Bernie has confirmed that the BBC will be covering F1 from next year ....... YAYYYY gone are those feckin annoying adverts.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7306123.stm

This is possibly the best news I've heard in a long time. This will open up so much. BBC HD hopefully being the first. More importantly no more commercials. Cant count the number of times we've had to watch a replay of a crash or a big retirement because of them.
I think Murray should come back in sort of mark blundell role, that way he's not over stressing himself in commentary but still a part of the show. Please god get rid of James Allen. And for the love of god please bring back a neutral show. I'm sick of the mclaren love fest that ITV do. That Lewis and Heikki interview was the last straw.
I think they may clear house with announcers in the end. And I think to an extent the lawsuit going on between the FIA/FOM and Martin Brundell/ the times is partly to blame.

And yep Matt they have to bring back the old openings. Personally I think they need to do the intro video in the same format they used to aswell. None of this artsy fartsy drivers looking at a camera thing, just good old wheel to wheel highlights with the star of the year sitting in the car at the end.

A BBC guy this morning said that the race and quali would be shown in it's entirety and that they are dropping other sports to make way for them. I'd imagine things like practice and highlight shows will get the interactive service treatment or the internet treatment.

Everyone goes on about the Murrayisms .....

However the biggest c**k up was when ITV went to a commercial break 2 laps before the end of a race, just as the race winning overtake took place.
I think the email and switchboard went into melt down as it took me 2 hours to register my complaint.

eno wrote on Mar 20^th, 2008 at 1:32pm:


Wasn't this imola 2005? The Alonso Schumacher duel, where after 20 odd laps of the two running nose to tail and fighting they cut away. They rejoin at the podium and then promise to show the last laps, even though you could see the result. Cant remember if that was it.

Excellent news! I guess i'm thinking like the rest of you in that if the BBC don't use "The Chain" as their theme music it won't be the same... 

I can't say I haven't enjoyed ITV's coverage, 99% of the time they've been very good although as Craig said they are a bit biased towards British drivers and teams... but I bet Italian TV is the same towards Ferrari (and Minardi when they were around), Japanese TV Honda/Toyota etc.

I hope Martin Brundle jumps ship, not too worried about James Allen though.

What's the betting Charlie Cox will be commentator? He's full of enthusiasm in MotoGp, not sure about his F1 knowledge though.

Suzi Perry would make a good presenter though....   

Ben Edwards Craig. He's been around almost as long as Murray it seems.. so long as John watson doesn't join him...

awesome news although i can think of one bad thing...

no more regular intervals where you can safely nip out of the room for a beer!

thats the only down side i see of  it

i would quite like to see the bbc utilising the 'red button' facility.  perhaps have a feature driver at each race?  something similar to what they do for snooker or tennis, and by that i mean have a selection of viewing options.

Rumours of Hammy presenting F1 on the beeb. 

eno wrote on Mar 21^st, 2008 at 4:13am:


Mmm, again we'll have to wait and see if the Beeb murder F1 coverage - and I think having Hammy as a presenter may assist that!

Much as I like Richard Hammond as a presenter of certain types of show (ie, magazine shows such as TG and his daytime show on ITV), I don't think he's a sports presenter as such, and I'm unsure how good he'd be at it - he's no Steve Rider or Jim Rosenthal in his presenting style.

I'm just hoping for bog standard coverage, and any bells and whistles can go behind the red button.

i have indeed heard of Sky +  but me and my family don't really watch it TV enough to warrent the ammount it costs, came to shock when we looked back at getting SKy (we had it in the past but as me and my sisters grew older we stopped watching TV as much) we only wanted sports but thats now £30 a month what we use to pay for the entire package!

so we get by with normal TV simple folk here in worcestershire

we recieve digital TV through sky for free all the free channels (BBC1, BBC2, ITV, CH4 and CH5 for free + some others)

we cant use Freeview in our area because of our location, we are blocked buy some big tree's and stuff, we need a new arial but need to get a weekend free where either me or my dad can do it.

it sucks in this village for TV reception unless you have quire a decent aerial, and ours dates back to the 80's and when we went to change it we discoverd that the previous owners had a split signal with our neighbors so we need to sort that out... and we have lived here for 16 years