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Why the sudden out-pouring of love for Allen?
Is it a case of not knowing what you've got until it's gone?

Well I knew what we got from him, some terrible commentary filled with false enthusiasm and laddish "get in there!" phrases, and that's just when he wasn't talking about tyres....

No I'm glad we got shot of him. In reality he is a good journalist and analyst of the sport (I'd have no problem with him if he stood in the Blundell role, for example) who was thrust into the commentary box when ITV had a sudden hole to fill and realised promoting their pit lane correspondant was probably cheaper than bringing in someone from the outside.
When he stood in for Murray in France 2000 I thought "well that commentary was a bit cringeworthy but at least it was a one off"
Then Murray announced his retirement and ITV said they would trial a few commentators in his final year.
OK, I thought, but I hope they don't give James another go....
It's at this point I think ITV got lazy, saw James could talk and hold a microphone and thought "Well, that'll do!" instead of going for the best commentator out there. (and we all know who that is)

You see, everyone involved in the sport has a passion for it. But there are some who are much better at communicating it than others.
Your Murray's, Martin Haven's, Ben Edwards' Simon Hill's, Carlton Kirby's, Jeremy Shaw's etc, they react in the same way to a suprising even on track than they would do if they were sitting at home on their armchairs.
The difference between them and someone like James is there's a millesecond thinking barrier between when James sees something happening and how he plans to react to it.
Murray would just immediately shout "awwww, Coulthard smashes himself out of the Australian Grand Prix!!" without thinking but James sees something on screen and thinks "oooh, that's a big moment, It'll probably go in the highlight clip, shall I shout, shall I remain calm and let the pictures speak for themselves, shall I let Martin speak.." etc, and this pause makes you think he's not as caring about the moment as the passionate commentators.

Plus he makes mistakes, but then I'm not going to critise him for that. You can't get through 2 hours standing in a commentary box constantly talking about an ever-changing race without making some mistakes. Murray made mistakes and we loved him for it. James makes the same amount of mistakes but isn't loved for them because he isn't as good as Murray and people didn't take him into their hearts in the same way.

I have a feeling whoever is chosen for the BBC role (one of the two former Radio 5 live guys Maurice Hamilton or Johnathon Legard probably) might get a bit of stick initially for not being Ben Edwards (and you have to ask yourself the question, with Ben Edwards auditioning for the role...WHY even bother looking at anyone else BBC? Oh right, they've worked for you...great ) but overall will be a vast improvement on Allen, who will hopefully earn a nice living writing articles and books on the sport.

Still, BBC next year should be epic. Press red on Friday morning for first F1 practice and don't have the coverage end until the end of GP2 or FBMW Qualy? (depending on what is on track last!). Oh YES PLEASE!

What's the big deal about ad breaks - on a commercial channel?

2 reasons:

1) The person responsible for inserting them into the shows probably qualifies for disability benefits.

2) The BBC doesn't have them due to the unique way in which it is funded.

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I always felt ITV's coverage was cosy, which I found helped build excitement. If you could tolerate the negatives, I think the positives were wonderful. Allen has made me angry only once this year, at Monaco, and that was probably due to the fact I was already highly pissed over the Sutil\Raikkonen collision.

2005 San Marino Grand Prix anyone?


http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_k ... _n14786082

And the reason....Jenson Button lead a lap.

1997 Hungarian GP. I could have been watching Damon Hill in a wheelbarrow overtake Michael Schumacher in a Ferrari for the lead of the race, but our commercial channel thought I'd be more interested, at that exact moment, in listening to a reasoned justification of why Timotei shampoo would help keep my hair both natural and bouncy.

It is always a bad time for ad break.


I understand the long history with F1 @ BBC, but still the gripe with the ads is odd.

TV licenses and public service channels are pretty common in Europe.

Wonder what they will do when it is the Malaysian or Chinese Gp. That would be on at the same time as Match OF The Day. Unless they move the F1 or Football to BBC2.

Well, considering they've said F1 will always be on BBC1, what do you think?

I think the only thing that might stop us seeing the race on BBC1 would be if something huge happened like The Queen dying. This is a corporation that showed 12 hours of golf straight through for four days during the summer. This is a corporation that show huge swathes of snooker cutting through their schedules and which broadcasted the Olympics from 2am to 5pm each day for a fortnight and sometimes on both main channels. A two hour hole in their morning schedules 4 times a year is relatively small fry.

Yeah, didn't they cancel Top Gear because the snooker overran last year?

They skipped a week because the snooker was on, not because it over ran.

LMFAO, justified in my opinion

No, I'm pretty sure that they skipped it because the match went on too long, because it was definitely originally scheduled. I think it was the final of a tournament. But then maybe it was just a Welsh thing, because it may have been the Welsh Open. They said "Top Gear will follow" a few times but then after the end of it they said "Well, we're sorry for this delay but Top Gear will now be shown at a later date"

I had to watch the Welsh Open online so I suspect it was a Wales thing. Was it the year that Higginson was runner up?

Explain please???

Last year I definitely remember them saying they were skipping a week because of the snooker. Or maybe it was the year before, my memory might be buggered again.

They were going to go for a break midway through the race, but Alonso stopped before Button who was 2nd at that point. Button lead and in a show of national pride or perhaps trying to boost the ratings or something, they stayed with Button in the lead and cancelled the ad break meaning as the race ticked down towards it's conclusion they still had another break to take.

I don't think you quite understand just how many major F1 moments were missed by ITV. Two title-deciding moments for starters. Hill passing Schumacher at the 1997 Hungarian GP. Father Horan's spot of breaking and entering, Silverstone 2003. Taking an ad break 3 laps from the end of the 2005 San Marino GP. And more besides.

Didn't both McLarens retire from the lead during one ad break in 1997?

But nevermind. Anchor butter - "You'll never put a better bit of butter on your knife".