BBC tries to limit broadcast into UK only, cant tell yet what is available.

It will be online, but if you are outside of the UK it will not be available to you.

it was never that bad. why can't people just get over it? british driver, british team, world championship contender, you can't blame any broadcaster for focusing on one of their home country's drivers, especially if they're fighting for the championship. it popularizes the sport which subsequently brings in viewers. There are more casual viewers than they are hardcore, if it was the contrary I would understand why people would go on and on about it.

Until you see Brazil's love for Massa or Spain's religious worship for Alonso, you no nothing about biased F1 coverage, so please just accept how things are.

Yeah but this is Britain and this is the BBC, they don't have to gasp for the slightest oxygen a British driver brings. They're smart enough to appreciate the sport for what it is.

Screenshots from the Top Gear magazine with an F1 article:

http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/9623/img001o.jpg (see bottom right for website mockup once season underway)
http://img9.imageshack.us/img9/1503/img002w.jpg (see center for website mockup once season underway)
http://img15.imageshack.us/img15/5421/img003pnc.jpg (see bottom left for website mockup once season underway)

for those that were hoping GP2 might be on the BBC............if what i've seen on a website is true, then setanta have it...........as well as DTM possibly...........hope thats wrong on both counts-GP2 (especially on a sunday morning) is pretty useful when it comes to getting an idea of track and weather conditions...........seemingly hardly anyone even has setanta (if anything, they seem to be losing customers and are in deep financial mess) so why they'd want to spend more money on rights that hardly anyone will be able to see is beyond me

How else are they going to attract viewers if they don't acquire broadcast rights?

Bad news though as I can't actually see many subscribing just to watch GP2.

they seem unable to even attract viewers with what they currently have-i dont see many/any people thinking 'i know,i'll subscribe to setanta as they show gp2,i dont care about any of their other channels,but what the heck' and in all honesty alot of subscribers seem to be cancelling,or thinking of cancelling from there

I agree, they appear to be losing viewers at an alarming rate. The majority of people I know that subscribe to any sports channels do so for the football, and everyone that I know only subscribes to Sky Sports. I can't see GP2 attracting anyone either, but you can't blame them for trying to build their port folio.

just a shame for them that basically they'll end up wth practically no subscribers before long (especially when the new premier league deal comes into play)

oh for cryin' out loud. Surely they could've had GP2 for online viewing?

It's cheap ;)
I reckon it must only be a 6 figure sum to show a season of GP2.

Problem for Setanta is for every subscriber GP2 MIGHT get, they will lose a 100 because they lost half their EPL games.
MUPPETS!!!!!!!

Someone used to link ITV stream through proxy to his site and people outside UK could watch it.

the BBC are ALOT (and I mean ALOT) better at stopping that from happening. ITV didn't care, so they didnt try to stop it. The BBC do.

The BBC are a huge amount better at guarding their stream, if you want to watch it use your own coverage as opposed to that which we pay for via our license fee as has been discussed on here already.

Are we going to be able to watch Practice on the Internet like we could last year - legal or not?

not if you're outside the UK no-same goes for every other session

LOL, I notice the BBC site is now running a story about how Bernie thinks Button can win the title. No articles about other drivers possibly winning it, just the quote that highlights Button's chances.

Well, at least the BBC admitted a while back that they would cater for the 'Hamilton Factor'. Problem is, now he is not in a surefire front-running car, they've forgotten about him, and started the hyperbole on Button.

there are no articles because no one of any note has suggested any other driver can win due to the new points system

the same story is everywhere else too, nothing to do with the bbc

True, but the only reason the BBC are running the story is because it specifically hypes up a British driver. If you replaced the name 'Button' with 'Barrichello', the mainstream British press would not acknowledge the quotes.

Thank you..
Leave him alone.....
He's frickin' 16 and working flat out on this season.


LYLT
Jp

A Barrichello story would still be on that site, as it would be on the itv site, the times and autosport. however, bernie very purposefully said button because the mainstream British viewer - the casual viewer - will react to it better, which is the interview's purpose.

otherwise explain why the bbc relate stories on other nationalities in any news media and why they discredit British things in other reports, why they report mclaren are struggling, when that ain't hype.

as i said, nothing to do with the bbc

Thank you Jp.

I imagine the Alonso story will be the lead story on the BBC F1 site tomorrow. The past few days we've had bad news... hopefully good news is around the corner.

in that case, the bbc should get back to making computer monitors, really really big ones, or really really cheap ones. so you can have 20 windows open at a decent size showing each driver and then other ones for main feed, live timing, and forums!

i wonder also what it will do for the commentary, because there's little reason not to feed them with all these feeds, even if small as the booth may be small, and, what with no ads also, they'd never miss any action - well not much. meanwhile us viewers will all become tv directors at home, and possibly become more likely to miss the action because there's so much to watch and get sucked in to (whereas commentators should keep their eye firmly fixed on the mainfeed, only looking away to check who went off or whatever, that they spotted in the corner of the main feed).

heh could be but I already found my way

quite frankly i think you and others are desperately sad if you think you HAVE to watch the british coverage-its available on other websites and probably even on tv in some countries (not just practice,but races too) so you should watch it via tv if its on,and if not,watch it on some other station-either pay the licence fee,or stay away from the BBC feed-luckily this year i can see it on the tv as i live in the UK,but that doesnt mean i think its ok for others to hack the bbc feed just because its british (which is basically the reason people do that,even though they can see the exact same pictures on other sites from other countries)

Schedules confirmed - no Grand Prix Night, and no F1 "specific" shows.

thats a bit poor really, would have expected something F1 related, even if it wasn't over race weekend-maybe next year they'll do a preview show

So no (proper) preview show at all? That is a bit woeful.

Bugger! Looks like I'll have to watch the previews on Dutch and Belgian TV! HeeHee.

Tony.

Even ITV had a preview...

Yeah, but the BBC has Fleetwood Mac.

They have got an hour to fill before qualy so i'd expect some kind of potted "season preview" to be in there. They may well repeat that before the race as well.

It's obvious that the BBC approach is different to ITV's.

They will give more time and effort to the actual races + qualy as you would expect given their historical superiority to ITV in production values in sport in general (IMHO)

As for the re-runs, they will trim them down and show the actual action but not the preamble (or waffle depending on your viewpoint)

I always thought it lazy of ITV to just repeat the race program unedited. We live in age of PVR's and SKY+ so it was completely unecessary and probably done for advertising reasons.

Andy.

Those serious F1 fans of you who are outside the UK but want to access the internet streams should invest in a paid VPN e.g. http://www.vpnuk.info

And I say this as someone who pays the license fee. I don't care if just a few other determined people watch it because the BBC wastes a lot of money already on trashy celebrity/reality TV shows that are just brain rotters.

I am sure the BBC Sport plants on this forum will shoot you down now!

Thank god we still have Brundle and Kravitz. I also like reading James Allen's blog. However, I won't miss Rider or Goodman or Lard Blundell and his incorrect gramer (sic).

Personally, I didn't see what was wrong with F1 on ITV apart from the patriotic bias, and average joe analysis. The BBC have a lot to live up to, and I doubt they will achieve what ITV have done.

And I hope to god that arrogant 1920s throwback Jeremy Clarkson, stays well clear of our sport!

I don't have anything qualms with foreigners tapping BBC feeds either Consider it payment for the Spanish live timing websites during testing, and the people that translate them for us

Constant interruptions by adverts. If the BBC do nothing else but show the races uninterrupted then they are 100% better than ITV.

I will be very surprised if that is the case. I always thought the onboard feed was decided by the director and they only carried one.

they don't need to use the BBC feed though-no doubt in some countries,practice/quali/races will be on tv in their country anyway,so watch it on that,alot of countries take the british commentary anyway,and the pictures are exactly the same during the sessions-quite what the obsession is with trying to use the british feed and only the british feed is beyond me,its not like it'll be any different to any other-as far as im concerned,if they dont pay the licence fee,they can go and watch it somewhere else-i've no interest in paying the licence fee and letting some random foreigners be able to see it for free,either they pay the licence fee and live over here,or they watch it some other way-harsh perhaps,but thats my opinion

I'm not interested in PREVIEWS, they usually tell us nothing. Let's go racing!!! No more waffle.

I agree preview shows aren't generally that good anyway, but I'm surprised there isn't going to be one, given the Beeb just got the sport back.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport...kes/4805050.stm

I know this isn't "The BBC MotoGP Coverage Thread", but it appears BBC will be screening "Grand Prix Zero" behind the Red Button.

Bullcrap.

Fact.

Fact

Fact.

We get 15 minutes more race footage this year, that sounds 100% better to me.

That's per race. Times that by 17, and you get 255 more minutes of action... so we are basically getting nearly 3 whole races back... nearly 3 whole races were eaten by commercials.

And like the previous 17 events, nothing happened in those 3 either.

fact is we don't have to put up with adverts (especially as most are utter trash) so we get plenty more time to watch racing, we dont have to miss anything lke has happened in the past, we wont have any more blunders such as the imola 2005 race,monza in particular we get to see alot more of the race itself (given it barely lasts 75mins,losing best part of 15mins is bloody annoying) so personally i'd say no adverts does automatically improve my experience of grand prix sundays (lets face it, who wants to watch 15mins of ads telling us about car insurance, toilet cleaner, and a new flavour of pop while we miss the race,as even if you don't miss anything major,you're still missing the race anyway)

You might have a point if all of the races were universally interesting from go to whoa.

But they're not, and you don't.