F1 Coverage on ITV

[Stephen]

Almost twenty years ago to the day, a young boy rushed into the living room of his three bedroom semi in Hertfordshire to discover something that would have an almost unparalleled influence on his early life. Stopped half in his stride, transfixed by the wood dressed television, and captivated by the colourful, competitive and mysterious world that he saw that Sunday afternoon, Formula One would forever be a part of his life.

It’s now a new millennium, and since that day in 1986 where I joined my Dad on our brown three seat sofa to watch the end of the Grand Prix, much has changed in my favourite sport. I’ve watched drivers become heroes, heroes become legends, and legends become history in a sport unequalled in technology, risk, glamour and speed. During this time I have been fortunate enough to produce the David Coulthard Supporters Site, spend an evening arguing over the merits of ‘chips in a cone’ with the great Jackie Stewart and was the first to congratulate Murray Walker on his Television Bafta in 2002.

However, today I fear I have watched my last Grand Prix. ITV’s coverage of such an awesome sporting spectacle has gone from dismal, to unacceptable, to downright intolerable. In a sport where thousandths of a second separate the top three drivers, whole laps (4 on occasion) are lost to advertising, safety car restarts are assigned to the cutting room floor, and post race press conferences are brushed aside for information on the next major football match.

Then there’s that endemic disease we all know as James Allen. His biased, clichéd and inaccurate commentary bestows the sport a somewhat tabloid flavour, only exacerbated by the dreary monotone of a man totally unrepresentative of the fans. Martin Brundle is the only saving grace of the whole programme, a driver who I had the pleasure of watching during my first encounter with F1, and the only member of the ITV team who has any knowledge, status and credibility in the sport.

My love for F1 will go on, but for the sake of its future and all the six year old fans out there, I hope ITV-F1 sinks faster than Titanic.

Rant over.

[schumi]

i've gotta agree with you on many points there Stephen but i bet you haven't watched your last grand prix, it's an addiction. Try turning down the sound it works for me sometimes, but i do lose as much as i gain!!!. Surley with all the ex drivers who obviously have passion for the sport ITV could mix and match for a bit of change if they cared about anything other than the cash the make from the 4 laps of advertisements they can squeeze in. I was looking for ITVs e-mail on this forum not to long ago so i could get a similar rant to yours off my chest but i got no reply, maybe just as well cause i don't think i would have put it so nice. Maybe if we all e- mailed them they might get their fingers out or let some channel with a bit of interest have a pop

[Selcouth_Feline]

Very eloquent Stephen Loving the allusion in the last sentence, LOL!

Have to agree with you here though.....ITV drive me mad with all the ad breaks. I also hate the fact F1 always gets relegated behind the World Cup, tennis, golf, cricket....basically ever other sport! Yes, we get a race every couple of weeks, whereas most of the above are once every year (or less) but surely it's better to keep your regulars than to keep one-offs???

How much good will emailing ITV do? Probably not a lot. Whilst advertisers are still prepared to pay good money for stupid ads in the middle of the F1, ITV won't care about the viewers - not until quite literally noone watches it. Money speaks louder than viewer-satisfaction. It doesn't help that many of us have no other place to go to watch F1 - perhaps if another Freeview channel had F1, they'd start to site up and listen....or maybe not!

[darwin dali]

Any chance that you could pick up some other channels via satellite dish? RTL or the French or whatever - Europe is so small, c'mon the borders are close enough! You might have to brush up on your German or French though

[Stephen]

Any chance that you could pick up some other channels via satellite dish? RTL or the French or whatever - Europe is so small, c'mon the borders are close enough! You might have to brush up on your German or French though

It's certainly an idea, and a good one. I'm going to relent and probably watch the race this weekend, but look into other means of watching the event. I just wish I was rich enough to travel to every race!

[schumi]

my girlfriend has a dish pointing at hotbir 1 to pick up Russian tv and during the last grand prix i flicked through 300 channels before i gave up trying, maybe next time i'll try another few hundered

[BGP]

Try this

Satilite: Hotbird
Freq: 12395
Pol: H
SR: 3/4

If you know how can I get ITV in the middle east please let me know how.

[Marco]

If you know how can I get ITV in the middle east please let me know how.

Nice one BGP, welcome to the forum. You been a fan of F1 long?

Marco