F1 Coverage in the UK: from the BBC to Channel 4

[LewEngBridewell]

Free to air coverage of F1 will be on Channel 4 as of next season, as the BBC still battles with budget restraints (I just did an ident with them for their FA Cup coverage, so all their money went on me, sorry).

Anyway, Channel 4 have said that no advert breaks will take place in their live coverage, unlike the old ITV days. Also, Sky will continue broadcasting the Grands Prix as normal.

I personally don't mind the change of channel, and it's good to know that UK viewers will still have free access to the coverage. It'd be nice if the same commentators were kept (I think Ben Edwards and David Coulthard do an excellent job), and it'll be fascinating to see how it is all handled. The deal, as of yet, is short term (3 years I think).

Any thoughts on this from anyone else?

Happy Christmas everyone, BTW

[stonemonkey]

Since it was leaving BBC1 I wasn't planning on paying £28 a month for the sky sports package just to watch F1 (theres a local pub that shows the races so theres something better to spend that £28 on) so it's good news for me and I don't see it making much difference to the viewing of the races if they're omitting advert breaks, I guess some of the current crew will be moving over to ch4 too.

[darwin dali]

A switch to a different broadcaster can be unsettling. We had a change from Speed Channel to NBCSN a couple years ago with most of the commentator crew following. Turned out to be for the better with more coverage, etc.

[sagi58]

TSN carries the feed for pretty well all the races, around these parts!
I'm hoping that won't change!

[rob91]

I look foward to see what they do with the coverage, glad to hear that they won't have breaks during the races themselves. Here are the race schedules for Channel 4:

Code: Select all

Round   Race                       Date                       Live or Highlights
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1       Australian Grand Prix      March 18 – 20              Highlights
2       Bahrain Grand Prix         April 1 – 3                Live
3       Chinese Grand Prix         April 15 – 17              Highlights
4       Russian Grand Prix         April 29 – May 1           Highlights
5       Spanish Grand Prix         May 13 – 15                Live
6       Monaco Grand Prix          May 26 – 29                Highlights
7       Canadian Grand Prix        June 10 – 12               Highlights
8       European Grand Prix        June 17 – 19               Live
9       Austrian Grand Prix        July 1 – 3                 Highlights
10      British Grand Prix         July 8 – 10                Live
11      Hungarian Grand Prix       July 22 – 24               Live
12      German Grand Prix          July 29 – 31               Highlights
13      Belgian Grand Prix         August 26 – 28             Live
14      Italian Grand Prix         September 2 – 4            Live
15      Singapore Grand Prix       September 16 – 18          Highlights
16      Malaysian Grand Prix       September 30 – October 2   Live
17      Japanese Grand Prix        October 7 – 9              Highlights
18      United States Grand Prix   October 21 – 23            Highlights
19      Mexican Grand Prix         October 28 – 30            Live
20      Brazilian Grand Prix       November 11 – 13           Highlights
21      Abu Dhabi Grand Prix       November 25 – 27           Live