I have recieved word from an "inside source" on another forum, that the following has been done regarding BBC's Formula One coverage, which is due to start next March.

According to the "inside source":
*The programme editor started work yesterday (Monday), therefore progress is expected to begin to move fast. The programme editor does not currently work for ITV with North One, but, according to the source, the person has previously worked in TV motorsport including F1, and who has worked for Sky, ITV and the BBC.
*BBC are down to a final shortlist for reporters and commentators. They informed the eliminated participants late last week. This ties in with this announcement by Martin Haven that he will not be a commentator.
*BBC have agreed terms with an ex-Formula One driver to play a role in the show. The "inside source" says he will either be a co-commentator or working in the studio in London.
*The key words in the above point is "working in the studio in London" - that suggests the presenter and pundit will be based in the London studios.
*Also, according to the "source", the only red-button option is for Five-Live commentary. This suggests free practice will not be on the red-button. What Bernie didn't say in the first interview on the BBC website here is that extra things they want to show would cost considerably more.



This source has provided factual information in the past, and I think he can be trusted again, some of which ties in with other reports. If this is 100% factual, then I'm considering it a huge step down.

Another source that works for BBCi has the following information:

*Candidates for commentary are David Croft, Ben Edwards and Jonathan Legard.
*James Allen will have no involvement in the coverage whatsoever.
*The BBCi source says they will have four feeds via BBCi - 4 feeds - world feed (aka BBC1 coverage), onboard, data and highlights.
*There will be the option for Five-Live commentary apart from highlights where it will be TV only.
*The three practice sessions will only have radio commentary if available via BBCi.
*BBC's equipment is ready for HD, with the rest is up to FOM.
*The races will always be on BBC1, unless a major event forces a switch to BBC2. If a race over-runs, coverage shall stay on BBC1.
*Races will be on BBC iPlayer.
*It is expected that the normal TV commentators will provide commentary for practice sessions, with an option to switch to radio commentary.
*A "no commentary" option was suggested; but no word on whether it will be implemented.
*No answer for GP2 coverage, no final details yet finalised for it to be screened on BBCi.
*No radio options will be available when 5 Live Xtra is not broadcasting.
*BBC Trust would have to approve turning BBC Parliament into a sports channel for the summer months.

The second up to date source look promising. The four different feeds sounds interesting.

Well anything without James -the Cock- Allen can only be considered a huge step up imho.

As for free practice, who cares there are always ways to see FP eg. Eurosport via the Net.

Interesting info, thanks. I find it hard to believe they won't have the main commentary from the tracks though, that would be so weak, I can't see FoM going for it. Some top-up commentary from someone too busy to travel, hopefully.

thanks for the update.

I really do hope the BBC can get their act together and have great F1 coverage next year.

I'm also really hoping that all the qualifyings and races will be available in iPlayer throughout the year, not just a week!

I know someone who works on the interactive side at the BBC and will try and get some info from him. Will be a few weeks before I see him as he is currently in China covering the Olympics. When the deal was first announced he believed they would be covering practice, but that may have just been the expectation and things may have changed since.

At the end of the day the main thing I want is the race coverage without adverts, anything else is a bonus.

Amen to that.

Though being greedy of course I'm hoping for HD via Freesat

Look forward to your insider info.

Hi,

Do you by any chance have his email address? It might be worth sending him a brief email about it, and see if he knows anything more on the matter.

Kind regards.


On that note, I've sent an e-mail to BBC Sport. I'll post any constructive responses in this thread.

I'm starting to get less and less excited about the BBC coverage. We shouldn't get ahead of ourselves, really. This is the same BBC with the current MotoGP coverage we must not forget. I doubt it'll be too much better than what we already have to be honest.

I'd say the BBC coverage of MotoGP is superior to the ITV coverage of F1.

Losing the 5 advert breaks will make a big difference to the continuity of the race. I'm not too bothered about the build-up, I just want a decent commentator. They have a choice of various mediocre people or Toby Moody, who by sheer chance is available, so I'm a bit desperate for them to go the right way and pick him.

After that, the FoM world feed will be OK. HD would be nice. One day we'll be able to pick a car's onboard to watch in real time, but have to wait a few more years by the look of it.

I for one would love Toby to commentate, but it's all a big if.

If I was holding all the cards, I would have told the F1 manufacturers/teams/sponsors to forget about that kers nonsense and use the massive amounts of cash on measures to give fans as much access to the sport as possible, like all the stuff you mentionned, for instance...

IMHO, some things still appears to be severely dysfunctional, considering what F1 is supposed to be... the technology is there to give real-time everything to everyone..

No, don't have his email address. He is the father of a boy in my son's class at school, so I don't see him too often anyway.

Given that he's been commentating for BBC's rivals for the past dozen years, I think that'll be a no.



OK. Not to worry.

Well Murray Walker went from the BBC to ITV for example, so I wouldn't think that sort of thing will worry them. People move around in the media as well as in F1. In fact Murray and Toby were commentating together on the classic F1 race at Silverstone the other week. And Toby was very good, like a young Murray but a bit less error-prone.

Don't panic yet....
Ariusuk is intentionally rather vague on that board.
When the dust settles I think you will find the BEEB showing Friday sessions.
Moxley has pretty much said as much.

So unless Bernie whips the rug out from under us...

oh dear..

Jp

I agree. I don't for one minute believe the BBC will provide less content than ITV currently do.

not sure bernie would let them show less coverage than itv do-1 thing i do hope though,is if they show the practice sessions,that they show ALL practice sessions,inc saturday,not just the friday sessions like ITV do

would be good to see free practise, not like they use the alternative streams for anything else at that time?

In the grand scheme of things being able to watch live practice isn't a deal breaker.

Why don't they let Eurosport provide Free Practice like they did the last time BBC had the F1 deal?

Maybe not. But with the huge amount being spent on the olympics and the amount of BBC personnel that are out there, i hope they devote as much attention to F1 - or even a fraction of the amount of attention they are devoting to the games would be nice. As there wouldnt be any free trips to china or other places worldwide for the entire BBC news team (almost it seems) and the entire sports broadcasting team, plus weather men, cricket men (?) and goodness knows who else, then i guess not

Live practice on the internet may not be a big deal to the fat cats of the BBC, or the MP's who think the BBC should spend 'OUR' money on a 'real' sport like 'football'. But its a big deal to me, as im contributing, thanks to the 'unique' way the BBC is funded.

If i can watch miss fatima hairyarmpits of lichtenstien sat staring into space as he/she waits for gymnastic scores at 3.27am in the morning as she scratches her arse and bites her nails, then surely i can expect to watch an hour or two of free practice live on the internet on a friday!

The way things are going, its going to be back to the 1/2 hour or 3/4 hour highlight shows we used to get on a sunday night if we were lucky with Murray walker talking down a telephone - but as long as the BBC fat cats are happy and can make a deal then i guess thats ok

That's actually a good suggestion, but I don't think they can sell their rights to anyone else.

The commentators wil surely be trackside. They'd be the only TV company on the planet not to have their commentators at the track side.

As for the pundits (if they must have them), who cares if they are in a studio?

As it stands the first hour of ITV-F1 on a Sunday is Steve Rider and Mark Blundell standing in front of a pit while an F1 engine roars 10 feet away from them and you can't hear a word they say. it may be an inprovement to have them in a studio !!

Indycar on Sky Sports uses UK pundits in a London studio and then faceless American commentators from ESPN or something. It doesn't affect my enjoyment of the race one bit.

As regards the point of this post. Well...being able to watch highlights of free practice has been a bit of a bonus via the ITV-F1 website this season. But as far as watching practice live goes...I've managed to see a whole four practice sessions live this season! Tell me how many people across the UK aren't too busy being at work to be able to slip away to a television to watch a few hours of practice on a Friday morning and afternoon?

It's not a big deal. The sessions are on the whole boring anyway and to get an indicator of how qualify may (but usually not always) turn out all you need to do is check the timesheets at the end of the day anyway.

I want to be able to watch practice live and I'm sure plenty of other people do too. Not everyone is at work on a Friday. Besides you can always tape it and watch it when you get home.

I like to watch and hear a bit, to get in the mood. Especially some onboards. Then live timing/commentary is enough for me to start seeing who's hot and who's not.

Valencia is going to be especially interesting, which teams/drivers have prepared best, and anyone who goes off in FP is in trouble for the rest of the weekend by the sound of it.

That might be difficult if it's on the interactive channels as you can't preset them to record.

I'm not debating the accuracy of your source, but perhaps your interpretation of it. Perhaps practice will be shown on BBC 3 or 4?

iplayer perhaps?

The chances are that if FP is shown 'live' it will not be 'red button' but be shown on a digital channel, be it BBC3 or 4 or even, if we are really unlucky, with a 30s delay on t'interweb like ITV. Which was a complete waste of time if you also use live timing.

As for studio based pundits I think I would much rather see them at the track. I know there were a lot of complaints when the format changed but I quite like seeing them in among the cars, seeing the activity in the pits, what happens, when it happens etc. The engine noise occasionally made a mess of the sound but that all added to the atmosphere and the impression of being there and part of the excitement. Slick studio productions take that all away. It's cheap though. The BBC are so teched up that they can run a three-camera news show with a Director and a floor manager only, all cameras, mics etc being robotic at set to move between pre-determined positions. Maybe they'll be able to spend the money elsewhere on the same show or maybe they'll spend it on Pop Brother Idol Factor VII or give it to Jonathan Ross.

any ideas whether BBC will be doing a webstream for us poor sods in 3rd world countries(Australia).

I would say definitely no. This is the UK broadcast only. There's no way Bernie will let it be beamed outside of the country.

BBC3 and BBC4 start transmission after 7pm, so I think live FP on them is out of the question for most of the races.

As you know, if the feed goes onto the web then it can and will be forwarded anywhere.

And I reckon the BBC will do rather a better job policing that than ITV have. I also think you guys would be ill-advised to broadcast those links on this forum when and if it happens.

BBC hit squads?

If a data packet is sent onto the internet with the destination being the whole of the UK then forwarding the feed to whatever destination is an insignificant technical problem.

The only way to guarantee UK exclusivity would be to stream the packets crypted over to a non-web client, a major hassle and probably expensive.

Why bother?

Good point. Internet only, then.

If practice is on the net, the picture quality would in the very least be better than the current ITV picture quality.

I can on my Freeview DVR - the interactive channels are 301 and 302, so you just set the box to record those channels at the appropriate time. As I can record two channels at once I just record both and delete whichever didn't have it.

I've recorded loads of interactive stuff from the Olympics, as the BBC have published a schedule for their interactive channels (channels 301, 302 and 81 correspond to Freeview 1, 2 & 3)

Didn't Jonathan Ross do the voiceovers for some of the old FIA Season Reviews? Before the job defaulted to Generic Thin-Voiced Thirtysomething Male, that is.

That's handy, unfortunately I can't do the same on my Sky+ box.

Yes he did. I can still here him saying "McLawen

Just the '93 one. Did a decent job, though my favourite was Clive James on the '82, '84 and '86 ones.

Ben Edwards does them now and although he's a decent commentator I hate the way he narrates the season reviews as if the races are happening live.

God, yes. How they could pick him in a year where Prost was so pwom... prominent is beyond me. Argh!

Agreed with the above comment re: Ben Edwards - the forced 'false' live thing isn't so great. I'd love for them to get Toby Moody in the Beeb box next year, but I seem to remember reading that he isn't too keen on F1...

toby did a good job beside murray for the silverstone classic on c4 (also on c4od), perhaps we was putting himself in the shop window...

Speaking from a Radio point of view, if the radio team are at the track for every event, I very much doubt that the TV team will be in a studio in London!

Also given the strict guidelines that FOM have there will not be less coverage on the BBC than there is on ITV.

Looking at the poster in the other forum, and looking at there other posts it seems that they work for ITV so be careful of reading too much into what they say about the BBC.

I am confident, speaking as a fan of the sport, that we wont be dissapointed with next year's coverage.

Also just to let you know you can hear 1st and 3rd practice on BBC 5 Live Sports Extra and BBC online this weekend. Anthony Davidson is in the commentary box with us all weekend as well.

Cheers,

Jason

Free practice or no free practice, like Ross said earlier, it's no big deal. I'd rather have no adverts than free practice coverage. I never watch it.

The studio thing would be odd. BBC seem to have no issues sending their people to the Moto GP circuits so why F1 would be different I'm not sure, unless they're really restricted on budget.

If the BBC do anything like their Moto GP coverage for the F1, I'll be happy. Even their Moto GP intro is better than the ITV F1 stuff. I hope the BBC offer Suzy Perry an F1 job. Maybe she could do both Moto GP and F1, although I'm not sure how often the weekends clash. Perhaps someone could take over her Moto GP duties when they do clash. I rate her highly. She could do all the paddock stuff.

Oh and Brundle is a must for me too. Just having Brundle, no James Allen and no adverts would be a step up for me.

let the people who do the 2 wheeled action stick to 2 wheels,rather have people who are 4 wheels and formula 1 through and through in all honesty

Define two wheels and four wheels please, given you aren't born to one or another. They all cross-polinate. Charlie Cox used to cover BTCC. Toby Moody used to actually work in F1.

Murray Walker started out on 2 wheels, he didn't do so bad with 4 wheels and F1.