did anyone actually watch itv4 yesterday?

Not a fan of Lee Mac, but then I would prefer a wooden plank to Louise Goodman so she's definitely a step ahead of what was on ITV.

Lee McKenzie has an extensive motorsport background too, but then anyone happy to refer to her as "this new bird" is probably unlikely to care about that.

If a driver was in an evil mood, he could have answered Louise Goodman's questions in one word. All of them were "closed" (e.g. "did you see Hotshoe when you turned on him?"). Mackenzie's at least seem to be open ("why did you turn in?").

The problem is whether it's Goodman, McKenzie, etc, et al; is they're usually just PR people given a live microphone. Granted nearly everyone in motorsport broadcasting started out as a propagandist but the female members of the contingent seem particularly bad.

For some reason it's never bothered me in coverage of American racing, probably because the entire broadcast is geared towards stroking the sponsors rather than any proper reporting.

Just returned from Oz and have just watched Malaysian GP highlights from the BBC so not much to comment on thus far. My early impressions are:

1. All very very good except for Eddie Jordan. Over the winter I backed him to be a good pundit, but I take that back. The guy is a tool living in the past. Can he complete a sentence without refering to Jordan???

2. Not happy that the BBC don't properly cover the press conferences.

3. Jake H is very good, as is Ted, DC and commentary team. Not easy to cover an abandoned race with no script for over an hour (in live time).

Presumably they can't afford her but VBH would be the obvious replacement. Probably more likely to try for TPT though...

But I'd fancy seeing a Top Gear special with JC, JM, RH take on VBH, DC, AD, JH take on JB, LH in one massive star in a reasonably priced car 10 lap race

I watched Melbourne on TF1 in France so Malaysia was the first time I'd had a chance to see the BBC's coverage.

My impressions were:

1) Jake Humphries: He's an acquired taste. He has a slightly curious and forced style of presentation, certainly more jarring than an old pro like Steve Ryder. I did get used to him by the end of Sunday however. I was surprised by his dress. Black formal trousers and business shirts looked quite out of place in the Formula One pitlane. He was kind of like a city boy who'd cast off his jacket and tie.

2) More is sometimes less: No ads meant the BBC has massive of airtime to fill, particularly in their show leading up to qualifying. I felt that ITV would have heaps of interesting taped features and interviews to make their pre-shows filled with pace and constantly interesting. Instead I found the BBC relied way too much on talking heads. I consider myself a pretty avid fan of F1 but found myself bored after nearly an hour of Humphries, Coulthard and Jordan talking almost endlessly. ITV's key was to make sure comments from pundits were concise. Many times Jordan's answers went on for two minutes or more. Crazy. More airtime doens't always make for better TV, and in this case I found the BBC's coverage quite dull and was actually missing the ad break so I could leave the TV for a bit. A rule of TV should be that interviews and taped items should run as long as they remain interesting. The BBC didn't abide by this rule, on Saturday at least.

3) Techically sloppy. I thought the way the BBC's coverage was shot and edited was really quite average. Jordan's interview with Bernie appeared to be a one camera shoot which remained in the same two shot throughout. Dull. And when the Humphries and the two pundits were shot with two cameras, the wideshot would often be fouled by a member of the tight shot crew standing in the way or not being framed out. And often the director would cut to the tight shot camera before it had finished composing its shot. Sloppy. And you'd never have seen that on the ITV. Also, I found the way the BBC's taped items were shot and edited very dull. Take Saturday's BMW feature. Walking two shots up the edge of a lake? God, it isn't the 1980s anymore. Also shots would run very long. I just felt they lacked pace. Also, in its Hamilton penalty story the BBC repeated shots, sometimes up to five times. I can understand the multiple use of pivotal incidents such as the Hamilton-Truilli overtake. But to use the same shot of Davey Ryan five or six times? Or the same shot of Lewis and his Dad walking through the paddock? That's breaking one of the cardinal rules of television, and not even treating the shot with a black and white hue can disguise that. Just seems lazy to me.

4) Flexible time table and format: This I did like, and it really came into its own during the Malaysia rain. I found the BBC were quite fluid in their coverage depending on the unusual circumstances. This I liked.

5) Jonathan Legard: I thought he was great. Didn't get it right every time but was able to sustain the peaks and troughs of the race drama in an unobtrusive way. Probably isn't as much of an anorak as James Allen but doesn't need to be because he has real presence.

6) David Coulthard: An excellent addition. Articulate, concise and able to ask intelligent questions.

It was a shame they didn't do the forum yesterday, but they'd struggled through the red flag situation really quite well and didn't they overrun on BBC1 anyway? It would have been nice to see what Brundle had to say about the day anyway. It's still all a huge improvement on what ITV were able to offer anyway. You just know we'd have come back from a break to be told that the race had been red-flagged too.

I wonder how many acoustic rock songs they have ready for the end of show montages or will they have to branch out as the season progresses?

7. Less is more on the music-with-features button.

i've noticed this as well. does anyone know the background?

btw, dc and ted are great!

Jake Humphrey for me is the best bit about the new coverage, his style is such a welcome relief from the stiff, forced fawning of Rider.

If they could just get rid of Jordan, I dunno, replace him with another Eddie (Irvine), or hell maybe even Anthony Davidson, it would be much better. You need a bit of banter, someone for Coulthard to bounce off of. He doesn't have that at the moment.

Jake in that setup would be the perfect foil, basically the layman to the two experts.

Jordan is just a mess, zero charisma, zero presence, and he just looks completely awkward. He has absolutely no gravitas either. Just based on observing him in public I'm surprised he's achieved much success in life. He doesn't strike me as someone that is terribly impressive and I can't imagine how others would find him so either.

Maybe that's why he's on TV now and not running a business or a team.

Button, Button and Coulthard are good mates: they've been parking their mobile homes next to each other for years, and of course live just up the road from each other. It was just a private joke.

I agree 110% aside for Irvine. Listening to Ant and Croft is very good. I hope the Legard Brundle relations ship gets better...

Brundle looking at the Toyota Diffusers was brilliant...

Irvine and Coulthard sparring every two weeks would be enough for me. You wouldn't even need to watch the race.

I can't believe we're watching the same broadcast!

Eddie Jordan may be many things but he's certainly not lacking in charisma.

I don't understand how you can say Jonathan Legard is good!! I personally think he is the worst thing about the BBC's coverage of F1. On Sunday he came out with a load of cringe worthy moments which to me highlighted how crap he is. You can tell that Brundle views with him complete disdain and will regularly talk over him to stop us being subjected to his uninformed commentary.

One particular moment (which made me flick to the 5 live commentary) was when he started screaming about Alonso getting overtaken when in fact it was just a replay of some action that had occurred a couple of minutes earlier- even the cynial Murray Walker was more swithced on than that! It was also laughable that he thought the best method for gauging the weather was based upon his proprietary method of looking at the crowd to see if any umbrella's were being opened, its not as if the technical expertise from the teams and the onboard camera shots aren't good enough!?

I am hoping he improves as he learns more about the sport, but I fear it will take him at least a couple of seasons until his knowledge is sufficient to interest anyone with what he has to say. I don’t know why the BBC didn’t promote David Croft from 5 Live, he has had experience doing television for the GP2 series.

I agree that he missed the ball a couple of times.

But I thought he carried the peaks and troughs of the day's drama very well.

He often talked under the action rather than screaming at it.

Early days, but I found him very unobtrusive.

Well there's absolutely no sign of it, perhaps it all went in one ear and out the other. In FP1 for Oz she quoted some ridiculous stat that anyone with half a brain and some common sense would laugh at. Crofty quickly corrected her.

I find Leggard shouts a bit and shouts over Brundle on some occasions.

I would prefer this too but apparently Brundle vetoed him. No idea why. I bet he regrets that now.

Is it possible to get radio 5 commentary after selecting the onboard camera? I only get a 'no commentary' (only engine noise) and Brundle Legard option.

Obi

Brundle was back on top form for the grid walk with his cheeky chappy questions to Whitmarsh etc.

Pretty impressive list of signatories!

I think he is, when he talks it's embarrassing, you actually feel like you should be blushing. You don't want to listen to the guy, you don't want to see the guy twitching like a suffocated rat. You simply (or me at least) am not in anyway drawn to the guy.

That's what charisma is, it's something intangible that draws your attention to someone. Jordan actually repulses attention. Which is why he goes so OTT to get more of it, I think.

I'm a big fan of the guy. Great one-liners. Bags of experience. Has been there, started a team and ran it to the point where it won races and challenged for championships. I can't think of many people more credible than him to talk about the inner workings of a team, so I'll listen every time.

Legard has a tendency to say things like "Button has just set the fastest first sector time" half way through the race. For me, raceday is not about pointing out purple sector times just because you have nothing else to say. It's the type of thing radio commentators do to help people who cannot see things for themselves. If you have pictures to accompany your commentary, you should be able to improvise a bit more rather than rely on pointing out purple sector times on a live timing screen. The only people who are interested in that type of thing are the hardcore fans like us - and we have the live timing webpage open during the race anyway, so we don't need it explained.

Funny you should mention being corrected as I am about to correct you too because in Australia during the FP sessions it was actually the dreadful Holly Samos, not L.M, at the helm.

What are the differences between the Freeview and Freesat F1 coverage?

Is it worth to get a Freesat just to improve the F1 experience?

LOL what a great read that petiton was...who on earth is 'Hot Karl' I thought a 'Hot karl' was somthing quite vile...

I got a question through on-line to Eddie Irvine last year (when he was taking part in a Virgin media F1 Fantasy league) and asked him about his 'sparring' with DC over the years. He said that it was all 'tounge in cheek' and that he had just had a drink with DC that very weekend in Monaco.
It would be good to have them both though and lets face it ANYONE would be better than Eddie Jordan

My thoughts following the second race weekend have changed just a little, but not completely.

I'm now of the mind that the best option would be to pair Jake with EJ and ditch DC. DC is the star though, so they won't ditch him this season. When Jake got EJ talking on a good subject EJ was actually quite informative and engaging. The only niggle I have (apart from what I will mention below) is when he starts giving DC a bit of stick. That grated again. It's supposed to be an entertaining TV broadcast not a verbal wrestling match.

The one major problem with EJ this weekend was his "interview" of Bernie Ecclestone. I was so embarrassed for EJ, his interview "technique" was seat-shufflingly uncomfortable.

As for the other guys, Ted was brilliant as ever. Lee McKenzie is a boring interviewer and no personality comes across. BBC made a huge f*ck up in not hiring Louise Goodman. She had an excellent rapport with the drivers and her obvious enthusiasm always came across when talking to them.

Brundle seems to have settled in fast and well and his gridwalk was one of the best he's ever done. His commentary remains top drawer stuff.

As for Legard...



I need add little more to that. The stuff that Legard comes out with is basically what I am sitting saying back at the screen myself !! It's so obvious and is all based completely on what we are seeing ourselves. This is a clear carryover from his radio days, where the point was to say exactly what he was seeing on screen. He makes no attempt to give updates on any non-screen aspects of the race and to be honest he really doesn't instill much confidence that he knows what's going on beyond that moment on the screen at that time.

Can I ask (BradleyL, you may know the answer to this) is Mark Hughes still providing updates/information etc to the commentary team? If not, is anyone doing it? My gut feeling is that nobody is, because the commentary all seems to be set in the moment and has no wider perspective.

Another point...



Well said (although I disagree about Goodman). Did anyone else watch the Indycar on Sky Sports Extra on Sunday night? The original feed is now on 'Versus' in America and despite being a long long fan of US racing I don't recall a time I laughed/despaired so much at the constant references to sponsors. Virtually every on screen graphic was tied to a sponsor, and it got annoying hearing the commentators constantly making references to stuff like "...take a look at the Sponsor X Position Indicator at the top of your screen" and "Let's watch the Sponsor X Replay" and "The Sponsor X Pitcrew Of The Day is blah blah" etc etc etc into infinity. It was rather annoying.

Those slating the BBC over the licence fee should take heed and be glad that they don't have to listen to shit like this during what should be an impartial commentary for 2 hours.

And to those bemoaning the lack of fan forum this week: Jake, EJ and the woeful DC did do a decent job of keeping the show going during a very difficult hour or so after the race was red flagged. Filling up 1 hour of tv without a script and with little advance warning of what to do or who to speak to next cannot be easy. Credit where credit is due. That said, did anyone really expect or even want another hour of them talking amongst themselves and talking to the same few drivers who bothered to hang around about the exact same topics?

They wont run out, they're all from Radio 1's live lounge (for instance Franz Ferdinand performed there today) so they have years of them including some absolute corkers like last weeks version of 'Times Like These' by the Foo's.

Are you sure the Foo's is from Radio1?

I thought it was from the video that has been on Virgin Media's Music On Demand for the past year?

I'm sure they've performed Times Like These Accoustically many many times but I had that particular version on my old PC so....

I'm not bradleyl, but my understand is that Mark Hughes is BBC's Commentary Box Producer.

I agree on the point about the EJ/Bernie interview, that was quite frankly cringeworthy. Only one camera made it worse as well. I'd have prefer Jake to be asking Bernie the questions, the tough questions to get good answers out of him.

Louise was good, i agree she does get in there with the drivers, esp Johnny Herbert!

Lee McKenzie is a nice piece and things will improve as she gets to know the drivers better, show a bit of cleaverage, nice short skirt.

Really? I could never stand her, she never asks a question (which she continued on Sunday at the BTCC btw) just makes a statement from which the drivers were expected to extract a question from somewhere within.

open ended questioning, it never worked though, drivers just towing the corperate line. Coulthard still seems to be doing that when he's talking on the telly. No need, he should be slagging them all off and giving them a hard time under the protection of the BBC.

Legard sucks ass. I never thought I'd say this but, I miss James Allen.

My updated thoughts.

1 - Radio 5 audio missing on onboard cam, I watched the last race with onboard and I had a choice between CBBC/TV and onboard audio only, there was no option to listen to radio 5 audio, is this the norm? if thats the case I am very dissapointed, why only make radio 5 audio an option on the worldfeed?

2 - Lee McKenzie is defenitly not as good as Louise in terms of interview techniques and she needs to improve, yes she was active in free practice but on race day she is almost non existant, what does she do during the race and qualifying just one long coffee break? also she has a severe lack of camera time I didnt see her on screen live this past weekend.

3 - Not doing the forum, big big mistake.

4 - I think the bbc should have less buildup to the race, 20 minutes maybe 30 max, and then run the show for longer after the race is finished, then they wont be pressured to cut off the PC etc. and be able to talk about the actual race in more detail afterwards.

5 - That bernie interview wasnt worth airing, the answers were short and evasive, as close to one worded answers as can get.

Right now whats saving bbc is brundle, the lack of adverts during race, onboard option and the forum feature. The general presenting is below itv standards.

The token female reporter - why? Just why?

Yes that is a good point. Drivers retire and we hear no more of it or we see the world feed showing them buying ice creams. For any faults people perceive Louise to have had, at least she always got her man within minutes of his retirement.



Not wanting to put you on the spot (much!) but as you are the latest person to say this, please tell us in all honesty what could possibly have been gained from running a further one hour live show after the main show ended? The final hour of the main show was the presenting team discussing the same few subjects over and over again, with Jake Humphrey's even conceding that he knew viewers would prefer to be watching action than listening to them waffling on endlessly. They'd caught up with all of the top drivers that had got out of their cars, they'd used the world feed to show other stuff such as Raikkonen's self-retirement ice-cream antics, they'd interviewed key team personnel from Ferrari, Williams, Red Bull and more. They all kept saying the same stuff over and over and over and over and over again. On top of all that they had also replayed into infinity every interesting peice of action from the one hour of racing there had been. So having said all that, do you seriously think they could justify the exact same thing for another hour just so they could read out maybe three emails on air?



Which was purely down to Jordan. The moment I spotted him clutching a fistful of interview notes I knew it wasn't going to be good, and EJ didn't disappoint in that respect. There was one particular question he asked and got his answer from Bernie and EJ just looked at his shoes and said something like "Hmmm.........quite...........okay". A few more seconds of silence and on to the next question. The only thing as bad as this so far was DC "interrogating" Ross Brawn in Australia.



I'm sad to say that I agree almost all of that is true.

I still think they should give it a couple of more races and then make any necessary changes. I do think EJ is better as a presenter than in Oz, but not in that Bernie interview. Man, people up and down the land must have been in tears watching that. It was so bad I actually think the BBC should have scrapped it without broadcasting it. It really was that diabolical.

2) whether shes on camera or not is irrelevant, i'd rather see the drivers when she talks to them

3) they had no reason to do the forum after spending over an hour talking during/after the red flag anyway, there was nothing to be gained from doing it

4) 20mins build up is most certainly too short,30-45mins as a minimum

wouldn't say the general presenting is below ITV standards,jake is certainly better than rider so far other than a couple of mistakes, but hes only done 2 races and will get even better, EJ is an ass, DC isn't that bad, ted in malaysia in particular was very good, lee wasn't heard from as much but so be it

I think the camera shot should be on her abit more than it is, we all know what the drivers look like now anyway, she's got a nice pretty face. I would like to see her hogging the show abit more too.

Brundle is as good as ever, Legard is so much better than james allen, much less irritating and he, like Lee, will improve with each weekend.

I thought the interview with Bernie was a bit of a waste of time but hes a rubbish person to interview any, nobody interviews him well. It would have been better if EJ had been a bit less informal with him, coz Bernie is constantly taking the piss, and just had a bit of irish type banter with him instead, talking about the good o' days or something.

Hmmm, Vol II Disc 2 - Arctic Monkeys - "You Know I'm No Good" (originally by Amy Winehouse)

Save that for a race when Piquet has a shock win...

Vol I Arctic Monkeys - Love Machine to be used when Kimi wins ;)

You're right there, but not solely EJ's fault, BE just delights in being evasive and answering questions with smart-alec replies. I've never seen an interview with him where he was open and frank. Perhaps that could happen if he retired, but he's already said he'll retire when they carry him out of his office in a coffin so that's hardly likely.

The 50 minutes while they were waiting was a waste of time though, would have been more interesting to watch some archive highlights say of wet F1 races, and just pop back to the live team occasionally. Not as though anything was going to happen at Sepang.

Vol I Orson - "Push the Button" (originally by Sugababes)

For the first KERS equipped victory.

Or they could go to the Established 1967 album with "You're All I Need to Get By" covered by Mark Ronson.

The Bravery - "An Honest Mistake" Ferrari's next performance.