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[McLaren Fan]

From F1 Fanatic:

29 October 2008 by Keith Collantine

ITV will broadcast its final F1 race on Sunday.

It will be the 206th Grand Prix covered by the broadcaster. But because they interrupt races with adverts they have missed over 31 races’ worth of live action from the races alone.

Adverts are just one reason why the channel has attracted so much comment and criticism from fans in its 12 years as British F1 broadcaster. Will it be goodbye or good riddance when the transmission ends?
Goodbye

An improvement

It’s easy to criticise ITV – because it’s easy to forget how limited the coverage of F1 on the BBC often was before it lost the contract at the end of 1996. It was only late in the life of “Grand Prix” – BBC’s much-loved F1 programme – that live qualifying coverage was featured.

Nor did the BBC ever solve to problem of how to replace James Hunt. Hunt was the perfect foil to Murray Walker in the commentary box, but successor Jonathan Palmer was less successful.

Martin Brundle

When ITV took up the F1 rights in 1997 it solved the problem straight away, by pairing Walker with Martin Brundle. In many ways the boundless enthusiasm of Walker and the experience and wry humour of Brundle was superior to the old Walker-Hunt pairing.

ITV’s F1 coverage began brightly. It helped that 1997 was an exciting season with one of the most heart-stopping championship finales ever seen. But with established F1 pundits like Simon Taylor and Tony Jardine, I found a lot to like in ITV’s approach.

Brundle has gone from strength to strength. In 2005 he faced down Bernie Eccletone on the grid at Indianapolis about the chaos unfolding around them. In 2006 he pursued Max Mosley in the same fashion at Monza over Fernando Alonso’s ludicrous penalty.

That the FIA are now apparently leaning on the BBC not to hire him next year because they are intimidated by his criticism is a testament to the quality of job Brundle has done. The BBC must bring him on board for 2009.
Good riddance

Over time I found myself increasingly frustrated with the changes to ITV’s coverage. But the worst problem with it was there from the start: the adverts.

Adverts

I know F1 fans outside Britain who’ve always had to put up with adverts during F1 races will find me complaining about ITV’s a bit petty – but I make no apology for it. Especially today, when digital television and the internet means they could easily offer an advert-free service for a subscription fee – something other racing series have been doing for years.

Nor did ITV ever bother trying to use picture-in-picture to show the race alongside adverts, which is common practice in other countries.

The arrival of adverts meant we all had to get used to missing some of the most exciting moments of the past decade-and-a-bit.

Damon Hill’s shock pass on Michael Schumacher at the Hungaroring in 1997? ITV missed it.
The puncture that ended Schumacher’s title hopes at Suzuka in 1998? ITV missed it.
The gearbox glitch that ruined Lewis Hamilton’s title bid at Interlagos last year? ITV missed it.

This is just a handful of examples. One of the most infamous occurred in 2005 – not long after I began this site. ITV made such a botch of the San Marino Grand Prix coverage the tense final laps as Fernando Alonso battled to keep Schumacher at bay were largely missed.

Based on 2007 figures*, ITV have missed so much live action during live Grands Prix it amounts to over 31 races worth of footage.

And for several years live qualifying sessions at certain rounds was missed entirely as ITV chose to show other programmes.

Commentary team

Having solved the ‘how to replace James Hunt’ problem, ITV didn’t do as good a job with the ‘how to replace Murray Walker’ problem.

Admittedly it was always going to be fiendishly tough to replace someone like Murray, to whom the cliché ‘national institution’ is often applied with good reason.

Writing on Grandprix.com earlier this week Tony Dodgins said:

Although a couple of venomous websites have long had it in for James Allen as ITV’s lead race commentator, I find him both knowledgeable and authoritative. Yes, his forced cheeriness can be irritating at times, but he almost always susses out race strategies correctly and makes far fewer mistakes than Murray Walker used to do.

I don’t agree that it’s just ‘a couple of venomous websites’ (Sniff Petrol?) that don’t like James Allen. If there’s one thing I’ve done a lot of, it’s talk to other British F1 fans. And the near universal verdict on Allen is not a positive one.

It’s a shame because Allen is clearly as passionate about F1 as you or I. I like his writing (read his last book on Michael Schumacher), I thought he suited his earlier role of pit lane reporter very well, he’s joined us in the world of F1 blogging, and he’s not as partisan as you might think – in a recent column on ITV-F1 he re-affirmed his belief that Alonso is the best driver in F1 today. But I just don’t like his commentary style.

Allen also gets it in the neck for ITV’s partisanship but I think this is an editorial policy they are expected to adhere to. I thought the BBC trod the line between balanced reportage and national sympathy very well – I don’t think ITV is aware such a line exists. My assumption is, from day one, they’ve tried to drive up viewing figures for advertising purposes by over-selling the British angle.

Somewhere along the line Jardine, Taylor and the purpose-built studio disappeared. Now we have Steve Rider and Mark Blundell struggling to make themselves heard. This at least was an improvement over the dark days of Beverley Turner interviewing a celebrity hairdresser on how he prepares his Sunday roast. I’m not making this up.

An episode last year highlighted the sorry state of ITV’s F1 coverage - and the lack of comprehension in traditional media about the contempt most fans hold it in. After a frantic Canadian Grand Prix which saw Robert Kubica suffer a huge crash and lewis Hamilton score his first win, ITV rushed through the post-event coverage so they could hurry on to other programming. After masses of criticism fans ITV published a pitiful attempt at an apology. Despite the hammering they took from the public, ITV were inexplicably handed a BAFTA (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) award - and quietly took the apology down for their website.

*2007 average race length was 1hr 34min, and ITV showed 4hr 6min of adverts in total. Projecting those averages across its 206 races gives a total of 49 hrs, 40 minutes. See here for more: How much F1 did ITV miss showing adverts in 2007?
The end


The weighting of this article will give you a clear impression that I’m more in the ‘good riddance’ camp than ‘goodbye’. But I think we should remember ITV have brought some improvements to F1 coverage. Broadcasting the Friday practice sessions online this year was a big step forward.

ITV has at least done enough with their coverage that it won’t just be enough for the BBC to take over next year with ad-free coverage and expect that alone to be welcomed as an improvement. British fans will expect online coverage, HD footage, and most importantly, Martin Brundle.

Overall, I think that's a pretty fair assessment of ITV's coverage. That ITV viewers have missed thirty-one race's worth of live action really puts things in perspective, though.

[f1maniac95]

ITV have done a terrible job on the coverage of the F1 the only good thing that came out of them was Martin Brundle. Brilliant commentator.

[scousers on tour 2008]

I will be sorry to see it go cos i think (apart from the adverts) i think they do a good job ...MB is a legend
lets see if the coverage from the bbc will be anywhere near that of ITV, all you will get from them is the start of the race and the end of the race with maybe 5 minutes before and after for stats etc.

The bbc will put it back 10 years cos at the moment people are getting interested in it ( i mean people who have never watched it ) some of this is to do with lewis hamilton cos love him or hate him people have taken an interest in the sport which can only be a good thing for the sport.

I think the only ones who would do a better job (but i hate them ) is sky there coverage of sport is fantastic

i think the bbc will bore us to death.

[prozac26]

I get the ITV broadcasts here, and I actually don't mind them.

[7UpJordan]

That article sums up both the pros and cons of ITV's F1 coverage over the past decade. On the James Allen part I know Murray was going to be hard for him to replace, but some of the stuff that comes out just wants to make you cringe so badly.

1. The Hamilton comparisons with Senna, Schumacher and Mansell. It might be ok to compare him to Mansell because of his fighting spirit which has always been quite common with British drivers, but the endless comparisons he made between Hamilton and Senna at Monaco were just laughable.

2. "Here comes the Trulli train!". And here comes the Vengabus, does James want to become the new member of the Vengaboys??

3. McLaren WW2 codebreakers and Tomato throwing competitions. Ok Valencia was one of the most boring races I've ever seen in the 20 years I've been watching F1, but McLaren strategists being WW2 codebreakers working in darkened rooms like computer nerds?? Oh please! And who gives a damn about tomato throwing competitions?

4. Trying to imitate Murray as much as possible. He isn't as bad when he first was when he kept going "AND IT'S GO GO GO GO GO!!!!" like Murray kept doing in the later years of his F1 coverage, but I remember years gone by that sometimes Murray wouldn't even speak from the lights going out until the cars head down to the first corner.

I don't think the BBC will put F1 10 years backwards. I think the reason why their F1 coverage wasn't as extensive as ITV's is these days is because the European season races would always be shown live on Grandstand with Des Lynam hosting it. As the years went on they did start to put in some more features - like one time 1996 I think it was when Dr Jonathan Palmer did some features on some of the technical features of the cars like what the wings do, electronics etc. I think ITV really just set the benchmark in pre-race buildup.

Somebody mentioned Sky Sports. They would do a pretty good job of F1 coverage I reckon, but they also cover A1GP, IRL and NAStyCAR coverage, and then there's all their Football coverage which could cause some clashes during the European season. And probably also Andy Gray's annoying red pen doodling all over instant replays. But I wouldn't mind Jeff Stelling introducing F1 coverage.

[Gaz]

I remeber when it went to ITV and they did a better job than the BBC did of coverage in general like the features they do on the car's the drivers for example this years 60 years of Silverstone feature when martin drove several classic F1 cars.

The BBC never did anything like that as far as i can remeber.

I only have to complaints about ITV Adverts and James Allen. Adverts a pain there's no need for them in a Live sport. they can stick them enough before and after the race and throw the odd sponsor logo up.

Allen alright but he was as never as good as murry walker he chats on too much about stupid things during the race and gets way to over the top patriotic sometimes.

If they BBC go ahead with what they have suggested, onboard cam's live timing etc.. it would be great i just hope they don't bow to the FIA and take brundell.

I'm sorry to disagree but i think Sky is a stupid idea i don't have satellite tv or whatever but it would piss me the f*** off if i had to pay £30 to watch the F1 and i imagine alot of people would be in the same situation.

[Denthúl]

Honestly, I like the content ITV have. Sure, they occasionally make a mess of a weekend, but most of the time there's enough analysis and enough features to make it good. If the BBC don't do that, then no amount of advert-free race coverage would suffice.

[woody2goody]

Overall ITV have done a good job.

They've definitely raised the bar in terms of the overall coverage.

Good points:

Martin Brundle - extremely informative, funny and enhances the whole broadcast in my opinion.

Excellent features including Brundle and Blundell driving the cars which was good.

The overall presentation values were much higher than what we used to get with the BBC.

Steve Rider - his introduction added an air of class and knowledge to the proceedings.

Bad points:

adverts - the advert breaks during the races used to be short, and thus, bearable. Unfortunately for us, in 2007 they turned into full-on breaks of around 2-3 minutes. This isn't acceptable and at least this is one thing that will definitely be fixed for '09.

James Allen - I agree with the original article on this one. He writes well and is as enthusiastic as hell about F1, but he is a tabloid commentator if you will, and looked to sensationalise everything all the time. He has improvd over the last few races though, to the extent that I really enjoyed the commentaries for Japan, China and Singapore.

Hamilton-bias: I am a fan of Lewis Hamilton, but above that I am a fan of F1, and the constant fus over Lewis at every race does my head in. It was good at first because it was exciting for him to be at the front, but it gets to the point these days where I don't really watch the pre-race anymore, because it's all the same things, and Lewis always gives the PR-friendly answers in his interview with Steve before every race. Eventually it got to the point where James Allen had to actually introduce drivers to us as if we'd never seen them before, because they were never mentioned in the pre-race or payed attention to in qualifying.

I will be sad to see ITV go, but I'm sure the BBC will do something to change it around for next year. I hope they cater for the general F1 fan and not just the Hamilton bandwagon jumpers who know nothing about F1 pre-2007 save for M Schumacher driving a red car

[onelapdown]

I think ITV have actually done a pretty decent job over their 12 years. There have been one or two things that have particularly irritated me, for example the "celebrity" correspondent they had for a time, and also the occasional late transmission to make way for Coronation Street. Also there's no getting away from adverts, which are always going to be a bit of a pain, and it's fair to say that even though I'm a Hamilton fan even I have been a little fed up with the added focus on him, but I suppose he's a Brit fighting for the title, so what do you expect? Most of these problems are an unavoidable consequence of commercial television, so I can't blame ITV too much. They need to look at the casual viewer - people like me will be watching anyway.

I think where ITV has done well is that it has not been afraid to try things out. What Grand Prix would now be complete without the Brundle gridwalk? (apart from Hungary, before you all say it...) And lets not forget that Brundle had done precious little TV work before they took a punt on him. Also having both Brundle and Blundell about has brought fantastic insight, especially the little features where they drive the cars. Louise Goodman also deserves an honourable mention, and I hope that BBC snap her up, assuming she intends to continue. Rosenthal and Ryder have both been good value, albeit in dramatically different ways.

I'm delighted F1 is going back to the BBC, not just for the classic theme tune or the uninterrupted coverage, but also for the internet coverage they can now provide, but make no mistake - the BBC has it's flaws. I can't count the number of times I missed a race because I recorded it and they switched the channel at the last moment. Hopefully they won't do this next year, and if we're lucky we might be able to watch practise sessions on the red button. Also if you think the BBC are going to be much less of a Hamilton-fest I think you'll be mistaken. It's the BRITISH Broadcasting Corporation after all.

[KyrosV]

I wouldnt say ITV were bad as such. they were certainly better than the BBC before them. They took the broadcast of F1 to a new level. but like anything F1 on ITV started to go stale! possibly because of james Allan being the front commontator, which lets be fair isnt the right person for the job as his expression in his voice sounds fake and his "GOOOOOO" is flat and a bit compared to the legend mr.Murry Walkers "GOOOOOO". Things I did like were when they used to be based at a different team each weekend and interview the enginear during the race on his opinions of that teams performance as the race goes on. I also enjoyed when brundle got to go in F1 cars (jordan, jaguar etc) and gave us detailed impression of how it feels to drive one.

but of course the annoying things of Itv like adverts and biased views to suit the brittish public let the broadcast down. Overall I was pleased with the viewing on ITV and I hope the BBC will take it up another notch.

[emma]

I've only ever watched F1 on ITV so I can't really compare it with anything. Mostly I enjoy the coverage, but saying that, there are a few things that annoy me - such as the wank-fest that Steve Rider and Mark Blundell have every week over Hamilton. Yeah, it's nice to have a British guy up the top, but other drivers do actually exist! And of course it'll be nice to be advert-free at the BBC

[8-ball]

I've only ever watched F1 on ITV so I can't really compare it with anything. Mostly I enjoy the coverage, but saying that, there are a few things that annoy me - such as the wank-fest that Steve Rider and Mark Blundell have every week over Hamilton. Yeah, it's nice to have a British guy up the top, but other drivers do actually exist! And of course it'll be nice to be advert-free at the BBC

I am in the same boat. I have grown up with F1 on ITV and cannot remember it on the BBC and so cannot really criticize. Steve Rider has been a good host and Martin Brundle has been superb. Murry Walker leaving was always going to be a hard act to follow and James Allen did a decent job. Sure he goes over the top but he explains what is going on and I can tell from his voice that he loves the sport. I hope he gets a job in pit lane reporting because he is a great F1 journalist.

So I say goodbye ITV you weren't so bad. BBC you better be good

[FJuan]

Good riddance.

Time for a change. Some non brittish bias commentary would be good.
They go out to a world audience so why not get a mixed commentary team. Maybe a south american addition.

[headless]

I remeber when it went to ITV and they did a better job than the BBC did of coverage in general like the features they do on the car's the drivers for example this years 60 years of Silverstone feature when martin drove several classic F1 cars.

The BBC never did anything like that as far as i can remeber.

I only have to complaints about ITV Adverts and James Allen. Adverts a pain there's no need for them in a Live sport. they can stick them enough before and after the race and throw the odd sponsor logo up.

Allen alright but he was as never as good as murry walker he chats on too much about stupid things during the race and gets way to over the top patriotic sometimes.

If they BBC go ahead with what they have suggested, onboard cam's live timing etc.. it would be great i just hope they don't bow to the FIA and take brundell.

I'm sorry to disagree but i think Sky is a stupid idea i don't have satellite tv or whatever but it would piss me the f*** off if i had to pay £30 to watch the F1 and i imagine alot of people would be in the same situation.

I wouldn't pay to watch F1. I'd just stop.
ITV's coverage has been ok, but this year I have shouted and whinged at the TV more than ever, due to the Hamilton-bias.
But it will probably continue everywhere in the UK.

[Gaz]

I remeber when it went to ITV and they did a better job than the BBC did of coverage in general like the features they do on the car's the drivers for example this years 60 years of Silverstone feature when martin drove several classic F1 cars.

The BBC never did anything like that as far as i can remeber.

I only have to complaints about ITV Adverts and James Allen. Adverts a pain there's no need for them in a Live sport. they can stick them enough before and after the race and throw the odd sponsor logo up.

Allen alright but he was as never as good as murry walker he chats on too much about stupid things during the race and gets way to over the top patriotic sometimes.

If they BBC go ahead with what they have suggested, onboard cam's live timing etc.. it would be great i just hope they don't bow to the FIA and take brundell.

I'm sorry to disagree but i think Sky is a stupid idea i don't have satellite tv or whatever but it would piss me the f*** off if i had to pay £30 to watch the F1 and i imagine alot of people would be in the same situation.

I wouldn't pay to watch F1. I'd just stop.
ITV's coverage has been ok, but this year I have shouted and whinged at the TV more than ever, due to the Hamilton-bias.
But it will probably continue everywhere in the UK.

I don't agree with the hamilton bais but i don't have a problem with it because he's a Mclaren driver.

its going to happen tho its a english broadcaster i expect there's the same bias for Alonso in spain, or on the constructors side Ferrari in Italy