Entertainment For Lively Minds
Who'da thought it?
Posted by niallb on 29 July 2011 - 8:28pm.
Sky Sports News have discovered this great new sport. It's called Formula 1. Having completely ignored it for years they're now talking it up like it's better than a loaf of Mother's Pride. Knobheads.
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F1
I'm quite disappointed. I think the BBC coverage has been excellent these last couple of years. I'm not sure whether any of the current crew will make the move to Sky. Jake Humphrey certainly won't, as he's got the olympics gig with the Beeb.
Jake Humphrey
Will surely stay as the BBC has half the races.
True
Yeah, just brushed-up on the ins-and-outs of the deal. Seems like an unhappy halfway house to me.
Agreed
Much more in the action than ITV and closer to the drivers. Beeb will have to have a team at all races to fulfill the highlights package, unless they commentate over the F1 picture from a studio in Soho. Can't see Brundle,DC & EJ going for that. I feel most for people like my lovely 78 year old mother in law. An F1 nut who gets up at stupid o'clock to watch qualifying from Melbourne but can't afford Sky. Unless I pay for it for her which means the bastards have won! Bastards.
The only sport where
the TV viewer has to endure hour after hour of interminable 'practice' sessions. This doesn't happen with other sports on TV but can think of a few that would be more interesting viewing. And if the staffing levels of the 'one year to go' Olympics coverage is anything to go by (BBC - 200, Sky - 11) there won't be many getting transferred.
You and me both,Harry
and the only thing worse is "Live Practice sessions" on 5live.
Nah
You don't have to endure anything mate. If you're not interested in practice, don't watch it.
Hear Hear
Wot 'e sed
Too much gratuitous complaining
I like a good
gratuitous. And as for watching any of it, do me a favour. It's not exactly sport is it? Get to the first bend ahead of the rest, make sure you have the right tyres, and fill up at appropriate moments. That's commuting.
It's not exactly sport is it?
There isn't a sport in the world that can't be described in baldly reductive terms. Golf - it's just a bunch of blokes in jumpers hitting little balls with sticks.
and the winners are
bernie, murdoch and the tories.
can anyone enlighten me, why does everyone seems to appreciate the bbc except dave and his millionaire mates?
They may have discovered this great new sport
but in a few years time they will have invented it, just like they did with football in 1992.
You've lost me....
'Great new sport', I'm fine with.
'Great new sport' used in conjunction with 'Formula 1', nope, none the wiser.
At least it'll give Bernie Wotsit something to do when he fleeces QPR of millions.
Nice man and soooooo animated.
utter guff
How dare Sky try to offer an excellent service to its subscribers!
I'd love to go back to the glory days of, for instance, occasionally catching 25 minutes of day-old highlights from the Ashes late on BBC 2. I also think the 'old school' football coverage was much better. Two, possibly three, cameras was more than enough.
We're not saying
they don't give excellent service. It's the fact that if you want to watch all the races it's going to cost you $40+ a month.
I still hanker for the cricket on BBC when a test match was uninterrupted for the whole five days not adverts after every over.
Someone on the radio yesterday came up with a good point. If you can't afford Sky you go down the pub to watch it what happens when the Italian GP clashes with their precious Man U? Off to the car with Radio 5.
yes, but ...
I also miss live test coverage on the BBC, but the beeb never provided live TV coverage of any overseas test series. Adverts are merely part of the price we have to pay for that particular service. I don't see any problem with that.
I do, however, see problems for cricket if test matches are always on subscription channels, but that's another topic.
Sky Sports
So does that mean even if we've already got Sky we're going to have to pay an extra £20 a month if we want to carry on watching live F1 races?
Don't we have Dave and his pals to thank for this?
The Beeb has done this so that they can hang on to some coverage within the reduced funding.
It's not a done deal yet. It still needs the constructors agreement, and they are going to have to believe that Sky's extra cash will compensate for any doubts sponsors have about viewing audiences. Ultimately F1 cars are just high speed advertising hoardings and up to now, free to air TV was thought to be the only way to guarantee the sponsors support. Pirelli are already voicing their doubts
Apparently
Martin Brundle is out of contract at the end of the current season. It will be interesting to see if he continues, given his quote on Twitter about the new deal.
It is a crying shame that the BBC is slowly but inexorably giving up live sport in favour of cheaper highlights packages - F1,football,cricket to name but a few.
And yet, given the coverage this week of the 'one year to go' events, a bottomless pit of cash will be available for wall to wall Olympic coverage next year.
Money vs Spirit
I've been an ardent fan of F1 for over two decades. For me the sport at its best is all about the human spirit: A driver pushed to his physical and mental limits, and, behind him, a team pushing at the limits of invention and technology.
For the teams, the sponsors and the organisers, F1 is increasingly about maximising revenue. The new TV deal is geared towards generating more money for the sport at the expense of some of its audience. People like me who watched it for years on terrestrial channels probably don't provide much in the way of income and I doubt Bernie and co will be too sorry to see the back of us.
I can't afford sky sports so this half cut deal probably heralds the slow fade of my interest in the sport. No doubt I'll find some other equally nerdy activity to occupy myself on Sundays.
Bernie will be very sorry to see you go
if the companies who pay trillions to have their logos on the cars decide they aren't happy with the viewing figures and decide not to spend as much.
True
But only UK viewing figures will be affected, and F1 is a global sport. I doubt it'll cause a drop in sponsorship.
I think it's time the creative talents
of the hacking brigade turned their attentions to the Sky encryption system.
Funny you should say that...
...as it's been alleged many times that a News International owned company named NDS were responsible for cracking the encryption used by ITV Digital, and leaking details online.
Will Sky...
Remove the ban on over-taking, or will it still be whoever gets to the first corner first wins the race?
I have the same level of F1 interest as I do in soccer
i.e. zero.
Having stated my position on that:
The BBC are being deliberately squeezed out of all TV sports coverage by Sky, sport by sport, event by event. They cannot compete with the amount of money Sky are prepared to throw at getting exclusive coverage. Nor should they, because once they have the television rights, Sky can make sports-loving subscribers pay a subscription to see the sports / events they have exclusive rights to and the BBC cannot.
The BBC should face facts and start planning for a sports-free TV future. Not everyone is obsessed with sport. There are other excellent programmes still to be made and the BBC should set their sights on making them.
I could live with that for the professional sports,
as long as viewers don't start bleating about 'only watching sport' and wanting to absent themselves from paying the licence fee.
Surely it's not too much to expect our national public service broadcaster to carry the F1 and GP pinnacles of motorsport, the annual gladiatorial festival that is the F.A. Cup, the Rugby World Cup, the Ashes, Wimbledon, the Badminton Horse Trials, er, hang on, there's an awful lot of it isn't there?
Let's just have Sunday League football, Amateur Athletics, Weekday Adult Mixed Bathing, oh, and Dominos and Pub Quiz from the Star & Garter instead.
As someone very close to the industry said recently...
"For half the money the BBC pays for F1 rights, they could literally buy the rights to every other major motor racing series combined. Then they could put it all behind the red button and everyone's happy!"
Motor Racing is a sport. Formula 1 is a category.