One thing I couldn't understand on ITV was that they weren't showing replays of overtaking moves that happen during the break, or were very selective about it. It's not like there was so much going on the track that 15 second clip would ruin the drama or anything.

To be fair, I think you've got bigger problems if your toilet breaks are longer than 15-20 minutes ;)

Let's face it, missing 20 mins and being able to go for a pee at some point in that time, or missing 2 minutes overall when you decide to go and have no other adverts/interruptions ... I know which one I'd choose!

The feed wasn't ITVs to control though.
If there was an incident, and the director decided to show replays of it for 2 minutes after, and ITV came back on the air 3 minutes after it, then tough luck.

It may be that all networks went to a break at the same time, the race director knew this, and would schedule replays accordingly, but I'd be surprised.

I always felt the ITV comentary team on the whole was pretty poor at filling in what happened during the ads, though. They could have done a quick fill-in with or without replays.

Another thing is that they should have had adequate gear to be able to insert their own replays if they were really serious about doing a good telecast. If anything interesting happens during break, they *should* have a recording from the feed and the facility to play that in place of the live feed (with a finger hovering over an instant-switch-back-to-live-button should anything happen live while they're doing their own replays). Even better, utilise some picture-in-picture tech.

I don't think ITV ever realised how much the ads annoy F1 fans until the Imola debacle in 2005, and even then all they did was make sure they pushed the final ad break a few laps earlier in the race.

I, for one, am absolutely over the moon that there will be no ad breaks this year!

Exactly. Even SPEED was able to do this over the last season. Occasionally, they would also do a freeze-frame, and then Matchett would draw on it with a telestrator--commonly used in American football, not sure if it's used anywhere else in the world. They did it more during practice sessions and quali (with lots of time to kill) than during races, but for i.e. Kimi's exhaust problem in France, it was helpful.

But why not re-air it by the ITV-self, on top of the world feed? A lot of channels with ad-breaks do this.


edit: Just read the post above now.

I can go an hour and a half without going to the toilet

so pause live TV? and don't sweat it... you'll catch up even in a non ad-break show

any news of a season preview on the bbc yet?

Not yet.

Roger's replied to some more comments:



The last bit's important - all London studio plans dropped. On side location confirmed.

That's good to have cleared up, on other forums someone from inside BBC sports said it would be presented from the studio in London.

On another topic, Kravitz has been keeping busy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jan/04/new-stars

Don't think he's right about KERS, I thought not every team are using it from the start of the season, isn't Toyota and maybe Ferrari coming in with it half way through? Agree with Ted about Vettel, though.

He's wrong about this bit for sure:-



The weight limit includes the driver....

I have to say Ted's ability to get even simple regualtions like this wrong, makes me wonder about the factual basis of anything he says.

If your driver/car combo can't get down to minimum weight there will be a difference between drivers. See Fisichella v Wurz at Benetton.

And the last few years have shown that the ability to effectively use ballast has been a substantial benefit to the smaller drivers.

It's a worry, I remember him saying nitrogen doesn't expand with heat. Media people are generally much too casual about their facts, but equally confident about it whether they really know or not .

I'm not sure if he that wasn't a short version of writing that being light will probably be an advantage in 2009. To explain it fully he would have to write about minimum weight, KERS weight and positioning of the ballast in the car, and there is no room for that there. But '0.3 per lap' seems to be taken out of his arse, no one, including the teams, knows how it will turn out at the moment.

The .3 statement probably came from 'convential wisdom' of how weight impacts laptime. Whether it's ballast, fuel, or other systems.

It'd be good if they could make the rules so that its fair regardless of the size of the driver - to a certain extent at least.

Whats the maximum likely weight of an F1 Driver? 80kg? They should say there must be at least 80kg of weight in the cockpit (including the driver).

They could just crank up the min F1 weight by a few hundred kilos. It'd kill laptime too.

They have, that's why there is a minimum weight including the driver.

No but they can put the extra ballast wherever they want, which gives lighter drivers a setup advantage.

Not as bad as when the min weight didnt include the driver.

From Charles Sale in the Daily Mail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/...ys-Oakwell.html

"Brundle might walk

Motor racing pundit Martin Brundle (right) is in discussion with the BBC's new Formula One production team as to how his celebrated prerace grid walk from his ITV days can best be revamped next season.

Brundle has his doubts whether the unrehearsed and unscripted interviews will continue to work, especially as the drivers - with other arranged media commitments while on the grid - are becoming increasingly reluctant to chat.

The likelihood is that the Beeb will cherry pick the best races for the Brundle walk."

I suppose I can see Brundles point. He has always had to elbow his way into getting close to drivers and they're quite often already talking to other channels or just not talking at all. Maybe he has just had enough of that. Shame really.. even if he just walked up the grid and talked to a few random people/celebs and pointed a few drivers out, that would be better than nothing.

Few loose ends here, nothing hugely of major relevance, but interesting nethertheless.

*No announcement expected before January 19th.
*Suzi Perry, Jake Humphrey, Adrian Chiles, Gabby Logan and Jonathan Legard were the only people seriously considered for anchor.
*Ted Kravitz's job title will be "F1 analyst" although he'll be based in the pits.
*Terms with Peter Windsor failed.
*Adam Parsons decision to leave BBC News was as a result of not being part of their F1 coverage.

Of all the past/present ITV F1 team, the following people applied for a role within BBC's coverage:
*Martin Brundle
*Ted Kravitz
*Charlie Webster
*Mark Blundell
*Lee McKenzie
*Tony Jardine

Brundle, Kravitz and McKenzie of course are now part of the BBC team, while Webster is now with BBC Look North (I think).

Steve Rider, James Allen and Louise Goodman were never considered and never applied.

Aww, poor Charlie Webster applied and got no where. I look forward to seeing her on QVC in the near future.

Oh and what does 'No announcement expected before January 19th' make reference to?

Two more weeks of BB speculations.

I'd imagine Red Button plans i.e. GP2 etc...

Some teams wanted to raise weight limit, but others (I think BMW) opposed. But that was before KERS turned out to be a lot more of a challenge than everyone expected. I think weight limit will be eventually raised, seems like a non-controversial and easy solution.

F1 will not be broadcast in high definition on the BBC in 2009.

Director of BBC Sport Robert Mosey said “we’d very much like it to be” but HD F1 broadcasts are not available yet.

He also suggested practice sessions will only be available online and ‘via the red button’, and said the BBC is looking into broadcasting GP2 as well.

Mr Mosey has made a series of remarks about the BBC’s plans for F1 coverage on the BBC’s sports blog pages. Here are a few of the major highlights:

The races will be on iPlayer, but precise red button plans are yet to be confirmed.

The idea is that F1’s home will be BBC One, with all qualifying and races live and uninterrupted on that channel. The rest will be online and on the red button.

We’re still working on GP2 and other scheduling details. Clearly, we’ll have a lot of new content from F1 itself – which will start with practice available online on the Friday of a race weekend. Catch-up F1 will later be on iPlayer with highlights on the site.

F1 won’t be available in HD though we’d very much like it to be.

Why are they not available yet? Formula One is being embarassed by much smaller sports. Even darts has HD coverage.

Move on ladies & gents, nothing new to see here ...

IMO Bernie having been born in 1930 has something to do with it

Indeed. No HD and pitiful web presence (unless you count torrents...) for what is supposed to be the premier class of motorsport, is just further proof that Spankie and the Dwarf have gotta go...

F1 having it's own web videos would conflict with most of their TV contracts...

Just get DC to do it. Solved.

Next.

Here's a good example of the multi-feed for Premiere last year, and what we'll be experiencing this year on the BBC (from FP2 last year in Australia).

It gives a good example of how the OnBoard feed can often pick things up before the World feed. See between 05:50 and 07:10 as a good example of this.

Yeah, he knows everyone and the drivers will talk to him.

I wouldn't get your hopes up. I doubt it will be anywhere near as good as that. Even the current BBC Sport interactive isn't that professional or slick. And besides, back when Sky F1 Digital was around it was a nifty feature to watch the onboard and timing screen at first but after a while you just got bored of that and watched the main feed.

Except for Massa.

Everyone knew Martin Brundle. Just because it's Coulthard doesn't mean a driver is going to abandon his pre-race talk with the engineers or break away from that exclusive pre-arranged RTL interview. It makes no difference who it is.. the BBC just need to try and arrange some interview slots.. but the lack of British drivers may restrict their options somewhat.. especially considering Hamilton appears to be a mute pre race.

Even for previous races/seasons? I can understand live feed not happening, but what stops downloads of highlights of races that have gone?
Loss of revenue for season review DVD's, I hear you cry! Well, has Bernie never heard of loss leaders to get more people interested in the product?
Anyhoo, I'm going way off topic here, suffice to say I know that F1 could have a far better presence on the web than it currently does.

Wait... F1.com does offer race highlight. Right here

A two minute flash video where the first 30 seconds are of build up, the last 15 of the podium. Wow, F1 fans are easily satisfied with their lot...

Well personally I don't watch races online, and even if I did it wouldn't change what's happening on track (or the lack of it).

I quite enjoyed a full year of watching F1 in HD via ITV feed on TSN here in Canada.

If I can't watch it in HD this year I'll be pretty pissed and will come to think that the world of F1 really is in trouble. If anything F1 should be the premier sport showcasing technology and HD is it.

We've all said it before. The problem is that I just cannot fathom how there are roadblocks to this. HD has been around for SOME TIME now. I can watch episodes of Two and a Half Men from years ago in HD in syndication but I can't watch a current, worldwide major sporting event in HD?

Whomever is running the show is clearly driving drunk.

TV shows, even from years ago, were often shot HD at the time or were on 35mm film that can be used later (ie Seinfeld reruns)

And you didn't watch F1 in HD last year. Your station may carry HD, your TV may receive it, but it was never broadcast in HD at the source.

HD is a bit overrated imo. Yeah its nice to look at, but it's not going to make the racing better, and trust me once you've seen them switch to a non-HD onboard in the middle of an HD race, you'll never want to see an onboard again.

And all the people (ie the majority) without HD channels or TV's won't enjoy watching a fuzzy or muted HD broadcast on a normal channel.

The HD uptake, worldwide, doesn't really justify F1 doing it, imo. It's so far down the list of changes F1 needs just on the marketing side that it barely registers. It does however come well before having a glittery webpage.

You don't understand broadcasting at all do you?