Formula 1 The F1 jibber jabber thread.

[Ch3tan]

Glad the right Brit one, and nice to see that those three are still the strongest drivers. Would be happy with either of those 3 winning the championship this season.

Also, was it just me or did the HD pic quality on sky seem a lot lower than the bbc's coverage?

 

[Chilly]

Glad the right Brit one

racist

 

[Gumbo]

As for Sky: fuck off. Watched via a stream and have no intention of paying a penny to those sponsored rapists. Not a huge fan of the commentary but it is *slightly* better than the dull prick Croft and Gary Anderson, the technical analyst who doesn't seem sure if he's analysing football or nascar. He's not a TV guy, that's for sure.

That's an odd paragraph. I thought the Sky coverage was excellent, and was pleasantly suprised to see that there was no advert breaks during the whole Race programme, or indeed qualifying. I'd completely understand a short ad break between each qualifying session, but they didn't even do that. The oddest thing you say is that Croft is Dull and Gary Anderson being a tech analyst. I could understand you suggesting that Croft was over excitable, but dull? hardly. and, er, Gary Anderson is working for the Beeb, not Sky.

Are you sure you were watching the right stream?

 

[Moriath]

Glad the right Brit one,

Won even

 

[Kryten]

The oddest thing you say is that Croft is Dull and Gary Anderson being a tech analyst. I could understand you suggesting that Croft was over excitable, but dull? hardly. and, er, Gary Anderson is working for the Beeb, not Sky.

Are you sure you were watching the right stream?

I was about to say re-read my post but I'd even manage to bugger it up I didn't mean Crofty, I meant Ben Edwards, and was saying that I did prefer Sky's commentary.

I wasn't bemoaning anything wrong with Sky's coverage on air at all. I just said I won't pay them any money because I dislike them. They don't give a fuck about F1 other than it's bringing them subscriptions so that irks me a little too, although it's vaguely understandable being "business".
It says a lot that if you want any information about F1, you won't get it from anywhere relating to Sky other than their news pages covering events. It's not all about what you see happening on track

 

[caLLous]

Business in "trying to make money" shocker.

I thought the Sky coverage was really good, I'm not sure they need to employ quite so many faces but it's probably on a par with the team the beeb had last year. Croft and Brundle worked better than I thought it would, I always put the R5 Live audio on last year on the red button because I preferred Croft/Davidson anyway. I think the fact that they have made a whole new channel for the sport is a good indication that they're not going to go at it in a half-arsed manner and nothing that I have seen so far suggests otherwise.

 

[Chilly]

I was about to say re-read my post but I'd even manage to bugger it up I didn't mean Crofty, I meant Ben Edwards, and was saying that I did prefer Sky's commentary.

I wasn't bemoaning anything wrong with Sky's coverage on air at all. I just said I won't pay them any money because I dislike them. They don't give a fuck about F1 other than it's bringing them subscriptions so that irks me a little too, although it's vaguely understandable being "business".
It says a lot that if you want any information about F1, you won't get it from anywhere relating to Sky other than their news pages covering events. It's not all about what you see happening on track

Do you think the BBC give any more of a fuck about F1 than Sky ? Honestly?

the front line journos will be passionate about it, the bosses will fund it because it's profitable which lets the journos and producers who actually like the sport make the programs they wish to make (within a profitable framework). I honestly can't see how it being with sky could be worse than the BBC in any respect except access.

The effort sky have made with red button, apps for smartphones and tablets etc has been astounding and something the BBC simply could never afford. Bravo sky.

 

[ECA]

Beeb spent £20m on buying rights and producing the voice...... if they wanted to they could have kept f1 easily.

 

[Kryten]

Sky have no online presence. That's quite a big miss. Noone gives a fuck about apps and stuff as formula1 has that covered itself.

 

[Krazeh]

http://www1.skysports.com/formula1/ <- is that not an online presence?

 

[Kryten]

http://www1.skysports.com/formula1/ <- is that not an online presence?

Damn, they hid that well then. It looks shit, that'll do as a whinge for me I'm new to this Sky bashing lark, I hate them and that's about it. At least with Apple I can back up hatred with hard facts. I couldn't give two shits about TV these days though.

End of the day, I'm just bitter because I'm a stubborn old git with a grudge against rules being broken (the CA)

 

[Agell]

Aus tv (channel 10) had Sat/Sun from 11am to 7pm on both days, unfortunately 7 hours of the coverage on each day was adverts!! Roll on Full BBC coverage so I can use my VPN

 

[Scouse]

I honestly can't see how it being with sky could be worse than the BBC in any respect except access.

Access being the key aspect...

 

[caLLous]

If I didn't already have SS I would probably sub just for the F1. I believe you get the F1HD channel with the HD pack so you don't need to spend £19 pcm on the Sports Pack but it's £10 pcm on top of your normal sub price for the HD Pack. All figures are "iirc".

And they're going to broadcast all GP2 and GP3 races as well. Unfortunately, the beeb just can't compete with their financial backing. People get all teary-eyed about F1 and the beeb because of the history (and The Chain, ofc) but Sky really are going to do a thorough job. They could probably have got away with chucking just the quali and race sessions in a slot on SS2 or something but they've made a whole new channel just for it (and the support races).

imo.

 

[Scouse]

Yep. And when they've got a subscriber base and can prove the numbers to Bernie they'll wrest the rest of the races off the beeb.

Then adverts will start to creep into it a bit more. Like they did with football. On a service you pay more for a quarter than you do for a year of the beeb.

I'll ditch TV before I buy sky.

 

[Chilly]

Meh, I have sky and I love it. It's already got all the races, there's no wresting to do.

 

[DaGaffer]

Yep. And when they've got a subscriber base and can prove the numbers to Bernie they'll wrest the rest of the races off the beeb.

Then adverts will start to creep into it a bit more. Like they did with football. On a service you pay more for a quarter than you do for a year of the beeb.

I'll ditch TV before I buy sky.

Its very straightforward; the licence fee has been capped due to public pressure; Wimbledon gets similar audience figures (demographically as well as absolute numbers) over two weeks than F1 gets in a year (which really surprised me; its 35.6 v 34.8 for Wimbledon) and costs a lot less in OB terms if not the rights themselves. Now you can certainly argue the BBC supports a bunch of other irrelevant shite that could have been cut before F1, but its not as clear cut as you might think.

As for Sky sneakily "commercialising" the offer over time, probably, although not to the extent they'll roll it into the Sky Sports subscription; that was one of the carrots they had to give FOTA; Sky sold it on the basis that basic Sky had enough audience reach to be regarded as "public" TV (as its over 30% of UK households that's not too unreasonable). The ad free coverage is part of the deal until 2018.

Personally I thought the commentator was annoying but the coverage itself was fine, but I admit as I already have Sky it wasn't a painful transition.

 

[Scouse]

The ad free coverage is part of the deal until 2018.

"Until"...

the coverage itself was fine, but I admit as I already have Sky it wasn't a painful transition.

I'm sure the coverage was great, but I didn't get to see the race, in a sport I've been watching since I was ten years old.

 

[caLLous]

G'wan Scouse.

 

[DaGaffer]

"Until"...

The TV landscape will look very different six years from now. You'll probably subscribe to the F1 season on iTunes or something.

 

[Scouse]

TBFH, with todays obsession with safety and cheating (DRS and KERS) I'll probably just ditch it, get out on my bike more and just watch the marquee races

 

[caLLous]

Bish bash bosh another fine quali session for McLaren. Long may it continue.

 

[Litmus]

2nd week of F1 this week and I've not seen so much as a single lap of anything. After watching it my whole life i really cant be arsed now, i don't have sky sports and wont be having it either.

i probably wont even both when the races are on bbc, what's the point in only being able to watch 1/2 the races? I'd rather sky just had the whole lot rather drip feed us the left overs.

 

[Punishment]

Might drag myself out of bed early to watch this one, maybe (shoulder is killing me)

 

[caLLous]

Is someone going to moan about Sky at every race weekend?

 

[Scouse]

Fucking hope so. We've been excluded from watching a sport that we love that has been free-to-air since it's inception, unless we spunk up for a very expensive subscription.

I don't subscribe to Sky. It'd cost me about double the licence fee for the BBC just to watch F1 now.

People who watch sky need to feel a downside from everyone else. SUFFER, BITCHES

 

[Exioce]

Last week's BBC race coverage wasn't that bad. It was subtly condensed, you never really noticed unless you had a stopwatch and timed every lap yourself. Not like the old style highlights where it would blatantly skip 5 laps ahead at a time.
The show was disappointingly short however, barely 5 mins of pre-race stuff. I guess there's not much point hanging around if it is 6 hours after the fact, and they save that sort of coverage for Saturdays.

Gonna try the Sky feed tomorrow and compare.

 

[Krazeh]

Fucking hope so. We've been excluded from watching a sport that we love that has been free-to-air since it's inception, unless we spunk up for a very expensive subscription.

I don't subscribe to Sky. It'd cost me about double the licence fee for the BBC just to watch F1 now.

People who watch sky need to feel a downside from everyone else. SUFFER, BITCHES

Moan about the BBC then. They made the decision to re-negotiate the contract and enter into a deal with Sky.

 

[Aoami]

Fascinating race in Malaysia.

 

[caLLous]

Yeah, good stuff.

Spoiler

Awesome from Perez. The conspiracist in me originally thought it could've been a deliberate off so the "main" Ferrari team wouldn't be embarrassed. But top drive from him, consistently gaining on Alonso lap after lap after the restart.

Some shoddy pit-work from McLaren, though.