Yes, it's Clive James. A superb narrator, shame he no longer does the reviews.

^ thanks

Good on him. Theres nothing wrong with that. People take things too seriously these days.

Is this the same Eddie Jordan that thought Bernd Rosemeyer was a tennis player?.

dc and jordan smells funny and extreme bore. why not patrese? or is bbc just a uk channel?

hope they feed the world by web. this will be the big event.

but they kept brundle. this guy is almost worth watson and () comment on eurosport years ago.

Not a surprise, it's basically what Peter does now for Speed. Their styles are totally different though--Ted seems to approach the job more like a paparazzo, with the high (or low, depending on your perspective) points of that being after Hungary quali last year ("He's got Alonso's trainer by the neck!"), and IMO at Hockenheim this year with that stupid piece asking drivers why the German fans are so fat and loud.

OTOH, Peter is a lot more measured in the job. He only gets about half as many during-race interviews with retired drivers as ITV, but it's not a huge loss. He does get far more technical details than Ted or ITV ever did, like if cars are using different brakes, and I think he originated the "Kimi wears alpinestars" thing.

Overall, I'm glad to see Ted get the job.

now here's a puzzler for people:

would james allen have been as bad on the bbc - was the stuff we collectively derided him for, be the result of itv?

It was him. His voice. His tone. His on air orgasms.

Shame id of prefered Peter Windsor to Ted

from memory,quali sessions for those 2 series have never been on any tv channel in the uk..........i may be wrong

Orgasms you say?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=xnXDEw3gqhk&feature=related

Apparently, elderly men are acceptable.

Yes.....

If other countries want to take feeds off the BBC then fine, but its very much a UK channel since the public pay for it..

The Eddie Jordan foghorn has begun warming up. First target, Bernie Ecclestone:-

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/72256

"He's tinkering with something that in my opinion he has lost the understanding of," said Jordan.

"He thinks people are only interested in winning the races. I'm sorry, but there's just not enough thought put into this. It should be put to one side and discussed by him and Max Mosley, and for Bernie Ecclestone to say it's coming with the full approval of all the teams, I simply don't believe it."

Full points for rambunctiousness. I have a feeling 2009 could be very entertaining.

Murray Walker sounds sincere though rather than how fake James Allen comes across. I remember when Murray commentated on the German GP in 2007 for BBC Radio, his volcabulary and the way he described everything was just on another level from James Allen, and you could forgive his annoying mistakes because of that. Well at least when giving a direct comparision to Allen anyway

Good question.

The bad thing about Allen was his tendency to repeat stuff after the ad breaks.

On the BBC he would have not, I assume, had to do this - however I reckon he would have gone off on a tangent about F1 politics more whilst ignoring what was going on the track.......

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport...one/7749751.stm

bbc starting to ramp stuff up - look a handy poll! (that lasted for all of 20 minutes by the looks of things) Also, eddie jordan mouthing off.

Is it true that some posting on the BBCF1 site were not aware that Lee McKenzie is a woman?

So in other words, because James Allen is not Murray Walker, he is automatically labeled as fake. I'm truly enlightened.

No, I said his enthusiasm comes across as fake. I meerly said that Murray was able to do the enthusiasm with out sounding fake. James did improve this season, ironicly once he knew ITV were loosing F1 - by calming down more and having a more collected approach.

He's an excellent journalist when he has the time to think about what he's saying, and he makes a better pit reporter than Ted Kravitz imo, however as a commentator, he's not good enough. It's right someone else gets a crack at the wip at the BBC, James had his chance and didn't do well enough.

Personally, having lived overseas for years, I've never heard James Allen so I am in no position to critisize him. However Murray Walker could talk enthusiatically about a glass of water! So, in this respect, I don't think it's really fair to compare anyone to Murray Walker!!!


Tony.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/7749958.stm --> Jordan making his opinion already heard. Be interesting when Jake asks him about it next year.

Pity James Allen could never convey a fraction of the enthusiasm and excitement demonstrated in that clip.

Murray also made some pretty good ads:-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnXLZPn11HM&feature=related

Really, I'm not seeing the point from anybody. Just alot of opinions.

So what do you expect? In the opinion of a lot of people (dare I say the majority) JA is not a good commentator.

Majority? There are people out there who are indifferent (because they're too busy watching the race to care about how bad his hair looks), there are people out there who believe JA is a decent commentator, there are people who think he is a good commentator. There are also people out there who like JA, for whatever reason - it's just that they're not as outspoken as his mindless bashers.

It seems a lot of the comments are saying JA is over the top and a lot say that he has no passion. Is this not quite a clear demonstration that we all have different expectations of what we want from a commentator?

It seems he has been an easy target but now we might have someone else people aren't too sure.

It seems to be a bit like an opposition party continually sniping negatively at the government suddenly being put on the spot when they get voted in and having to positive about something.

If they don't speak out, how do you know they exist?

So because we express an opinion and say we don't like his commentary that's makes us mindless bashers? Do you use that line every time someone doesnt agree with you?

no its not. he suffers both. he has passion, but he doesn't express it with passion. instead he puts on a tone which is over the top, and clearly a thought-out response, being dramatic for the sake of it, not because he can't help it. he was happy for button to win, for instance, but i don't think he actually made a mess in the booth, which is how he made it sound. interested me that they used the audio from when he had calmed down for the last hurrah video from itv. however, had he got it right, they'd have used the bit from when he crossed the line. that really was their most momentous day, having waited and waited for jb to do something. lewis was simply good from the start, so not a relief.

What I don't like about JA's commentary, is not his tone or his patriotism, but that he indulges in so much sensationalism. There have been occasions where he is suggesting things like car A is catching car B for the win when we all bloody know that car B has to stop again. There is no way that JA wouldn't know that. What is worse is the thought that ITV were paying him to 'pretend' in order to keep the audience intrigued. I just hope the BBC credits us with more intelligence than that - and I actually think they will.

http://www.sutton-images.com/preview.asp?f...al0826no222.jpg

Note the person who's at the podium. It just happens to be one Jake Humphrey.

James Allen mentioned him in his blog today:

Bit more info:

All of the F1 practice sessions for commentary will have a Radio option (radio commentators), a TV option (Brundle/Legard), and a None option (pure car sound).

GP2/Porsche's etc will have a seperate team with only one audio option.

No Susi Perry for the grid walkabout? One can only hope she at least gets employed to teach Martin Brundle how it should be done.

Brilliant, finally we can turn the volume way up

Same for the races??

Yes there are people out there who like James Allen just like there are people out there who lvoe nothing more than inflicting pain on themselves, its a strange world. OK back to the normal 'I'm not just purposely trying to be obtuse' opinion that James Allen was a really really bad choice of commentator and was never going to improve. The guy is a great journalist(although can be biased) who I am happy to see on the website and magazines or in books. Terrible commentator though.

Brundle / Legard doing practice commentary?

Yes - if you choose the "TV" option on the Red Button.

Why? James Toseland wont be on the grid in F1.

Frankly I know they are bike guys but I'd love to see some of the Eurosport MotoGP guys involved

Toby Moody started out with cars

We are getting practice commentary? Does that mean that it will be available on, say, BBC3?

Another thing - can you use a digibox to see the onboard feed, and will that feed be available through BBCi during a race or only as a replay?

Yes, we are getting practice - but it's on the Red Button with the four feeds - world feed, data feed, highlight feed and onboard feed. And, yes there are 3 commentary options - as I said above, radio, TV or none - like what the Beeb did with Euro 2008.



If you mean Freeview - they yes, I think it'll be on 301, 302 and 303. The onboard feed will be on during the race - not sure about replays - but I think we will.....

OK, so on Freeview (because there is only two extra feeds available on BBCi) what exactly will we get? In practice, do we get an onboard feed and a data feed? Is that the same as in quali and the race?

Bring on 2009, watching f1 with two tv's side by side, one showing the standard feed, the other showing the onboard feed.

web feeds?

I'm intruiged.
Is the multiple channel option for all races?
I only ask, as the BBC also uses them for tennis/snooker/golf/MotoGP and most probably synchronised swimming.
Does that mean F1 will end up limited on weekends when those events happen, or, are those sports going to be limited to a basic channel?

I presume so.



Yes. If there are clashes, it maybe reduced to two or three streams - if that does happen, I'd expect the data stream to be first to make way for other sport. TBH, if that did happen, I wouldn't be too bothered - what we'll be getting next year will be much better than the 2008 output on ITV.

They couldv gotten Ben Edwards to partner Legard. Lauda or Berger or even JPM as experts. With DC and Brundle you have two guys who i wouldnt trust to walk my dog. Brundle with his self indulging manners and DC blaming everybody for the same bad dangerous driving he did himself this year. bah bah bah. Terrible. Might as well rename it into the mclaren and lewis hamilton show as i doubt itl be any different than ITV.

get out.