The truth is somewhere in the middle. This is already entering ITV era discussion where it's just the same statements made back and forth endlessly. At least in the driver diatribes there are new details and controversies.

True, and being honest my thoughts on Legard haven't improved after the last race and unless somebody else's mind is downloaded into his I can't see the situation improving this season and therefore don't see myself posting about him anymore or much more.

The thread is still good for all the excellent notices put up by DMN, otherwise a lot of content would be missed by those of us who don't go to BBC1 and press the red button to check for new F1 content every single time we switch our TV on.

Two things, one related to this thread, one sort of related to F1:

1) I seen a BBC promo for Monaco after Tonight's The Night last night.
2) this idiot auditioned for Britain's Got Talent last night, see here. He unfortunately got through. What's his act then? Endangering the public?

An interesting character if there ever was one...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/4193285.stm

But Britian's got talent is an ITV program so what's the relevance?

That'll be the bit where he said "sort of related to F1" I would imagine eh?

That bloke is a complete and utter idiot and doesn't deserve a single minute of coverage in any media.

As regards the youtube clip with neil horan (is that right)?.wow, i can't believe what i've just seen. glad i don't watch that crap. "Britians got protesters". And just a thought, but what about Stuart hall and Brundle. classic. Like i said , just a thought.

I see there are a few faces from the other place here, my views are that the BBC are giving a level of coverage far beyond ITV. Jonathan Legard is far more bearable than James Allen, but I do really enjoy listening to the practice sessions with the 5 Live commentary.

The practices are brilliant, lots of info floating about. I don't think Legard tells the whole picture, brundle can't do it all on his own. But i agree that its better than itv. is mark hughes still in the comm box??

yeah Mark Hughes is in the box still i believe.

Mmm. Really? Red button/website stuff is good, but am I the only one who finds the EJ/DC/JH show just a bit boring? We'd never have 15 solid minutes of Blundell, yet people seem happy with Coulthard droning on for yonks.

The pace seems a little slow, maybe because they haven't got natural advertising breaks.

The bit where I perk up is Ted's news roundup - much more of the thing we would have got on ITV.

Don't agree with you about Legard - Allen was great, Legard is dire. But at least we might be able to agree that the main commentator should be more than 'bearable'.

David Croft on TV please!

People posting to complain about people complaining! Love the hypocrisy there.

That's not hypocritical at all.

Can't see how you've come to that conclusion.

Humphreys is far better than Ryder. Or has written himself a far better script.

Coulthard is no worse than Blundell, and doesnt have a dull monotone voice, which therefore makes him better than Blundell.

EJ is annoying. Hope he's dumped at the end of the season. (It wont happen before).

Legard is pretty poor. But he's no worse than Allen.

Discuss...

Apart from the fact you find the Red Button stuff good, you sound like your saying the rest of the show it crap when its clearly better than ITV.

I actually think it's pretty even. The online coverage is superior I'll give them that, but the actual TV production is about on par with ITVs.

The BBC have blown ITV out of the water as far as F1 archives go, but I think that's it. It is awesome to have F1 races on the Iplayer... but my goodness Legard just totally ruins it for me. I like Brundle, but even Legard's contagiously poor commentating is starting to rub off on our dear Martin. Speaking of Martin, I miss his pre-race segments he did for ITV, and now it seems he has a smaller role, instead we have to listen to DC and EJ (why is he there?) waffle and drone on for a good 20 minutes, I don't even bother to watch. I'd rather listen to Blundell and his blunders for 5 minutes to be quite honest.

The BBC have done okay, but not up to the high standards I'd expect from a publicly funded corporation. I just hope they improve.

Yes, my point was that I personally find the Coulthard and EJ show boring. They're rambling on, walking down the pitlane, whereas I'd rather be watching a feature. There's a place for punditry, but a hell of a lot of buildup seems to be nothing but. The pace of the whole show seems a little slow compared to how it used to be, in my view.

Now that's my opinion, with background. People like to post "Legard is pretty poor. But he's no worse than Allen." or " its clearly better than ITV" without any explanation. Craftwerk's post is good, not just because I agree with him, but because it has detail beyond "I don't like x".

I like the way the post race is done. After the race i do not want to see a feature, i want to to go over what happened in the race. The news doesnt come in very quickly, so i think the pace of the show is fine, plenty of good interview, replays and discussions about highlights of the race. I certainly wony always agree with EJ but alteast they are discussing what has just happened in the previous 2 hours.

I think features should be kept for the pre race and pre qual.

Legard is dull and really does a bad job of commentating, but Allen manages to offend the viewer with most words and assumes your stupid with little understanding of whats going on. Allen and ITV also managed to make it incredibly easy to hate every british driver for the past decade. Which kinda sums up how bad a job they did really.

Then you had Blundell who had the worst voice ever to listen too, and you couldnt even watch the racing to ignore it and Ryder with an incredibbly poorly written script. I think I only watched the full pre-race show a few times last year due to how bad it was.

And the features were generally pointless. Although the one going through all of the old cars last year qas quite interesting.

But generally I'm happy that this season I can enjoy a brit doing well with out having it pushed down my throat as the 1 man show.

Although I must admit JB does come across as naturally a lot more likeable, especially with what he's had the past 2 years to drive.

Everyone who thinks Allen/Legard/whoever is crap should hear what I'm hearing right now on Setanta. Highlights include:

"On this bright and sparkly day."

"And there are some birds settling down next to the track and flying away as these thundering FIAT engines roar past."

"Legge and Stoddart! Handbags at dawn!"

"And a pink car has just passed, that must be a woman. Yes. Susie Stoddart who can speak German. Congratulations."

"AND THAT'S ROCKENFELLER!! NO PAFFETT IN HIS NEW 08 MERC!!" (Rockey has a red Audi. Paffet has a white 09 Merc)

It. Is. Shocking. He has NO idea who is who or what he is commentating.


BBC/ITV all is forgiven.

I was never offended at all. Haven't you noticed the jump of interenst in F1 in Britain? It's only practical to explain what's going on to new viewers, and with ITV losing as much money as they were and still are, it is perfectly understandable.

There were times when Allen annoyed me, but that wasn't many. The worst I think was Nurburgring 2005 after Raikkonen retired, that made my skin crawl, but if you look past that, he was quite excellent. He knew what he was talking about (most of the time), he worked well with Brundle, he had a general interest in F1 (look at his blog) in which he had alot of insider info.

And if you're so against patriotism in F1, then I believe you should start your campaign in Spain. Besides, hasn't Hamilton been the biggest story the past couple of years? He hasn't been able get out of the headlines.

Naturally more likeable? What's that have to do with anything.

I think Allen will always be a better analysist/writer than commentator. Many feel he was "thrown in at the deep end" after Walker retired.

At what point did I complain?

Try not putting words in my mouth next time.

That clip of everybody's favourite moron on the track from DMN, the first thing I thought when I put it on was a feeling of annoyance again just at the sound of Allen's voice.

Why are so many people voting for 96 for the Monaco highlights is beyond me. The BBC have missed the point of classic and latched onto the "instant classic" invented by people who wanted to make their thoughts and experiences far more important than they really were. a classic should be from way back and not in the "style of.."

Then surely all voting and selecting of footage is bunk and they should just get the oldest footage they have of the event, every time?

Not saying that would be a bad thing, but I think the point IS that you vote for the most memorable event, and not one that is classic 'from way back'.

Id vote for Monaco 1996, it was one of the more 'entertaining' races and your garunteted to get a good highlights package. It won't be the only one selected so there's plenty of room to get in other events.

Didn't know Legard did Setanta as well. Sounds just like his commentary to me!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/andrewbenson/20..._prix_high.html

Classic Monaco online!!! :D

Hats off to the Beeb. Legard isn't stunning but far from grating like that other cock! sense that the working relationship he has with Brundle isn't too good though as MB is below par at times. I agree a little more emotionalism could be effective, after all the racing has been pretty good.

Practice and qualifying actually do it for me better than the race when somehow it isn't totally jelling yet. But the biggest downfall of F1 on TV is STILL those terrible graphic progress results during the race and throughout the whole weekend. With 16:9 widescreen TV coverage there's plenty of real estate to add comprehensive scrolling of progress with colour codes etc to show who has stopped, who is on a flyer etc. The staid and pointless crap being used dates back to the 80s and is worse than what is seen on the minor leagues (like NASCAR!). I don't see why I should have to have a laptop hooked up to the website during the event to get the stats data. COME ON! Isn't anyone else here pissed about the lack of info??

not at all but some races have such a great history it seems a shame to not show them

http://allenonf1.wordpress.com/2009/05/19/...h-gp-slideshow/

*rolls up newspaper* NO! that's a BAD JAMES.

I daren't watch it.

they can only choose 5 though to be fair, and they have said they plan to continue doing this throughout the contract, so for example apparently alot of people wanted 1984 (but that wasnt an option) but that may be an option for next year when they do the same thing again-it'll be the same for british gp's, they can only choose 5, but if alot of people say they want to see a different 1, that'll likely be included in the vote the year after-has to be remembered as well that the word classic can be taken in 2 different ways-really old, or memorable, the BBC are trying to do a mix if possible

Phew. Least it doesn't have the cringe worthy voice-over this time!

James Allen is an excellent journalist. He was excellent in the pitlane. He's just not very good at commentating

NASCAR on screen graphics are 100 times better, and they use the full length of the 16:9 screen!


There are many threads of everyone whinging abotu F1 graphcis! Its absolutely horrible IMO. 

I just don't like how they use the graphics as a seemingly random "for the sake of it" gesture. Why doesn't all onboard footage contain graphics? You get a token 30 seconds of it per GP it seems.

If we're watching the onboard feed on BBC, why can't this always have telemetry graphics on?

Can't view it (my nannying workplace), but I'm sad to read that there's no voice-over, nothing beats a bit of toe-curling during lunch.

NASCAR's graphics are actually worse because they take up so much of the screen and are always present. Indycar is the same. It's infuriating during onboard shots because you can hardly see what's going on due to the invasive graphics.

I agree that practice and qualifying are more interesting than the race. The races these days are one big long exhibition of strategy calculations being played out on track. There's very little wheel to wheel stuff after the initial 3 or 4 laps, and everything depends on fuel strategy and chosing the right tyres at the right time (ie use the bad tyres on the last stint or pay the price...). It's all computer controled from the pit lane, with the occasional driver error like Piquet smashing his car into a million pieces every second race. But even that doesnt make it any more interesting because you just wonder why he still has a race seat.

Legard grates like a cheese grater down your eyeball.

I think we should take bets on how many times we'll hear "What can this man do?", "Down the hill" and "<insert name> is on a charge" on Saturday.

If you think Legard is dull and unimaginative; listen to Jonathan Palmer: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport...one/8055845.stm

Don't forget "a real shot in the arm for him"

"and round the hairpin he goes"

I don't get why EJ is so angry these days either, he seems to start off calmly on an answer to whatever jake has asked him, then accelerates gradually until eventually he's frothing at the mouth. The bit about raikkonen (i think it was in spain) was the best for me, i think if kimi had been there EJ would have actually started hitting him by the end, talking as though if kimi weren't fired immediatly italy would sink and the sun would die

Yet when he was a team boss i always thought he came accross well..

He was the same talking about Silverstone during the Forum. EJ was saying the owners are all tweed suited tea drinking people Bernie isn't interested in, and Brundle is a part of the club that owns it and had to step in to correct EJ.

I can see why people don't like him, however, he is undoubtedly offering insight in to the working of somethings, and at least he doesn't just agree with everyone.

I like that DC and MB are kept on their toes, and actually have to listen and offer points.

If it was Big Brother Paddock, I'd want him out, but the three-way is much better than Rider + Blundell if you can put personality ticks aside.