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Yes, they are.

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I reckon ITV were good, just James Allen made it very annoying. I liked Martin Brundle though, he can go to BBC hopefully.

Aussies get the ITV feed. You definitely had a scheduled ad break then because we stayed with it. I don't know if you actually went into ads, but the Aussies didn't (we were fading out and had the ad music start but quickly came back with no ad to see what would happen).

Allen did his little race-run down pre-ad break, then it went silent about to go to ads when it cut to Horan and as Allen yelled "OOOHH!" the coverage went and the adverts started. So we had no idea what was happening until the coverage returned 3 minutes later.

James Allen's best commentary was funnily enough his last commentary, and that was because the crazy nature of the last few laps meant there was no time for him to come up with some one-liner (anyone remember Austria '03 where he kept going on about MS's "Great Escape") or pre-prepared script (such as the closing laps in Monaco '08 where he went way OTT with the Senna references). In Brazil he just had to be instinctive and as a result he did a very good job - and by and large when commentating on live action (i.e. overtaking/pole laps/incidents and accidents) he has been alright, it's just when he reverts to post-incident or last-lap hyperbole that he gets annoying.

I do think Allen improved significantly around early-2005 when he stopped bellowing at the start of a race. That was something Murray never did in his BBC days and only really did when he went to ITV, became a minor celebrity and started to believe his own hype. I cannot recall any race from the BBC days where he bellowed "GO GO GO" and in his later guest commentaries for Network Ten/5Live he just seems to always have felt the need to bellow that at the start; often to the detriment of the commentary as he ends up not actually commentating on what is happening.

As for ITV, well it's good to see I'm not the only one who thought they were at their best in 97 with the studio and two experienced pundits (who also seemed to have a mutual dislike of each other and tended to offer differing opinions). Remember also in 97/98 although pre-race buildup was not the hour we get now, there was the additional Saturday teatime show which was always good for qualifying analysis/interviews etc. When that went the coverage slowly but surely became too celebrity-obsessed (epitomised by hiring the execrable Beverley Turner) and since the reformat in 2006 (replacing Grim Jim with Steve Rider) they just seemed to be too obsessed with first Button and then Hamilton. However I do think ITV did an excellent job last weekend in not going too overboard on Lewis and giving Massa almost equal billing in the race buildup.

I think its beyond question that ITV have moved F1 coverage forward significantly from what the BBC offered, even if the coverage did lose some of its "soul" in the process. I don't think the BBC will be the oasis of impartiality and the revolution that some expect; but its clear that their sports coverage is always in depth - as others have noted, the amount of time they give to golf, tennis, snooker, the Olympics is huge, and I expect to see F1 given similar treatment. Maybe the airtime on BBC1 will be less than ITVs, but I expect this to be compensated for with red-button stuff.

Murray has explained this - back last year in the special F1 606 he did, he was asked whether he would say "GO GO GO" at the start of the race, and he said he only does it if he feels it's a special race and he gets the right feeling. I don't think it was him believing his own hype at all. He's never struck me as that type. I remember when he called the start of Jerez 97, that was emotion and passion

But I agree on JA. When he stopped trying to imitate Murray he improved

ITV's Formule 1 coverage was not bad.And i don't no why they call James Allen the cock ?





Back ontopic : I'am happy on the other side that BBC have back the license.Then i can back watch F1 n BBC.In Belgium there was no itv.

The F1 coverage it's likely to be blacked out outside of the United Kingdom.

They don't do it with MOTOGP so don't expect they do it for F1.

I don't know really, but FOM is a bitch, so who knows.

They block Rai Uno and RTL over here during races, so why not BBC?

Speed isn't blacked out here. Only sduring the Canadian GP, so no blackout next year

I wonder if there will be any point in the future where we will say we miss ITV's 'good old' coverage / commentary / prerace etc.

for me, I did like Mark Blundell because he provided a lot of insight in matters like digging deep and pulling it out of the bag. The fact that he was even allowed on air with ITV stuns me (after he was recruted from his job at the airport driving luggage cars).

No he didn't. They only thing he did was state the bloody obvious. He provided absolutely no insight and his 'analysis' consisted of him saying what he could see (which is exactly what we could see as well).

well, that's sort of what I meant with my comment

Well I don't know, the other day you said you liked him and there didn't seem to be any sarcasm then.

I know. I'll clarify.

To be honest, I found Mark Blundell so awfully bad that I sometimes just wanted to hear him say "digging deep" or "pull it out of the bag" or the use of those other awful clichés.
Also, I think he's quite a disgrace to an f1 driver's fitness levels if you see how 'big' he has gotten.
Those shirts he wears are mostly awful too, I laughed hard when Martin alluded to that in Fuji (by the way, I thought he - Mark - was better when he was on the show with Martin)

so, in a way, I don't like him at all because he doesn't add any value to the f1 coverage, but on the other hand, it's just funny to hear him saying things over and over again (the digging deep topic would be one that springs to mind).

Maybe a bit confusing, but I hope you understand

Yes, some people will start about 5 minutes after the BBC coverage has begun

When Clarkson said "Yeah, no adverts!" in TG about BBC taking the F1 rights...he meant it in a sarcastic way or actually there will be a non-ad coverage?

The thing with Mark Blundell is that if you listen to his older commenteries, such as Montreal 1999, he was actually pretty decent back then. You get the feeling that the ITV team were somewhat shoehorned into a manner of presenting and talking by the bigwigs.

You know who I reckon would be a decent studio panel member? Derek Warwick. Great sense of humour, great speaker and a top bloke to boot. Have him and Jake Humphrey in the BBC studio with DC being a roving 'on-site' reporter/expert.