TBK-Light.com

Exactly. It's the kind of attitude that F1 hasn't learnt from.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

And probably never will.

Once Bernies gone and CVC has sold it onto the next group only interested in how much they can make out of it, it'll just drag on helped by the big teams always refusing to allow costcutting measures but still allow for those things that actually make things more costly.

I can't recall the exact reasons for why ITV gave the coverage up so early, but I do know that the BBC take a large chunk of the blame for their deal going sour so early - Bernie quoted one price at them (£20 million p/a) and they just about had his arm off for it - they thought it was a steal as well as one in the eye for ITV. It was only later when they asked the senior ITV producers how much it cost to produce (ITV were spending ~£25 million p/a on production by that point) that they realised they had been done.

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The biggest letdown is that 4 years ago the BBC had a chance to keep the whole of the sport on FTA by selling the rights to Channel 4 - this didn't go anywhere because the BBC still wanted their piece of the pie. Which would be fair enough if they had seen the new contract through to its conclusion, but they're bailing out halfway through on this contract as well now.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

It was down to money with ITV well. Ad revenue is falling.

BBC's problem is that it appears that those in charge have no idea how money works. That's why they hire so many overpriced presenters who aren't worth anything. It's only going to get worse for them when their darling Evans kills off Top Gear completely.

BBC America and every BBC site outside UK has adverts. You'd think BBC UK would end the TV license farce and join the modern day.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

Yes, but I seem to remember there was a particular pressure that forced ITV's hand early - there was no escalator on Bernie's fees so they weren't having to fork out more money each year. I think that if it was purely 'we need to save money in the long term', they would have waited until the end of the contract. I want to say that it was the result of a bidding war over the Champions League rights which ended up hogging all the sports budget, but I will need to dig out Rider's autobiography to be sure.

Incidentally, that is the big reason why I think ITV can be expected to do a better job this time - there is no more Champions League and a bigger pot of money to be devoted to F1.

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Dan Wheldon ¦ 1978-2011
Marco Simoncelli ¦ 1987-2011
Jules Bianchi ¦ 1989-2015
Justin Wilson ¦ 1978-2015

Yeah, I know he's mad and I don't care. I do not care. I did not care then. I do not care now. I'm here to race him.

David Cameron and his buddy Rupert totally agree with you

The bbc is being eroded from within by hired goons trying to tank the network. When it's gone we'll be lost in a sea of corporate lowest common denominator x factor bullshit and the British version of fox news with no one to stand up as the impartial voice of the people.
Case in point: I haven't watched anything on itv bar one ep every 2 months or so of the chase since f1 went or tv burp finished, whichever was later,
There's literally nothing in its intellegent insulting programming that appeals to me. And people want the bbc to become this?
Words fail me,

Their f1 programming was some of the worst of any sport too. Hiring Jim "why can't I be doing football instead" Rosenthal and Mark "wot is this English language thing, most of the non-English drivers speak better English than wot i do" Blundell showed just how little thought went in to their coverage, let alone James "I'm an enormous cock end who believes his own hype about replacing and being better than murray" Allen
Of course Some of their coverage highlights include cooking with giancarlo fishichella, winery with jarno trulli and lifestyles with Beverly turner.
(They can't take any credit for Brundle either, the bbc were auditioning gum in the 1995 races he wasn't racing in for ligier)

I really don't expect them to sink to those depths again, I guess all they'd have to do is hire back ben Edwards (and use him for formula e and btcc too like the way murray used to be the voice of everything from f1 to ford to trucks to rallycross back in the day,. ) and I'll be happy enough,

Though they'll probably try and shake things up and go for jack whasis face from formula e.

It could be ok, but I don't think even they have the money to splash on the sports it really needs .
And sky are cutting their budget next season too apparently.

Bleak times for f1 fans

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Of course the rights change hands, they usually do when there's a British champion

Looking for Lewis (or jenson ) in 2016 then

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

It was Blair and Labour that started the dismantling of the BBC, the Hutton farce remember.

What's the betting ITV brings James Allen back? I try to forget how bad ITV's coverage actually was. TV Burp was probably the last thing I watched on ITV1, the only good stuff is on ITV4.

Thatcher didn't think much of them either.

The story I heard about the BBC was slightly different, Bernie didn't mention money and just asked how much they were willing to offer, they offered far more than he expected, but he never corrected their mistake. As RTN said it was only after talking to ITV was it then they realised what a clanger they'd dropped, they also though they were in a bidding war with ITV, Bernie hadn't told them ITV were pulling the plug.

Having done work for the BBC I can tell you 80% of the people working there are morons and have the other 20% to thank for keeping the lights on. Knowing them it'll probably cost them more to terminate early than it would carry on.

You do understand I was being sarcastic, right?

ITV1 to 4 are free to air on satellite, you can watch it in Belgium. Commercials will suck but they manage to broadcast the Formula E races without commercial breaks, so I have some hope they can keep the ads to a minimum during the GP.

Did not, don't think I was the only one either.

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BTCC Pick Em's Champion 2010
Formula Fun Cup Champion 2013
http://www.the-fastlane.co.uk

I believe he's said he doesn't want to travel to every race anymore & isn't keen on returning to TV commentary. Plus the BBC will likely keep the radio rights so he'll probably stay there & do what he's been doing the past few years.


Thinking back to the ITV coverage from 97-08 I think there were areas where ITV improved the coverage over what we had been getting on the BBC beforehand. To start out with we had decent pre/post race coverage & some good analysis & of course we had every qualifying session & race shown live.

On the whole Ad's aside I think the initial years of ITV's coverage was generally very good. I think the problem with the ITV coverage was that the Ad-breaks were always a nuisance & at worst an intrusive & annoying thing that led to us missing crucial moments in the races. Then after Murray retired most fans just never took to James Allen or his style of commentary (And there always seemed to be some resentment that they didn't go for Ben Edwards who seemed to be the fans choice at the time) & as the years went on the overall quality of the coverage declined. Mark Blundell was brought in & they extended the length of there pre-race show despite having nothing of any interest to fill it with so we just ended up with 55 minutes of Mark & Steve Rider talking nonsense. In 2007/2008 they turned into the official Lewis Hamilton fan club where every pre-race show seemed to involve them been camped outside his garage doing nothing but talking about how amazing he was & how the mistake he made were not really his mistakes or something & the whole thing just got to a point where it wasn't really worth watching.

the advantage of modern F1 is that there are no crucial moments in the races anymore. and with adbreaks on a higher volume, the snoozing audiance will wake up again.

Bernie has said he could potentially force the BBC to see out their contract

http://www.motorsport.com/f1/news/ecclestone-not-ruling-out-forcing-bbc-to-see-out-contract/

So he's not admitting it openly but he understands F1 needs to be on open tv atm.

Losing the BBC wouldn't affect me. I haven't watched their coverage since Sky.

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"Many people ask me why I always sign off Till We Meet Again, because goodbye is always so final. Goodbye Dan Wheldon." -Marty Reid

Poor thing

Sky are reducing their budget for f1 next year so that will affect you.

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RIP Birmingham Wheels: here's some of the crash videos I recorded when it was there:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIaKIE ... 5t9d5PvoHA

Twitter:

http://www.twitter.com/paulhadsley

Sky coverage is on demand?

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Motorsports trend for 2024: climate change ruining races everywhere