subjective quality

key word

He may have a contract but any organisation can move someone into a different role.

BBC is not the ITV, they are a public sector organisation, you can't compare the two.

Here is my complaint just filed:



Get yours in here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/complaints/complaints_stage1.shtml

Your complaint was going ok until you said bring back James Allen

People are just frustrated because it actually was more enjoyable with James Allen.

jesus, that makes me sound like a two year old. I just told him he is horrible and to get rid of him and replace him.

He's OK Legard not too bad but he wont go down in history like Murray Walker and be part of F1.
The only thing I actually don't like specifically is his broken sentences, he doesn't connect all his words properly.
e.g. '......Alonso 4th.......driving well......wants to win............' or '.....rain coming down..............still raining........vettel leading............big question what'll happen..........driving on......there he goes'

Its like he can't say 'it's' or 'the' or 'is' or 'and'


Only a minor observation really its just not a flowing commentary like Murray Walker, I mean Murray made many mistakes but for the right reasons because he was following the drama with passion and excitement and then contributing to the drama with surprising charisma for an old fuddy-duddy. There was a nerdy presence with James Allen and is a kind of neutral deactivated ambiance with Legard.

The Beeb are doing well though overall.

Other than the fact that Legard is total crap, he is also very very dull...no passion, apart from the very end when the winner passes the finish line, and I get the feeling that was forced for the benifit of the news clips.

No it wasn't - not for me anyway

And judging by the fact that the BBC chose to bring over Brundle but left Allen it appears many others felt the same

Many weekends he almost completely spoiled the races for me

Believe me mate, I was quite happen when I heard Allen wasnt moving across, but now I've heard his replacement and he's really bad.

I'd be curious to see if the BBC can capture and release the number of viewers who switch over to the 5 Live commentary team on the red button.

Why are you guys surprised? The BBC had it's own people and they went to the front of the line.

OK, so what's the solution? A driver pairing?

Problem is the BBC or ITV wouldn't have that because they feel they need someone to dumb it down


Having said that, on the excellent F1 Forum on digital they have Coulthard, Brundle and Gascoyne, with that beanpole bloke teeing them up and it's working nicely

Same for me. A former James Allen hater who now has a hard on for him! If I can be converted then this shows how bad Luddard is.

Why are you surprised? You think we should just put up with him and say nothing?

I tried warning you guys about high expectations...

Someone should count how many "good stuff's" Brundle spits out during a GP. 1, 2, 3... 237, 238...

Well, I can't believe how little people are saying how good the coverage has been. 4 hours of coverage for those who had a red butten. Awesome. As a package it is better than when the pay for view Sky effort a few years ago.

There were some very good moments from the coverage such as the DC interview with the Red Bull drivers and Gascoyne was very good especially why he said he wasn't wearing a jacket.

Personally, I like the Radio 5 coverage but to have a choice is brilliant.

Geoff

Yes, you did. And as everything you say is of massive importance, and one would almost say definitive, we all listened. Somehow Legard and Jordan have been even worse than our lowered expectations, although talk of bringing back James Allen is frankly insane.

The only thing that has suprised me more than just how dumbed down and stillted the BBC coverage is, is that you manage to sound more cynical and world-weary with the rest of us than ever, and yet you still come here.

Mr ******* Superior

What did you expect us to do with your 'warnings'?

I guess for some of us, too much of the content other than the race is GUFF, just as it was with ITV, and it is irksome that Brundle is alongside somebody who is just not good enough, just as with ITV.

BBC are doing a better job, but then ITV did not set the bar very high apart from Brundle.

Legard has to go, he is a joke

He would be great reading the news or commentating on a state funeral for a member of the royal family but listening to him commentate is about as exciting as Kimi Raikkonen reciting Shakespeare

I would willingly see Allen back, he was 10 times better than senile old fart Murray and 100 times more exciting than Legard, yes he could be a bit over the top but least he had passion, Legard has none

Seeing as the only proven really classy F1 commentator around is Brundle, why do people think solutions other than giving the job to him, such as bringing James Allen back, will fix anything?

To be fair, i would get loads of excitement watching Kimi Raikkonen read shakespeare, in fact, id probably pay to see this haha.

tobeornottobethat.....isthequestionforsure

Race 3 comments, and hopefully I will cover everything:

Presenting team

They were much much better this week it must be said, I really enjoyed watching them. Jake seems to be more settled and anchors the show well. A good solid professional job he did today. It must be said that EJ's absence probably helped, as he wasn't being interrupted constantly. And boy was EJ not missed. For God's sake, if the BBC are reading the comments on this forum please pay attention to what people are telling you. Over his first two appearances the guy has turned out to be a liability as he is frankly ruining the show. DC was much more relaxed this weekend, especially today. He seems to have loosened up a lot. I think I may have been too harsh on him over the first two weekends as in hindsight I don't for a minute think he had an easy time doing a few hours of live TV before an audience of millions for the first time in his life. It's not the same as being interviewed on the grid before a race. And DC worked much better without EJ. Gascoyne was entertaining but he could have been used a lot more to be honest. Jake kept going to DC, even though Mike kept moving the microphone to his mouth in readiness to offer something. Overall a good improvement. Hopefully now it has been seen what a success this can be without EJ something will be done about it.

Commentary - Legard and Brundle still aren't gelling and it's getting to be a worry. Brundle has changed nothing about his excellent style and delivery so I am afraid the blame rests with Legard, for all the reasons stated above by others. I don't see the relationship lasting into 2010. My only fear is that it'll be Martin who gets the hump and quits, rather than Legard not being invited back. We already know Martin had all but decided to give up commentary with the end of ITV's coverage. If he has a year of being in a bad mood working with a guy he knows it just isn't working with then he may decide it's time to go and do something else.

Support team

I don't know what has happened this year but Ted is absolutely in the best form he's ever been in! Everytime they switch to Ted I have a Father Dougal "Ted!" moment in my head (can't be bothered to explain that for people outside of the UK) as I'm genuinely pleased to really hear everything he has to say. A pity he was missing from the Forum this week.

As regards Lee McKenzie, may I ask exactly why the BBC licence fee is paying for her travel and accomodation costs, as well as her no doubt enviable salary, to do absolutely nothing during the race, then chat to about two people after the race? Her presence is simply unjustifiable. If she is running up and down the pitlane during the race then why aren't we seeing that? Why aren't we hearing her talking to people? Where are the live interviews with drivers who have retired? If they just want someone to talk to a token couple of drivers when the race is finished then Ted could do that. He's in the pitlane anyway. I know people waffle on about the licence fee and really not even £0.01p of my own licence per year goes to her, but in this instance she really is a prime example of a BBC cost not being justified. Other than that I can't possibly comment on her performance, as we never bloody see her.

Interactive content

During the race I am finding this largely pointless. That isn't the BBC's fault (or at least I don't think it is) but I'm simply not using the options available. The only real extra option you have is whether or not you want to see an onboard shot in a large or small window. I used the large window quite a few times during the first two races and swiftly came to the conclusion that the director of the main feed switches to onboard whenever something interesting happens. If nothing interesting is happening he shows on-track action. So many times with the onboard feed you find the director has gone onboard anyway. It's really nothing more than a novelty feature now. There is a reason why the main feed is the main feed I guess. What I don't know is if there are further options available but we aren't getting them? I assume FOM still has cameras in the pits, alternative cameras around the track, more onboard options (i.e. choose a driver) but we aren't getting these options on BBC.

Forum

I'm finding this is not really essential viewing, it's more of a nice little coda that fills the void where the ITV show used to end abruptly far too many times with unresolved business. The reason it's not essential viewing for me is that there is simply too much talking about the same few subjects. I'm finding it a good opportunity to go and grab a bite to eat and a coffee that I've been waiting for for the last two hours, while the sound of some F1 related noise filters into the kitchen. 30 minutes into today's forum and the same three guys were still talking at length about Vettel. Yes he won and that was great, but let's hear about (and from) other drivers and teams. They need to get some drivers involved, get some team members involved. Get Ted involved. Ted works his arse off getting information from the pits for us, but he only gets mere seconds to deliver that information during the race. It would be nice to hear more from Ted about what was going on in the pits during the race. It's quite daft that it's called a "forum" anyway, because there's pretty much just the same three presenters talking amongst themselves. Not exactly a convention featuring the greatest minds of our time. A continued thanks to the BBC for providing the forum, but there is a heck of a lot of scope (and needless talking time between the same three people) to provide big improvements to the issues being discussed and who is discussing them.

General interactive stuff

I'm more and more impressed with the amount of stuff available on non-GP days. BBC definitely need to keep that up. It's nice to be able to tap the red button on many days of the week and find random features here and there, even if they are just a few minutes long. I would even ask for more of this stuff, as the Sports Multiscreen does disappear sometimes from BBCi. I'm sure the audience is there if you provide the content.




Overall I'm starting to be enjoying the coverage a lot more but I'm still hopeful that things will pick up a lot more as the season goes in. Today really went very well apart from Legard still clearly being the oil to Martin's water, but next weekend when EJ returns I suspect things may go downhill again. Let's see if Jake can control the show like he did this weekend with motormouth butting in all the time. Let's see if DC puts that plank of wood down the back of his shirt again when EJ is in his presence. If they don't work well together again in Bahrain, and Legard and Martin are still having problems then people will be posting the same comments again here and writing complaints to the BBC. Contracts or not, if the team of people they have got are going to screw up one of the BBC's highest rated shows then they will have to take some form of action.

For the record BBC's 4th most highest rated show over Easter (Robin Hood) gleaned 5.3 million viewers (Source #1) , the Malaysian GP had 5.2 million viewers (Source #2) which was during an early morning broadcast and not on a holiday weekend. Don't think the BBC will not be taking any criticisms and potential audience loss seriously.

Source #1 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7995726.stm

Source #2 http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/2009/04/06/bbc-...o-races-of-2009

I think I may have the solution to this big problem.

Legard is under contract, so it's understandable if the BBC say they can't get rid of him. But what they could do is to swop him with Ted Krativz. Ted would probably be nearly as good as James Allen was, whilst Legard would probably be competent enough as a pitlane reporter, and at least we would hardly ever hear from him anyway.

What do you think rolf?

What Legard needs now is a shot in the arm, as that would be a real shot in the arm for him.

At the first racwe whwen Ted reported one of the cars was out with a drivetrain problem Legard said "Martin, problem with the driiiiive..."

I wouldnt let him near the pitlane he'd probably get run over by a scooter.

Btw, Anthony Davidson had be laughing out loud this morning when Kubica drove up the back of Trulli.

"it looks like Kubica's mating with the Toyota"

That's a great idea I hadn't thought of!

I missed that bit, what did he say?

said he didn't wear a jacket, because he want to feel for himself exactly what the conditions were - as a technical director.

Thanks, I'm not saying it's a perfect solution but it would get us over the immediate crisis.

I'm not 'feeling' Legard either, unfortunately.
Half his comments are phrased like questions, and I just don't like his delivery. I guess it really is a case of 'the grass is greener on the other side', because I do find myself wanting JA back from time to time.

I'm impressed with the BBC coverage. I'm in Belgium though, so no "red button", just BBC2, and I can't compare with ITV as we never got that one. Very happy with what we are given, though. Gascoyne seems much, much better to have besides DC compared to Eddie Jordan. I would like BBC to ditch Jordan for him, but not gonna happen I suppose.

Legard needs to reduce the number of words and inject a bit of excitement into it. I always stuck up for James Allen because unlike most people the only bit I found that annoyed me was the very forced and catch phrase type "Go go go" at the start. Legard's last two laps today I did find annoying though, talking for the sake of it.

I always think the commentators do a great job on the Tour De France, they have to do it for hours and hours and then in the last few miles have to contend with the excitement really ramping up and they seem to judge how much to say and what about to perfection. Just looked it up, Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwin as the Brundle type person. Wonder if Phil likes motor racing?? He's very good indeed at his job.

Regards

Andy

If i'm honest, when it was on ITV i used to watch the Pre-Race and Post-Race stuff, and as annoying as it was that it was nearly all Pro-Hamilton and little on the rest; there was still something about it that seemed a bit better than the BBC stuff. I can't quite place anything on it, but after watching the Australian GP build-up i've not bothered with the other two as i really didn't like it.

Not keen on Legard either, but the option to have 5Live is superb. Would be nice to see how Croft could get on doing the BBC1 stuff though.

I don't mind Legard at all.

He is the commentator, Brundle is the comments man, and there's a big difference.

I find Legard's style very commanding. His voice carries the peaks and troughs of the race drama really well.

And above all, Legard is a natural. He doesn't sound forced like Allen used to.

And I still think the pre-show is way too long.

An hour, without ads, is an eternity to try and make interesting on television and the BBC are failing IMO.

They rely far too much on their pundits, and I really get the feel that by halfway through the season Jake Humphries will have exhausted all his small talk and it will really get old.

And I disagree that ITV set the bar low.

Take James Allen and the ads out of the equation and their show was really slick.

Remember that ITV used to go to the factories and race tracks and actually shoot interesting features?

There are way, way too many talking heads on the BBC's build up, and then when you want to actually hear from a driver who has retired there's nothing.

6/10 for the BBC in China. Highlight was the DC and Martin gridwalk.

Just a quick note... from Europe the programme will be starting at ten past the hour (12:10).

Brundle evolved into a main commentator (he wasn't like that when he started with Murray) and not just a Jonathan Palmer-type.

You can't put to main guys together. This is what BBC have done. What a mistake. No wonder they keep interrupting each other. Australia qualifying was a complete disaster and perfect example of this.

Things have improved since but there's only so much you can do.

I say sack Luddard, he's a radio man and not a TV man.

"There it is" and stupid radio language like that.

I'd rather have this than any "allenisms".."easy peasy chocolate squeezy"

I agree with that and it's because they don't have any interesting features, interesting to either the hardcore or casual fan if you ask me.

Legard is pretty boring, but hes better than James Allen, they should get Davidson and Brundell tho

Normally the main commentators aka. play-by-play commentators shouts "Go, go, go!"

Play-By-Play Commentators
- Jonathan Legard
- James Allen
- Ben Edwards
- David Croft
- Murray Walker

Color Commentators
- Martin Brundle
- John Watson
- Anthony Davidson
- James Hunt

If Legard was dropped the only person I could see coming up is David Croft. Given his relationship with Brundle (rumoured), that's a no. Edwards and Walker are no no's for obvious. Allen is not contracted with the BBC, like it or don't. You can't put two of the "same" together... it doesn't work.

BTW, for those that don't like the hour build-up, there is nothing stopping you just watching from say twenty-to the hour.

Legard (or Laggard as the boys behind the scenes have dubbed him) is so woeful it's funny! At first he annoyed me but now it's such a giggle to hear him commentating radio style on the TV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bL8acgLXxTg

Do we actually know for sure if Ben Edwards turned down a firm offer for F1 so that he could cover BTCC and A1GP?
If he did then I fear for his sanity.

That retarded "chocolate squeezy" comment was made sometime early on in the 2002 season; Allen's first full year in the job. I totally admit that he was awful back then, and in 2003 and pretty bad in 2004. But by 2005 he had improved massively and by 2007 he was a top-quality commentator IMO. How many times did he say stupid things like "rock and rollll" in the last few years?? None. The last time he said something really stupid was the "I told ya!" thing in the 2005 European GP. People need to accept that the annoying Allenisms were all in the early couple of years... he was fine after that.

My understanding is that several people applied for the job for the commentating role, one of them was Edwards. At this point I'll note Allen did not apply for the job, nor was he considered.

Edwards was a candidate, but its understood that he refused to give up his other commitments, for instance BTCC and A1GP, and therefore was not given the commentating job. If he did choose to give up his commitments, chances are the Beeb would have definitely got Edwards onboard, but unfortunately Edwards chose otherwise.

BTW, if we are to compare Legard with Allen, we should really compare Legard's performances now with Allen's performances early in his TV commentating career. Period.

Then surely it's fair to give Ledgard the same slack? After all we know he comes from a radio background it just needs time for him to adjust to TV. I think today was his best commentary so far.

I have to admit I thought there was some animosity between the two (Ledgard and Brundle) when the first quali started in Australia but slowly and surely they are gelling as a team.