The TV Coverage Thread

[Leyton House]

OK guys, I'm led to believe there are a few Aussies on here, so feel free to join me in a good old fashioned vent.

It really gets on my nerves the amount of time Ten devotes to promoting itself during a GP weekend. I understand there is a lot of time to fill, but there are support races and plenty of F1 to talk about so in my opinion it should be able to be filled.
Instead what we get is a Masterchef judge and a morning TV newsreader promoting themselves tirelessly, all while several of Jack Brabham's old cars were being paraded around the circuit.
Sorry, but if you are getting paid to appear on a broadcast of Formula 1, you should be able to pronounce Romain Grosjean or Felipe Massa without an issue. If you can't, you have no business charging money for your services on such a broadcast. Simply shrugging and saying "Romane Growjorne" is not acceptable.
Similarly, the broadcast seems determined to show us all the peripheral events taking place at the circuit for people who aren't interested in motorsport. Here is an idea, if you aren't interested in car racing, don't watch (or attend) the car race. I have no interest in aussie rules football, I don't show up at an AFL game saying, "I hate this, what is on for me?"
I really don't want to have to pay for Foxtel, but unless I want to hear a Neighbours actor's opinion on F1, usually along the lines of "Dave Richardo will win" what option do I have?

[DVST8R]

Didn't watch Ten at all this weekend, but they have still managed to piss me off. I've watched everything on Foxtel, who are just using the entire Sky UK production. However, because of the deal that Foxtel and Ten did, Foxtel have been showing ads during all the sessions and often at the worst times. They went to an ad halfway through Q1 yesterday, and today they cut to an ad right as Martin Brundle was talking to Mark Webber during his grid walk.
Foxtel promises that the rest of the season will be ad free though, and the ads this weekend were part of their deal with Ten. Ten can go stick a pineapple up their butts for the crap they continue to put us through.

[MinardiFan95]

I get the feeling that the Channel 10 broadcast (for both Formula 1 and V8 Supercars) is intentionally bad in an attempt to push more viewers into subscribing to FOXTEL for the Fox Sports coverage. For as long as I can remember, the local studio commentators have only done introductions and then crossed to the ITV/BBC/Sky feeds but this year we get the Australian version of James Allen (aka. Matt White) as main commentator alongside Webber (who admittedly was quite insightful into the workings of modern F1 and didn't do too bad of a job as a commentator), Alan Jones and Daryl Beattie (who should really stick to MotoGP commentary) covering each session from start to finish.

If you're thinking "why would Ten be trying to make their coverage worse to attract more people to Foxtel?"; it could have something to do with their former CEO being Lachlan Murdoch - son of Rupert - who has now moved on to a role at News Corp/21st Century Fox. That's also the reason ONE was turned from a sports channel into the 'general entertainment' (aka. repeats of M*A*S*H and crap reality TV shows) channel that it is today.

[DVST8R]

Ten have had their own commentators for the Aus GP quite a few times instead of using ITV/BBC/Sky ones. I'm sure regular broadcasting shall resume from Malaysia onwards. Wait are Ten even showing the Malaysian GP this year? Or are they delayed it until 11pm? Or just showing it on One?

[AdrianBelmonte_]

Antena 3 coverage was just meh: Pedro De La Rosa continuously correcting Antonio Lobato, Cristóbal Rosaleny showed bits of his knowledge (sic), Jacobo Vega and the pretty Lucía Villalón passed almost completely unnoticed and, obviously, the vast amount of commercials conditioned the coverage

[MinardiFan95]

Ten have had their own commentators for the Aus GP quite a few times instead of using ITV/BBC/Sky ones. I'm sure regular broadcasting shall resume from Malaysia onwards. Wait are Ten even showing the Malaysian GP this year? Or are they delayed it until 11pm? Or just showing it on One?

Next race live on Ten/ONE is the Bahrain GP - the races that aren't shown live by Ch. 10 will be shown as highlights packages on the Monday night after the race at 9:30pm.

Here is the full schedule of live race broadcasts:

Code: Select all

1. March 13-15: Melbourne, Australia (FOX & TEN)
2. March 27-29: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia (FOX)
3. April 10-12: Shanghai, China (FOX)
4. April 17-19: Sakhir, Bahrain (FOX & TEN)
5. May 8-10: Catalunya, Spain (FOX)
6. May 22-24: Monte Carlo, Monaco (FOX & TEN)
7. June 5-7: Montreal, Canada (FOX)
8. June 19-21: Spielberg, Austria (FOX & TEN)
9. July 3-5: Silverstone, Great Britain (FOX)
10. July 17-19: TBA, Germany (FOX & TEN)
11. July 24-26: Budapest, Hungary (FOX)
12. August 21-23: Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium (FOX & TEN)
13. September 4-6: Monza, Italy (FOX)
14. September 18-20: Singapore (FOX & TEN)
15. September 25-27: Suzuka, Japan (FOX)
16. October 9-11: Sochi, Russia (FOX & TEN)
17. October 23-25: Austin, United States (FOX)
18. October 30-November 1: Mexico City, Mexico (FOX & TEN)
19. November 13-15: Sao Paulo, Brazil (FOX)
20. November 27-29: Yas Marina, Abu Dhabi (FOX & TEN)

Fairly lame lineup of live races on Ten I have to say, a majority of the live races on free to air will be the dullest circuits on the calendar, plus the German round being in doubt could mean the coverage drops back to 9 rounds.

[Shizuka]

Hungarian situation:

Between 2012 and 2014, F1 coverage was like this:
- Second FP delayed on M2
- Q and race live on M1, delayed on M2, both getting split-screen commercials, both having pre-, and after segments
(Both channels are FTA, outside Hungary too for Transylvanian Hungarians for example)

2015:
- March 15 saw our oldest TV station M1 rebranded into propaganda news
- Duna (another FTA state-run channel) has taken over M1's role as the flagship channel
- Duna's FP2 and Q coverage had audio issues, with video falling to pixels often
- Duna is blacked out outside Hungary during F1
- Duna has more ads during Q and race...
- M2 kept the repeating going at around 21/22:00.

The only positive change is that even F1 was streamed on their website! Good backup stream with Sky Sports F1 audio.

[David AGS]

Fortunately I have the option of watching either thru Fox Sports or Channel 10, fair to say the 'back' button is pretty worn out.

I did mainly watch the fox feed, however what I did see during C10 was pretty good with Webber's insight being an obvious highlight.

However, the extra features by the fox (using SKY F1) was absolutely brilliant. From the detailed Friday till after the race on Sunday ending with Ted's Notebook.

Also have enjoyed watching 'The F1 Show' which SKY are also doing, also available thru Fox.

Didn't mind the vision on the top left corner during the ads break as well, although you couldn't hear it as least didn't miss anything!