F1 Comes Home
From 2009, coverage of the Formula 1 season will return to the BBC.
This is fantastic news.
No more advert breaks to ruin the action. There have been numerous occasions when vital action has been missed. “While you were away this happened….” and a replay of the incident is shown. Last season there were over 4 hours of adverts during the season according to Jon McKnight. This works out to be around 15 minutes during each race. Imagine if there was 15 minutes missing from the coverage of a football match!
Could this also spell the return of the original F1 theme tune? Fleetwood Mac’s “The Chain” is still associated with F1 racing, even 12 years after it disappeared from our screens when ITV got the rights to F1 coverage. In that time ITV have had four different theme tunes! The BBC got it right first time!
The next question is, who will be the commentator? Murray Walker will always be the No1, but he has said that he’s getting too old to be doing a lot of races each year. James Allen from ITV, in my opinion, is not going to move across, as he is not very popular amongst fans. I do hope that Martin Brundle is signed up by the BBC, as his invaluable additions to the commentary are superb.
In addition to the TV rights, the BBC will also be broadcasting on all platforms, TV, radio and online. Perhaps we’ll even get the coverage in HD too.
Might have to start saving the pennies to invest in an HD TV!
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F1, Formula 1, Martin Brundle, Sports
Themocracy
I’m not sure about the move back to BBC; I don’t know whether it will be as good as it used to be.
Personally, I don’t mind the ad breaks too much – yes they get it wrong sometimes, but there’s also a lot of boredom in F1 races that the ads break up quite well.
I do hope that Martin Brundle moves to BBC, perhaps to be joined by Damon Hill but I can’t wait to see the back of James Allan – he started off crap and he’s stayed crap – so I hope he doesn’t make the switch.
Likewise, I hope they leave James Allen out of the picture, he’s a complete waste of space. Martin Brundle has always been a bit of a talker, and if he were to do the less technical stuff by getting in someone like Damon as sidekick for instance) he might actually do quite a good job as the main commentator. Not sure the Beeb would take that risk though.
Good news nonetheless. I just hope they keep it as available as it is via ITV.
You just cannot beat Walker when it comes to commentary. Although I do think that the current team will move with the show. It makes sense really as they do a good job of it. Although I do have Sky Sports, I am glad they didnt get it meaning more people cannot watch it like they have done with the cricket.
It would be great to have Murray back to do some guest appearances behind the mike. Just so long as James Allen doesn’t move across I think quite a lot of people will be happy.
Damon Hill has always talked a lot of sense when he’s been on, so he would be a great addition to the team.
It’ll be interesting to see who the BBC do pick.
[...] of the other things that I am excited about is the return of the UK coverage of F1 to the BBC. The full details of how they will cover the races was revealed this week. They appear to be fully [...]