[TV] BBC F1 coverage in 2010

[Fox89]

Originally Posted by jab

Sky+

Anyway, some good preview stuff has gone up on the BBC website today - round table discussion with Humphrey, Legard, Brundle, EJ and DC. It's a good laugh - 45 minutes worth too so no complaining from me

Looks like the big push starts today

Felt a bit sorry for DC at one point! "So, who do you think is gonna win the Championship?"

"Ferrari."
"McLaren"
"Ferrari"
"Red Bull" *Everyone else burst into laughter*

[safc_fan89]

I don't see what is wrong with the BBC not having the best F1 website or providing enough coverage of pre-season testing. For one, autosport's website does much better on both, so what is the point in the Beeb wasting money in order to try (and fail) to compete? Their race coverage is much better than ITV's has ever been, is that not good enough?

[jab]

Because being the F1 broadcaster in Britain or any particular nation is not just about the TV coverage

They shouldn't do a GMM and pump out x articles a day but equally they shouldn't just do pretty much nothing at all. I don't think it would take that much to beat Autosport's F1 coverage - there's a hell of a lot that Autosport.com doesn't report because it's too scared to report rumours these days or is saving stuff for the magazine or whatever, and they also do a hell of a lot of soundbite stories which don't add much. It's not just quantity - it's quality, and I don't think the BBC's F1 news reporting is good enough

Also worth noting at this point that one of the things to come out of the BBC's budget cuts is that they want a lot more links to outside news sources so that they can try and make their money back. So unfortunately that probably means a lot more stuff like the "gossip columns"

[safc_fan89]

My point is that it simply does not matter if their news reporting isn't good enough, as there are numerous websites elsewhere who report news. They are not in competition with anyone else in this country, or even the world, in terms of F1, so there is no need for them to be sending reporters to Italy or wherever to get latest gossip which other websites can come up with anyway.

The BBC is funded by us, the taxpayers, and I don't think our money is best spent on telling us that Bruno Senna's drive may be insecure at Campos, for example. I use many different motorsport/F1 websites to get my news. Same for real-world news and other sport news.

You seem to be moaning for the sake of moaning.

[jab]

Other sites doing a better job is not an excuse for the BBC doing a half-assed job and neither is that the taxpayers' money is going towards it one as well - surely it would be better knowing that taxpayer is paying for something of a decent quality that people read. It wouldn't cost that much more - it doesn't cost anything to do a better job. Otherwise, if that's the attitude, the BBC should just save even more money and not bother at all

It's just dumbing the whole thing down, taking their readership for granted. Typical of the BBC

[Knowlesy]

For gods sake jab just log off the internet!

[jab]

Oh come on, surely it's not too much to ask for people to research enough to get someone's name right. That's the level we're talking about

[Adam43]

BBC dumbing down! Maybe, but it has a long way to go to compete with the competition on that score.

I'm confused with what you are asking for. You seem to be complaining about quantity sometimes, quality others. Autosport doesn't dare report rumours, but I hope BBC doesn't go down the rumour mill route; to be simply a gossip column! I don't get what you think is wrong, or really how it should be better.

Off topic comment alert I have to type this or my brain will explode! duke, Thought For The Day is meant to be a religious spot! Despite this it is a thought not a promotion. The thought can be considered even if you are not religious. Thanks for reading, you've been a wonderful audience. Don't forget to try the veal and tip your waitress. We now return you to the topic

Off topic comment alert I have to type this or my brain will explode! duke, I'm enjoying the discussion in OT Although perhaps we should take it to PF? Thanks for reading, you've been a wonderful audience. Don't forget to try the veal and tip your waitress. We now return you to the topic

[duke_toaster]

Off topic comment alert I have to type this or my brain will explode! Yeah, might be an idea. Thanks for reading, you've been a wonderful audience. Don't forget to try the veal and tip your waitress. We now return you to the topic

[jab]

Originally Posted by Adam43

I'm confused with what you are asking for. You seem to be complaining about quantity sometimes, quality others. Autosport doesn't dare report rumours, but I hope BBC doesn't go down the rumour mill route; to be simply a gossip column! I don't get what you think is wrong, or really how it should be better.

OK. Highest priority: better (i.e. well-researched, interesting etc) articles. Then, after that, some extra articles - not trivial "he said, she said" stuff, I mean relevant articles and analysis which people would find interesting

As I said earlier in the thread, one way they could go about this is hiring guest writers in to do guest articles every so often, if they seriously don't want to write more themselves, because there are talented people out there who would bite your hand off to write for the BBC

I've noticed a few times they've linked to other stories in their "gossip column" that I would've judged to be important enough to run stories on. I'll give you an example from recently - Ian Phillips leaving Force India. Given that he has worked for Five Live, you'd have expected the BBC to give some kind of mention to the fact that he's left his team rather than just a brief mention and a link to another article. Obviously someone is trawling the net for these articles so why not, instead of linking to them, write their own? How long do articles like that take to write - 10, 15 minutes? It's not exactly asking that much, is it?

I still think that bar all the non-news stuff and the videos, ITV's F1 website is better than the BBC's. Which is shameful, really, considering who's actually covering the sport and which channel is which. The BBC F1 website got jazzed up and they have done a lot of other great things on there like the interactive track maps, but beyond that, it's not far off where it was before they won the rights

Maybe when they outsource the coverage next year, they'll outsource the website too. ITV did the right thing in outsourcing that to Haymarket

[ghinzani]

Just watched the preview chat - Eddie Jordan is still a grade A c u next tuesday then. Red button Radio5 build up here I come. CBBC has got to be better even.

[White flag man]

Anyone know if you can get the results, by text, on a mobile and where from?

[Adam43]

Just turned gone to the red button on BBC to watch classic F1. It is Kyalami and Murray and James sound like they are on the phone, probably because they were!

This is also available on the website and I am finding it difficult to comprehend how much I think you are wrong on this one jab
More crap news digging out the worthless stories that you can read elsewhere or this, that isn't available elsewhere.

[jab]

But I'm not advocating pointless articles. I'm advocating analysis and interesting, worthwhile articles, stuff that you can't get elsewhere - I see it the other way around to you. I see the articles that are up now as pointless because there's nothing new in there. They're often the same stuff you can get elsewhere and often well behind other websites as well - I noticed recently they started saying Stefan GP were going to team up with US F1 after other websites were reporting that negotiations between the two had already finished. If they were properly researched articles, they wouldn't make mistakes like this or like getting a team owner's name wrong

I wasn't complaining about the videos. But where were they once the season had finished?

[ECW Dan Selby]

Yeh I'll meet you guys somewhere in the middle here. BBC do a great job during the season - However, in the off-season, there wasn't as much as i'd anticipated.

The 'rumours/gossip' section was a great way of half arsing the news. It's their way of presenting the rumours, and detaching themselves from them.

The promised videos of the off-season never seemed to materialise, which is a great shame. I'm always somewhat surprised by the lack of footage of the testing. I really thought this could have been tapped in to a little more. Offering some on-board shots would have been really nice, too.

But by the same token, we can't fault BBC for misleading anyone using their own sources, because as mentioned above, they were quite clever with it.

Selby

[adstubbs]

Originally Posted by White flag man

Anyone know if you can get the results, by text, on a mobile and where from?

Autosport have a Text update service that will send you qualifying and race results, plus any major F1 related news stories, but I cannot find anywhere on the website details of how you subcribe. Might be something in the print edition. There is a charge per message though

[White flag man]

Originally Posted by adstubbs

Autosport have a Text update service that will send you qualifying and race results, plus any major F1 related news stories, but I cannot find anywhere on the website details of how you subcribe. Might be something in the print edition. There is a charge per message though

Thanks mate, I'll have a look today.

[adstubbs]

Originally Posted by White flag man

Thanks mate, I'll have a look today.

Found it - http://www.autosport.com/mobile/

[Adam43]

So BBC do what the other sites aren't doing (and do it brilliantly). That is ideal, surely?

I really don't think that it is in the beebs remit to be the leading specialist press on this subject. The fact that they are being considered in this light by some shows they are over delivering (as normal IMHO).

There coverage is the right level for a non-specialist publication and the main place I go for news, unless I wish to persue a particular F1 topic in detail. Same with all news on beeb really.

[jab]

This is the sort of mistake I'm talking about

The gap between the fastest and slowest times was even bigger than expected, with Rosberg more than six seconds faster than the quickest car from a new team.

That car belonged to Virgin's Timo Glock, who was 0.15secs quicker than his team-mate, the Brazilian novice Lucas di Grassi.

Heikki Kovalainen, the quicker of the two Lotus drivers, was two seconds slower than Glock - a margin that is almost certainly not representative of the true performance of the cars.

Here

The actual standings

18. Kovalainen Lotus-Cosworth 2:00.873 + 5.464 23
19. Trulli Lotus-Cosworth 2:00.990 + 5.581 14
20. Glock Virgin-Cosworth 2:02.037 + 6.628 3
21. di Grassi Virgin-Cosworth 2:02.188 + 6.779 21

So where were the Loti 2 seconds slower than Glock? They were over a second faster

That's got nothing to do with being specialist or not. That's just not checking your facts

[nea]

This is FOM related but still worth a mention..

Did anyone notice that the little Info boxes on drivers were all wrong today? It stated de la Rosa made his debut at Canada 2004, Alonso made his debut at Australia 2002 and there were various other little cockups.

Guess they're rusty after their winter hols.

[jab]

Getting confused with Glock and Massa (or Webber)

[Adam43]

Originally Posted by jab

This is the sort of mistake I'm talking about

Here

I seem to remember Lotus being in F1 before (that week joke matches the importance of this, IMHO)

I've not seen the coverage practice. If only there was some way of watching it...

[jab]

Good job today generally, although they kept repeating that Schumacher hasn't participated in shootout quali, which he has (in 2006). But that's just trivial. It's like they've never been away

LEGARD WAS GOOD

[fourWheelDrift]

Originally Posted by jab

LEGARD WAS GOOD

Astonishing comment, he was dire all last year and so far as I could tell he was the same today. He sounds to me like someone desperately feigning an interest in the sport, his failed (at least for me) attempts to convey excitement to the audience leave me feeling flat and dissapointed. I still put up with him because a GP without Brundle just wouldn't be the same but I'm coming close to jumping ship and listnening to 5 live instead.

I'm sure Legard is brilliant at something but in my opinion it's not F1 commentry.