Mar 23, 2008

Two Cheers As BBC Take F1 Coverage


Well, two cheers to the BBC for swiping the broadcasting rights to F1 from ITV.
I say two cheers because I’m unwilling to spare a third until I know exactly what they plan to do with it.... Initial soundings are encouraging, although I’d certainly not want them to place too much reliance on the web for their ‘multi screen’ options - if I want to choose which feeds to watch then there’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to do that on TV; and let’s be honest that is still fundamentally what the BBC is all about - television.
Web is all very well - in fact most of the time it’s better than that - but the Beeb should know better than most that they usually get a bit of a slagging off when they spend too much licence payers’ money on the web rather than on programming and TV production.

And let’s be honest, they ARE paying a lot. £200 Million is a big fat wad of cash by any standards; although many F1 fans would still consider it good value for money for getting James Allen off their screens. The BBC still has something of a reputation for ‘quality’ - although that’s obviously debatable and varies wildly by genre, production, concept and when all’s said and done, by individual perspective.
They would do well do remember that ‘quality’ bit when pulling together the programming ideas... ITV seemed to have no end of possibilities as to what they could do with the sport, but they still managed to make a fair old pig’s ear of it half the time. Always in the firing line for slotting commercials into the actual race coverage - something I’m still astonished they couldn’t find a creative solution to - they also squandered presenter talent and infantilised the coverage of a great sport pretty badly. 2007 saw them plumb new depths in banality, turning a glamourous, hi-tech, fascinating spectacle into little more than a prepubescent Lewis Hamilton fanclub.
Let’s at least hope the Beeb have a bit more maturity an imagination than that...

You do, as ever, have to be careful what you wish for. It would be easy to make fundamental errors with such a great opportunity: one is to try and recapture any kind of relationship to the nostalgia many of us have felt since the coverage left BBC for ITV all those years ago. Whilst the online clamour for “The Chain” to be reinstated as the theme music is understandable - and possibly harmless - it’s still the wrong decision. And anybody who has heard Murray Walker’s recent commentary outings knows that whilst he is a national treasure, he is certainly not the man to have in the box. Snatching Martin Brundle would be a good idea - and Ben Edwards’ name has also been mentioned (definitely a good call - and of course a presenter back from the multi-screen F1 Digital + channel, which for the fan should still be considered THE benchmark of a full and integrated TV experience) along with the excellent David Croft.
And the extended line-up of some kind of Top Gear crew, with Richard Hammond central to it, also sounds very very promising - so long as it doesn’t become *too much like Top Gear*. That kind of smug self-satisfied presentation works for what it is but you can’t help believing it’d be an odious concept to bundle F1 coverage up in.

Still - so far all sounds good. And I couldn’t be more delighted to see the back of ITV as far as the sport I love is concerned.
One thing refuses to go away however... and that is this question:
If F1 is more popular than ever before (Lewis effect blah blah) as the ITV crew insist on telling us so often, then how can they as a commercial operator not make it pay? And how can the BBC as a non-commercial enterprise expect to better them?

Is it that the fundamental proposition is overpriced and overcomplicated, or is it that ITV have simply been doing it wrong?
The Beeb need to be very sure which it is, as they can expect little mercy if the licence fee payers’ money appears to get in any way squandered on F1...