To begin, I'm going to apologise to our international followers.
The reason is that this blog will deal with a UK coverage issue.
However, if you think that the coverage in your country is
fantastic and wouldn't want it to change, then you should
understand the issue with the UK and the BBC.
In 2008, it was announced that ITV had lost the F1 coverage and
that the F1 coverage would be returning to the BBC. In the UK, it
was a worrying time. Who would do the coverage? Would
commentators that we enjoyed be sacked? But in other ways, it
was good. On average, viewers would be losing 15-20 minutes in
every race due to adverts. These adverts would also let viewers
miss out on important developments. For example, in 2007 when Lewis
Hamilton had a gearbox problem, it cost him the Championship. This
incident happened during an advert break. The fans were
angered.
In majority of countries, there are adverts in-between the
coverage and viewers may or may not have issues. If that's the case
and you stop reading at this point, I respect your decision to do
so. In the UK, the BBC offers no adverts and they brought over
Martin Brundle from ITV, a popular choice with fans. The coverage
on the BBC has won awards, such as the BAFTA TV award for the 2010
Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. In last week's Canada Grand Prix, which had a
two hour delay, Martin Brundle and former driver, David Coulthard
did a really good job with entertaining the fans, including
answering a handful of tweets about technical details that they
were knowledgeable about. Jake Humphrey, the presenter of the
coverage, announced recently that the past three F1 races each had
a 10 year high in viewing figures, really showing the UK's growing
love for the sport.
However, it's not a hidden secret that the BBC is funded through
the taxpayers of the UK. UK households pay an annual TV License
which in theory pays for the BBC. Because of this, the BBC has no
adverts, meaning that important events in a race are not missed
out. But the BBC, like many public services, are facing cuts in
funding and because of this, the BBC Sport budget is facing a large
overhaul. One of the rumours from newspapers and online is that one
of the major blows would be the loss of the F1 coverage at the end
of its current contract, which runs out in 2013.
For UK viewers, if the BBC decided to cut the coverage, it would
be a huge blow. ITV or other "dialogue" channels could pick up the
coverage very easily but this would be unlikely since they are
facing a similar issue with low advertising revenue. The only ones
who could handle the cost of F1 would be BSkyB. Sky is a satellite
TV system which offers a huge choice of channels for viewers.
However the Sky system is expensive for everyday households and the
majority of their own channels aren't available on alternative
systems, meaning you have to pay the expensive fee which the
majority of viewers won't. This fee would be on top of the regular
TV license. So BBC F1 fans would be stuck if they cannot afford the
system, leaving them with no F1. And UK viewers will have to put up
with annoying advert breaks again.
Personally, I think that F1 should stay with the BBC. Ok, so
everyone might not like the idea of paying a TV license but F1 is
my favourite sport and I get so annoyed missing out on important
action just because ITV (or whoever else) decides to put an advert
break in the most inconvenient places. I like the fact that in the
UK, we have the choice of no adverts. I personally like the pundits
and presenters who work very well as a team. You have Jake Humphrey
who looks at things as a fan and journalist point of view, Eddie
Jordan, who looks at things from a team point of view and you have
David Coulthard who looks at things from a driver point of
view. And in the commentary team, you have Martin Brundle,
who used to commentate with the famous Murray Walker. He has
years of experience from ITV. After the race, they do the
forum which is a detailed analysis of the race including moments
which you would miss if the cameras were to shut off straight after
the race - such moments as Webber jumping into the Red Bull motor
home pool after his win in Monaco in 2010, and when they pulled
Eddie and David into the pool in 2011. They also talk to the
team principals frequently to ask them how their race was as well
as discussing important issues which might have happened in the
race. I think that the BBC coverage in the UK is more
successful than other channels and losing the coverage to Sky would
be against the interest of the fans and the sport. If they did
decide to move to Sky, it would really show that F1 only cares
about money, and forgetting their strong fan base in the UK.
So, UK fans, please raise up and speak up about this.
Every time I tweet about F1, I'm going to include the hashtag -
#KeepF1onBBC. I hope that you will do the same and tell
others too. Hopefully we could get it treading and show not
only F1 organisers, but the BBC that us UK fans like it how it is
now and that we want it to stay this way.