentator with a bit of polish he was extremely wobbly at times.

Have to agree it was probably the worst commentating from ITV of the whole year !!

Davidson saved that commentary in my opinion, and I know this because I might have watched the race a few times!

Considering that Ant is a driver, not a journo or a commentator, and it was his first time on ITV where he was expected to compete with James 'Mouth Almighty' Allen, I thought he did really well.

My personal opinion is that nearly all race commentators talk too much all of the time. Fortunately there are notable exceptions like Martin Brundle.

A lot of their 'speak' is banal and trivial, and while they are endlessly gassing on they miss or fail to make appropriate comments about what is actually happening on screen.

This has reached epidemic proportions and I now find it increasingly irksome to watch superbike racing because the perpetual rabbiting about things that are not relevant seems unstoppable.

Also why do we need 2 or even 3 commentators covering the actual racing?

and jenson wins the bafta

Originally posted by RDM


Thank goodness for Brundle, who does his best to resurrect the situation...but you can't polish a turd.

What does it say about the BAFTAs that a program that is almost universally derided by its viewers wins an award for an episode that was in particular criticised?

Does anyone outside the onanistic media really take these things seriously? Bill Clinton has more Grammys than the Beach Boys, the Who, the Velvets and the Pistols combined.

Originally posted by ensign14
Does anyone outside the onanistic media really take these things seriously? Bill Clinton has more Grammys than the Beach Boys, the Who, the Velvets and the Pistols combined.

Well, he does play a mean sax.

You'll find that with any awards ceremony, though. I'm sure that complete nonentities in film crafts like sub-titling or language dubbing have won more Oscars than Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese combined.

Weren't Clinton's Grammy awards for the spoken word? If so, that's as obscure a category as you will find. It's not like he snatched Best Rock Album of the Year away from the big acts.

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
What does it say about the BAFTAs that a program that is almost universally derided by its viewers wins an award for an episode that was in particular criticised?

spot on.

i laughed when i saw the result. but then i realised it wasn't funny

Wait a minute! They were awarded a BAFTA for that race coverage? I do remember the race. I remember having to mute the sound after James screamed as Button crossed the line. I remember switching off the podium ceremony because of JA talking over the top of it. And I remember making a pillock of myself (not for the first time I know) on this forum and in the chat room afterwards because the coverage had been so bad that I didn't realise Button was ahead of some drivers who later dropped out (thanks to commercial breaks and the ITV team not actually filling us in). I thought he'd "inherited" the win and ranted accordingly.

Originally posted by Rich
Weren't Clinton's Grammy awards for the spoken word? If so, that's as obscure a category as you will find. It's not like he snatched Best Rock Album of the Year away from the big acts.

Yes. They even have one for Best Sleeve Notes. Total waste of time.

Originally posted by Hacklerf
"and ive got to stop.............because ive got a lump in my throat"

immortal words my friends.

Precisely.

It's one of those classic commentary moments where a true enthusiast was simply overcome by the enormity of an achievement by a sportsman he greatly admired and always puts me in mind of Brian Johnson's voice breaking as he announced ".... and England have won the Ashes!" in the 1953 series.

I'm sure I've made this point before, but the best commentators have always let the action on screen speak for itself: Johnners was a good example of that. Dan Maskell's tennis commentaries were wonderfully sparing in the use of words - very often you'd hear just the occasional "ooh" or "aah" during a long rally - and a spectacular winning shot was always greeted with an "Oh, I say!" Peter Alliss and his golf commentaries were another excellent example: he'd let the viewer work out what "Ah, looks like he's using a five wood" meant rather than discuss the merits of four other possible clubs (at least until after the shot was played - "Hmmm, perhaps a club too long there ...")

In fact, the commentator's job is really to tell you what you CAN'T see on screen. Perhaps the classic of that is Kenneth Wolstenholme's "Some people are on the pitch .... they think it's all over ..... IT IS NOW!" The people on the pitch weren't even in shot ....

Test Match Special are still the greatest: working on radio they have to fill every moment, but don't they do it well? Listening yesterday and we had the usual comments from Blowers about "a particularly handsome pigeon", police sirens, buses .... you feel like you're there alongside him, Aggers, Boycs and Bearders.

Toby Moody is about the guy motorsport guy who can get away with a raised voice while commentating, because usually whats happening on your screen is worth getting excited about, and because he's saying/thinking exactly what we're shouting at home.

Originally posted by Vitesse2

I'm sure I've made this point before, but the best commentators have always let the action on screen speak for itself...

Best example is surely Whispering Ted Lowe? About eight words per frame - which was all that was necessary to convey the deeper understanding needed. These days the likes of John Virgo talk more than this BB would if MS came back.

Originally posted by ensign14

Best example is surely Whispering Ted Lowe? About eight words per frame - which was all that was necessary to convey the deeper understanding needed. These days the likes of John Virgo talk more than this BB would if MS came back.

Yes, Ted was one I forgot. But he was only able to do the minimalist bit once colour TV arrived: unbelievably, BBC snooker coverage started out in black and white!

Says something about how poor English/British sport was last year that _this_ (spits) won a BAFTA.

I can say this with only a small degree of schadenfreude that at least Australian TV has a greater range from which to pick from when doing their Logie awards. When you've got cricket, winter olympics and the boat race to pick from all it wasn't exactly a star studded cast Allen's orgamatron troupe had to beat.

Were those all ITV covered sports, and ignoring the boat race was the Hungarian GP the most successful British event in the list?

Originally posted by Vitesse2

Yes, Ted was one I forgot. But he was only able to do the minimalist bit once colour TV arrived: unbelievably, BBC snooker coverage started out in black and white!

Was he the one who said something along the lines of "He's lining up to pot the blue ball. For those of you with black and white sets, that's the one directly behind the pink ball"?

Originally posted by Ross Stonefeld
Were those all ITV covered sports, and ignoring the boat race was the Hungarian GP the most successful British event in the list?

Pretty much, Cricket on Channel Five, you guys didn't do so well at that, the Winter Olympics on the BBC (I think Australia won more gold medals there than Britain WTF?!) and the bore race on ITV.

So, yeah, Hungarian GP was the most success Britain had in televised sports last year. And even though it was a good race to watch whether you're a Button fan or not, James Allen completely sullied any enjoyment of the event and particularly disgraceful was his 'commentary' during the playing of the anthems

Given Ross Brawn's recent derision of ITV's coverage, it's a bit shocking that ITVF1 can now shout about it's 'award winning coverage' .

Pretty damn pathetic state of affairs it seems. And Gaby Logan on the weekend was interviewing Kevin Pieterson (South African) about how it's good British sports teams don't have a 'win at all costs attitude'.

He, of course, was having none of that.

OMG

Originally posted by jb_128
OMG

ok thank you for reminding us, i had just got that out of my head

Originally posted by kar
So, yeah, Hungarian GP was the most success Britain had in televised sports last year.

It's not about the most successful event, but how good the coverage was. Seems a barmy decision given the pictures were Hungarian. But then again, given that (a) Sky's coverage of the final day of the 2005 season when West Brom went from bottom to safe in 60 frantic minutes wasn't nominated, (b) "X Fixed-or" beat "Have I Got News For You" a couple of years back for Best Entertainment Series, and © this year "Ross Kemp On Gangs" won Best Factual Series, we're dealing with a very GCSE educated set of judges.

and again this year ITV are up again, this time for coverage for the Canadian GP

for some reason i cant remember why that seems so memorific

It is odd, isn't it.

A British driver gets an award when he wins a race - the trophy.
I don't see why the British television show that covers that race should also get an award.

"And the coverage that went most bananas over a British Sports Personality in 2007 is ... ITV for its coverage of the Canadian Grand Prix!"

Granted, there were lots of incidents and the commentators did well to keep on top of everything but ... that's their job.

I'd much rather see them put in the effort and be rewarded for things such as the technical pieces that Martin does that furthers the understanding of the sport, not just the coverage of one driver.

Jeff Stelling won Presenter of the Year for the third time. Jeff Stelling is a LEGEND. It would be interesting to see him in charge of the GP coverage...