Comments on: BBC F1 is great but motor sport coverage in Britain is getting worse

By: Tengil

Tengil — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 12:03:22 +0000

If you do, I hope you shoot him in the arm

By: msF1

msF1 — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:37:22 +0000

Here in Germany the broadcasting situation is even worse, I think. As I mentioned before the BBC coverage is much better and especially much more professional than the one of German broadcaster RTL (a private network).
At least they have Christian Danner as a commentator and Niki Lauda as an expert, however the rest is just Germany-focused commentary over and over again, which is really annoying.

The situation with other racing series isn’t much better:
DTM is broadcasted by a public broadcaster, a few GP2 races by Eurosport (rest on Eurosport 2) and for almost all other series you have to have “Premiere”.

By: Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:21:32 +0000

Not sure if anyone knows this but UKTV (the owner of DAVE) is part-owned by the BBC. Without getting too technical its a joint venture between Virgin and BBC split stright down the line 50:50.
It allows the BBC to act in a commercial manner without getting in to trouble with the licencing regulators and in return UKTV gets first dibbs on BBC programming.
If the BBC were to try to launch a sports channel it might have to be through UKTV to ensure it could raise the money to buy the broadcastling rights through advertising. Unfortunately this would mean that all of the plaudits the BBC has rceived for its F1 coverage being free of ads could be tainted.

By: Maurice Henry

Maurice Henry — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:23:36 +0000

I watch/watched:

Motors TV – Japanese Super GT – gone in 2008 to god knows where. I want it back! I have to survive on the 2007 season which I have on disc and the odd race from 2005/2006; DTM Live – gone to Setanta who only seem to show a delayed race repeat. Now have to watch the races I recorded 2005-2008; MotorsTV seems to have become an MX channel with the amount of off road bike racing they show. However, I am looking forward to the Silverstone Classic which was covered superbly well by the Motors team, assisted by Murray Walker and Toby Moody

Eurosport – Le Mans Series – Gone missing this year; Le Mans – I’ll record virtually the whole thing on a portable PVR (Archos 705); MotoGP – Dorna realised very late in the day that the BBC treat MotoGP like crap. MotoGP qualie, 125cc/250cc qualie and races consigned to the red button. They never show the podium ceremony. Last race (Mugello) you could only hear the podium ceremony in the background and then they went over to show a canoeing event!!! That’s the only reason British Eurosport was given any MotoGP coverage. The top team of Moody, Ryder and Mamola has sadly been broken up by Eurosport reducing their trackside costs. Most commentating seems to be done remotely now; WSBK – Great racing so far this year. Thoroughly entertaining.

Sky – A1GP – coverage is comprehensive and some of the races weren’t bad. Has the feel of a Sunday league pub fixture list with race dates changing at the last minute and others being dropped at short notice. Definitely not F1; NASCAR – Watch it occassionally but I don’t go out my way to watch; IRL – ditto but somehow even less interested now; World Motorsports – gone now. But it was a great way to watch races from all over the world you wouldn’t normally see.

By: Chaz

Chaz — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 22:11:19 +0000

I seriously considered getting the Setanta subscription for my Sky just to be able to watch GP2. I don’t care for football. But then someone mentioned that for Virgin subscribers it is included in the regular sport package. That annoyed me and I decided against it. I hope Sky Sports or Eurosports or ITV4 pick it up if Setanta go belly up.

I should have said that I agrees with much of what has been written in the article. Lets hope DTM comes back to a decent channel. The IRL coverage on Sky is a disappointment. I’ve sent a complaint to Sky already. I like to watch my motorsports live and not “delayed as live”. This term should not be banned. Something is either live or it is not live.

I’ve noticed Eurosport are not always showing the main MotoGP race live. Why? It’s the big draw! What are they playing at!

Rival channels used to buy the rights to highlights but this practice happens less and less. What a shame…

By: Speed Demon

Speed Demon — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 21:54:12 +0000

I regularly catch Speed TV’s coverage of the Grand Am Series, which is well produced and the racing (if not the cars) is exciting.

But for me though, the ultimate in motor racing commentary is V8 Supercars. A great commentary team, with Mark Skaife joining Neil Crompton and others in the box, allied to a team of knowledgeable pitlane reporters (a la Nascar), lots of cameras in the cars, teams and drivers who are willing interviewees and access to lots of in car radio. It’s not difficult to get motorsport tv coverage right – but it does require a lot of resources.

By: Hammad

Hammad — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:52:15 +0000

You know guys, I used to receive a channel called Supersport from South Africa. I don’t know whether the international and local broadcasts are any different, but if the local ones are anything like the international, then people in South Africa have it good. Even when F1 was with ITV (those guys used the ITV feeds, even using J.A and M.B as the commentators), they would never take ad breaks. And the guys in the studio were very knowledgeable. They’d also show GP2, A1GP etc. Too bad I don’t get it anymore

By: Rikadyn

Rikadyn — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:04:42 +0000

V8s and DTM are usually shown off season in the winter on SPEED.

Speed, since being bought out by Fox, has gone down hill. Used to show every racing series under the sun, and then shows relating to them. Now, it’s just 22hr a day of NASCAR, Reality programing, and infomercials, with the last 2hrs being actual racing.

By: F1Yankee

F1Yankee — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:36:22 +0000

yassou, philosmou!

By: al

al — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 14:52:45 +0000

For anyone whose interested, highlights of the current british f3 season are shown on C4 on saturday mornings but the coverage is quite short because they have to fit two races into 30 mins.
Some times GT and FFord are shown as well.