Hi,

I just watched a BBC broadcast of Brazil race. Excellent race by JB today, no doubt about it, but still... I thought Finnish commentors were comic in terms of favouritism (specailly towards Heikki). I just can't believe the stuff they rant on JB. JB ~ the best overtaker, JB~the most consistent... Nice commentry on the accidents, though. Of course I understand that the broadcast is forwarded to the avarage viewer of the specific country. But I do have to give credit for JB, he drove at the beginning like a champion and he won thanks to it.

Is there any who has watched races in many different broadcasters? Any thoughts on who is the most objective? I'd like to watch broadcast with objective commentry.

BTW. I had a bet on JB winning the WDC.

I doubt the Brazilian broadcasters were playing those Brazil sound effects much after Rubens 1st stint!!!!

BBC naturally pro their own.

I watch BBC now and again, Setanta Ireland more objective but with commercial breaks.

You realised they were talking about the WDC don't you?

And they never went as far as you claim.

most objective is SPEEDTV from the US..

The German network RTL are horribly biased, particularly towards Vettel. They rarely show any post-race or post-qualifying interviews unless a German is on the podium, and even then they only show that particular driver. Not even the winner/polesitter gets a say! It's ridiculous. They typically have a 1-1.5 hour long pre-race show which isn't worth turning on, it's just 1-1.5 hours of Vettel suck-fest. I can't imagine what it was like with Schumacher in his dominant days.

I've found the other network, DSF, are much less biased, but the only live sessions they get are FP1 and FP2. If I miss the race I usually watch the replays on DSF and it's a welcome change from RTL's crap.

As for Australian coverage, it's usually the same as the BBC coverage (since they feed BBC's commentators), but when Rusty and Cam McConville talk their crap it's always pretty bad. "Australia's Mark Webber" is mentioned more times than I care for, it's never "Mark Webber" or anything. But at least they show post-race interviews in their entirety when time permits.

I also get hold of BBC broadcasts, mainly for post-race interviews and their buildup shows. Much better coverage IMO, more objective than both the German and Australian coverage.

By the way, this is coming from an Australian who moved here to Germany 9 months ago.

Yes, but for British TV that was no differant to 2007 and 2008 where the entire ITV team manage to proclaim Lewis the best at everything in seemingly every race! It's safe to assume that the British commentators would be biased towards the British driver winning the WDC....

Button has been the best overtaker all year - He probably passed more poeple on track today than most of the other drivers all season......................

I don't see the home broadcaster should be objective. Why shouldn't they cheer on the home contenders?

Throw a semi-competitive American driver into the paddock and watch that change. Scott Speed not included.

it has not happend so for now I say they are the most objective.. and by the way two of the commentators are British.. Matchett and Hobbs.

'The most consistent'

No Senna comparisons? Or are thouse reserved for Hamilton only?

Exactly. As they do in every damn country. The people who whine about the objectivity of the home media of a driver are suffering a large dose of sour grapes I would guess.

Are you really saying that American TV is objective? It might seem like it, but that's only because there is no American driver for them to get behind. Just look at their coverage when things like the Olympics etc. are on, you would barely know any other countries are competeing.

Theres no James Allen anymore As for the OP watch a broadcast from a country that has no F1 drivers like Sweden

You're talking about a different broadcasting company.

There's a difference between supporting local drivers and completely saturating the entire telecast with said local drivers. The BBC coverage I can handle, the RTL coverage is too much.

we are talking about F1 and not the olympics and there is no American driver for them to be biased..

Worse, which is a reason why many Germans cannot dig Schumi even nowadays. The overkill with him was similar to the overkill with Vettel, the difference being the nice personality of Vettel and the lack of cheating on his part.

In the early days Schumi was called Schummel-Schumi (cheater Schumi) in Germany. Well, with hindsight we now know that it was cheater Briatore...

So enjoy the Vettel coverage, dexter, it was worse before.

Austrian coverage was really a laugh with Heinz Prüller, the Austrian Murray Walker, now more objective with Ernst Hausleitner, helped by the fact that no Austrian is currently driving. Brazilian coverage (Galvão Bueno, Reginaldo Leme) and Italian coverage (Gianfranco Mazzoni) are in the same league like ORF coverage, with at least more F1 related knowledge than RTL coverage (Heiko Wasser and Kai Ebel are still hard to bear amateurs after over 16 years!). At least RTL has Niki Lauda for comments, which makes up a little for the other deficiencies.

I agree with BMW F1, most neutral is SpeedTV. Again, there is no American driver or team they can root for, but they were doing fine in the days of Scott Speed.

That's right, but they would be just as bias if there were.

I see your point. However I'd like commentators which see it as how it was and not how they want it to be.

You need a decent driver first, then there would be a difference.

giacomo and his unreconcilable Senna fixation...

Meanwhile in Finland... I get that their duty is to support the home contenders but it gets just a tad ridiculous when Heikki's the designated star even though his results don't really support it. Of course, that results in some comedy gold as Keke Rosberg can always be trusted to slap them down.

the OP is asking this question..
"Is there any who has watched races in many different broadcasters? Any thoughts on who is the most objective? I'd like to watch broadcast with objective commentry. "

right now, I say it is SpeedTV.. You cannot say they are not simply because what you think they would turn out to be if there was a competitive american driver..

I can only speak for the broadcast I've watched (Spanish/Brazilian/British(BBC & STAR)/Canadian).. Out of these the most objective is SpeedTV by far.. even when Scott Speed was there.

Oh my yes... Kai Ebel is the biggest knob on TV, and you can't just hit mute and put up with it since he always wears those stupid shirts/pants. Have they seriously been there for 16 years?

Listen to the Australians some time. They may only be on the air for a fraction of the time Brudle and Legard are, but they manage to cram more insane Webberphilia in than Legard could do with Button or Allen with Hamilton. They're actually quite entertaining when you come to terms with the fact that they're both idiots, simply because they are so very often blatantly wrong.

Yeah, nothing since Stefan Johansson.

However, I remember when F1 was on TV4 in Sweden they all cheered for finns! When at one point the pundit commentator lauded Schumacher a bit too much he was told to be "objective". The fact that the other guy always went on about Häkkinen 10x worse was ok for some reason...

Imagine if we'd had a decent Swedish driver, would've been unbearable to listen to.

JJ and Saari seem so forced when they try to praise Heikki And then Kimi beats him.

Thats nice to hear! In DTM our commentator is always on M.Ericsson`s side.

That's nice. We always cheer for Finland as well in all sports, except ice hockey of course!

I enjoy watching RTL, it seems normal to offer more coverage to your own, and given that the Germans have so many drivers, well, that's that.

I didn't like the BBC commentary too much, but maybe it does come down to who you support.

Yeah,that 6-5 loss has scarred me for life

I thought it was funny. Losing 1-2 would be annoying, losing 5-6 after leading 5-1 is just hilarious. At least in retrospect.

Is KR not liked/supported much in Finland?
Does anyone know why? (is it his personality or his driving style?

Heikki scores way higher on the son-in-law-o-meter we judge our male sports stars by, i.e. he looks and behaves like someone a daughter could drag home without the parents bursting a major artery. Basically.

The tabloids etc. sort of love to hate Kimi but I think he's actually more popular amongst the masses than they'd like to believe. He's sort of worn us down and won us over, almost against our will.

There were six stories today.

1. Webber winning by a huuuuuuge margin.
2. Barrichello starting from pole in his home race.
3. Jenson winning the WDC having not had a contract at the start of the year
4. Hamilton on podium from so far back
5. Brawn winning the WCC having almost not started the 2009 season
6. Vettel all the way up to 4th from a terrible starting position

Which two did the dastardly nationalistic and yet solidly imperialistic and evil BBC decide was the biggest?

You seem to have the best credentials so far (btw, who are 'STAR'?).

When you (or anyone on this thread) say 'objective', is that in terms of opinion of the drivers or coverage of the drivers? I ask because my impression this year is that the BBC have given disproportionate time, but impartial opinion, to Button, and German TV gave disproportionate time to Vettel. (Sadly, my German was not adequate to judge their partiality.) F1 was non-existant on the TV of the French hotel I was in this year (that's more a comment on the hotel's TV channel selection than on French F1 coverage).

Our F1 coverage comes from a channel called MTV3 and Heikki has some kind of deal with them,so i think thats the reason for it.Papers hate Kimi though and they try to find dirt on him almost everyday.

thanks!

so how do the media spin the news aroud when HK has had a bad race (and there have been so many of those)?

But the argument stands that this race - the one at which so much was at stake, during which so much happened, and at the end of which we had a new WDC, was not the benchmark by which BBC partiality should be measured.

They have done a fine job this season of staying away from British drivers. Why are we suddenly supposed to judge them on this one race?

it is funny now,but it really wasnt then

Completely agree.

QFT

I think BBC are entitled to heap some praise on the home-boy nothing wrong with that if it is his day to be crowned WDC!!!

they broadcast in Southeast Asia.. their commentators are British though.

Sports broadcaster that are politically correct: surely an oxymoron, I would not expect that anywhere in the world in fact the BBC tries much too hard to play down its' Britishness, if you watch BBC World Service News in any part of the world they avoid covering almost any British story no matter how important and how international the implications ----- totally bonkers.

If you watch England v Germany the world cup on German TV you expect the broadcasters to support Germany, the reverse in England (note England not Britain !)

As I said that there is nothing wrong with it and it is totally understandable, I would prefer a commentary which would go by the facts and not by the wishesh on some nationality. BTW. IMO there is more consistent and better overtaker and better wet weather driver in the UK than JB, and he drives a McLaren.

I disagree. I'm South African and I have previously raised this issue of 'unbiased' commentators in another forum,and that was a few weeks ago and was based on this whole season. MB drives me mad when he talks about JB. Sometimes it's like he forgets there's other drivers on the track. What's funny is that there's some drivers' names he will not even mention. It's like he goes out of his way to 'not say their names', even if they pull an impressive driving manouvre.

(And the way he got so excited when JB overtook Grosjean today, if I hadn't been watching the race and just listened to him, I would have thought JB overtook Alonso.)

I'm not at all saying he is unbiased but that a championship decider race is not the one by which to judge him. When else did you roll your eyes this season? I'm happy to accept that he's biased but braodly speaking the BBc has done an outstanding job this year of ignoring the British drivers. We have seen FAR MORE of Mark Webber this year than any other driver, I'm pretty sure. Warranted too, IMO.