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I know there have been more than a few threads debating Sky and the BBC etc, but I couldn't find a thread that was a specific one for todays coverage. Please close thread if deemed to be a duplicate or irrelevant.

Yeah the BBC only had a highlights show, and had editing time available at their disposal, but I think I preferred their coverage to be honest.

The new Chain montage intro, the Bob Dylan 'Subterranean Homesick Blues' parody and even just Jake and DC chatting, it just seemed more personal. Maybe 'personal' is not the word I am looking for, but it was less flash and more comfortable to watch. I really like the way the BBC will meet a driver and discuss on and off track issues while playing pool or so, i.e Alonso doing card tricks last year. All they small quirks are really pleasing.

Sky meanwhile seem to have an embarrassment of riches at their disposal but they are still missing that 'personal' touch. All the sharp suits and technical gadgets seem to take us out the paddock and into some sort of NASA command centre. It's still early days and the new team will take time to gel, but it seems that Sky are of the thinking that F1 is a rich man's sport so let's deliver a high spec show. Couldn't be further from the truth though.

This is not a Sky bash at all. I got Sky HD in last week specifically for the F1 and ANY coverage is good news to me, but I'm still warming to this new team and new approach.

By the way, I did prefer Croft and Brundle to DC and Edwards. They weren't bad, just not as good. Oh, and another thing, am I right in thinking that Croft is lead commentator and Brundle co?

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The Mechanic: You'd have yourself a real street-sweeper here if you put a little work into it.
G.T.O.: I go fast enough.
The Driver: You can never go fast enough.

When sky have had as long as the BBC to gel and smooth everything out then it's a fair time to compare. Look back at the first few BBC programmes and compare them with Sky. Hill is the only weak link I can see at the moment. I'd swap Hill and Davisons roll if it was my decision.

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If...

BBC:
Loved the new intro
Found the show a bit dull and rushed. We didn't really see anything of interest, no real technical analysis or anything like that - maybe tomorrow they will have more time.
Still hate the stupid remarks Jake makes "Here on the BBC" drilling it home.
DC & Edwards was a little odd to hear at first, but soon became ok. I think Edwards needs to calm it down a bit as it came across a bit too heavy.

SKY:
Dont really like the intro music - it's too reflective, it needs to be "racing music" if that makes sense.
Loved the combination of Martin and David - really worked well. With out a doubt the best comms team.
Much better technical coverage, especially the bit about the Mercedes "Super DRS" - the screen helps for that one, and certainly isn't being overused.
The team still needs to gell a bit, I cant say I like Georgie - she clearly knows bugger all and is a bit annoying. I think Simon will get better, he reminds me of when Jake first started the BBC coverage.
Thought Daemon Hill could have been a bit better, but he was better than I expected...not as...grumpy!

Overall I'm happy with Sky's they kept a very similar format to that of the BBC from last year. The new technical stuff is pretty good too, so long as they dont overuse it. That screen they have was good for manually stepping through recordings and clips, without having to wait for the editor to queue it up.

It's early days so we cant really come out and say one is better than the other. Both are doing a great job so far though

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Thats correct, although I think we'll see less of a main/co roll being assigned as they gelled very well. I'd go as far to say that they gell better than DC and Brundle.

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Completely agree. I'd prefer to see Davidson in the paddock pre/post race. As he's still in the driver loop, he'd probably get pretty good access to driver interviews etc. But I think his own driving career still takes priority over his TV roles and he is probably happier taking a back seat to Hill.

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The Mechanic: You'd have yourself a real street-sweeper here if you put a little work into it.
G.T.O.: I go fast enough.
The Driver: You can never go fast enough.

I'm willing to wait a few races to come to a judgement about the Sky coverage, however Simon Lazenby has all the charisma of a manager at CarpetRight, and I'm not sure what Georgie Thompson with Ant at the Skypad is there for exactly, but I'm liking the Croft/Brundle pairing. I really like Damon Hill, but I think a more "energetic" third person is needed, like EJ was to Jake and DC.

Not as good as the BBC, which was a high watermark for F1 coverage, but it's better than ITV was.

Your right, I just rate Davison really highly, a close second to Brundle actually. And I think Brundle is much better as a wingman, he did very well as a lead last year but without having to worry about leading he just seems to flow and can get on with what he does best. I watched the BBC highlights, thought DC was excellent but Edwards for me was a bit Ledgard-like.

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If...

Completely agree about Georgie and an energetic person being needed. Not sure how they are playing it really, they kept a 3-presenter line up with Lazenby, Brundle and Hill. Which one of those is replacing the DC roll, and which is replacing the EJ roll is anybody's guess.

I'm hoping Lazenby will relax a bit and settle in. He does remind me of one of those annoying gits that chases you around PC World. Other than that it was very good. Really fantastic comms.

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Happy new forum 1st post

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The Mechanic: You'd have yourself a real street-sweeper here if you put a little work into it.
G.T.O.: I go fast enough.
The Driver: You can never go fast enough.

Another thing to add, thought the F1 Show on Friday night was excellent. It cam from the pit lane at night with all the mechanics working on the car and Sky grabbing all sorts of people to talk to. Was brilliant, Sky with a dedicated channel can do that sort of thing where's other channels just couldn't deliver that. I only see that evolving more over the years.

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If...

Was that the show where Ted and Georgie caught up with Lenny Kravitz? I actually only caught that this morning on Sky 1!

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The Mechanic: You'd have yourself a real street-sweeper here if you put a little work into it.
G.T.O.: I go fast enough.
The Driver: You can never go fast enough.

That's a fairly good summary and I agree with much of it. Unfortunately I think Georgie is only there as eye candy, she's just as annoying when doing football related shows.

I think I prefer Jake to Simon as the main host. He appears more relaxed and not quite so wooden.

The BBC team of Jake, DC, Eddie & Lee Mckenzie obviously know most of the people in the pit lane and all the drivers. They have good relationships with the British drivers and the team principles which will take time for the Sky presenter to build, if at all he does. You can see it in all the stunts and segments they have done with Button and Hamelton over the last few years.

Certainly Lee gets good access and good interviews with the drivers. It's be interesting to see how the sky equivalent fares. On the BBC highlights when Lee was interviewing the drivers you could see a sky microphone being shoved in from the side, just like all the other media teams.

You could see at the end of last season when the BBC put together a montage for Vettel and Jake showed it to him in the pits that the BBC crew are respected by the drivers and teams. As such it will be interesting to see how the british drivers and team principles handle double the media work load now that the British media is duplicated.

Agree with the OP regarding the BBC coverage appearing more 'personal' still haven't got to grips with the Sky team yet. The suits lokk ok in the studio programs I've seen, but I don't think they work on location, just because it looks so award ceremonyish and next to no one else around the place is wearing any. Think the Sky commentary team works so much better as Crofty sounds a lot more excited and passionate when he's commentating. I also think Sky have scored big time getting hold of Brundle and Kravitz though, both are great at their jobs and will really add to their coverage (but please don't put Ted in a suit anymore, it really doesn't suit him).

I think in the allotted time the BBC production crew did a good edit, we didn't miss much track time and although, as RickM says, there wasn't much technical info, I'd prefer to get the quick little interviews with the drivers and key team members and more track coverage than in depth tech stuff on a highlights show. I think it will work out better for the BBC coverage to have a few weeks catch up on news and technical stuff just for their live races anyway, last year they filled so much time just walking up and down the paddock it was getting a bit boring.

So basically, what I'll be doing is watching Sky for all the non BBC races and watching the BBC pre-show and post-show then switching to Sky for the race/quali.

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There is no theory of evolution, just a list of animals that Chuck Norris allows to live.

I think I'll be doing the same. Plus watching all the extra Sky F1 shows.

One thing that stuck me during qualifying highlights; I didn't notice Brundle was missing until the last 15 minutes.

Edwards, I thought, did a fantastic job and really brought a sense of urgency and excitement that has been missing from F1 since Murray Walker retired. Don't get me wrong, Brundle was and still, presumably for Sky viewers, is great but his voice usually portrayed a sense of inevitability about things.

Although the commentary wasn't as in depth as it was with Brundle, I am more than happy to hear DC and Edwards carry on in the future.

I will miss Brundle's terrible jokes though...

Yeah, it will be interesting to see if any drivers/teams side with one broadcaster over the other during the year. The BBC should always have the bigger TV audience when they go head to head, so is it in a teams interest to go for a greater audience exposure?

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The Mechanic: You'd have yourself a real street-sweeper here if you put a little work into it.
G.T.O.: I go fast enough.
The Driver: You can never go fast enough.

I enjoyed all the Sky show, although as said above Georgie Thompson seems to be there as eye candy only. Lead commentary worked well, and I think it will be better now Brundle isnt with a fellow former F1 driver. Looking forward to 4:30 am now..

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Should I grow a beard?

I'm setting the alarm for 5:30. No way I'll make the start of the show. Set the alarm for 05:00 this morning and got up at 05:57

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The Mechanic: You'd have yourself a real street-sweeper here if you put a little work into it.
G.T.O.: I go fast enough.
The Driver: You can never go fast enough.

5:45 for me this morning but I think I'll do the whole deal tomorrow.

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If...

The hour and a half build up will be good on normal race days, but I'll be a struggle to get up at 0430 and stay awake for that long before the start of the race tomorrow haha, so probably just gonna get up for the start and catch up on the build up on one of the repeats.

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Warning: The above post may contain sarcasm.

He had one that made me laugh today:

"Karthikeyan is just a mobile chicane out there!"

Thought it was a good one :p

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To be honest they both had plus a negatives shown here, which didnt really make too much difference for me. The main thing was seeing the cars, but I felt the commentary from sky was better.

Im looking forward to that awkward moment when Sky and BBC bump into each other in the pits/paddock

What exactly did Georgie Thompson do wrong? Her main purpose is to set up Ant Davidson to give some decent technical analysis and I thought she did that well. She wasn't bad on the round up show I saw last night, I guess that comes from her extensive experience on SSN.

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"Where are all the good men dead, in the heart or in the head?"

Give 'em hell Dani!

British Driver Supporter (and Daniel Ricciardo)

Sky coverage so far is loads better, especially as the channel shows interviews and other detailed stuff, the content is far more than the BBC could offer. But overall it's much better than the BBC coverage even this early.

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Driver Instructor & Test Driver

Hehe I thought we were going to see it today, I saw Jake and DC standing at the side of the press pit when the Sky cameras panned around :p

I did notice a subtle comment from Vettel to Ted "Look, he doesn't even hold his own microphone anymore".

Debaiting weather or not to get up to watch the race start or just tivo it and watch at a more social hour!

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I think Sky have done exceptionally well, there are a few niggly issues which will be resolved over time. Im not sure cutting from live action in practice to do VTs for certain teams is wise, it is a nice feature and can be used in another area of the program, just not when the live feed is on.
I personally LOVE these in-depth, behind the scenes team videos. So far we've seen Mercedes at Jerez and today was Caterham. I think it gives a lot of understanding to what goes on behind the scenes and a lot of credit to those who do it.
The only thing I would like to see is another 'Magazine Show' thingy that Georgie and Ted did on Friday night. Would be nice to see this on Saturday after Quali, catch up with the interviews with all drivers etc...
Well done Sky!

watched recordings of skys coverage round a friends house my view is this.

overall pretty good but weaknesses are.

Georgie, I only seen her on the screen once with that bit of analysis on alonsos Q3 mistake which lasted all of 30 seconds. She seems to have a very minor role and she didnt seem very confident. Not sure a good career move for her.
Damon Hill.
Adverts during free practice. On P1 they managed to time the ads with action as well which didnt help the situation.

Positives are by sound of the commentary is viewers can now actually pick which onboard cam to watch? something the bbc was seriously lacking.
I think the main presenter is much better than jake and I also like Natialie's role as an interviewer as well.

I havent watched any of the supporting shows tho, only recordings of free practice and quali.

Im really liking the Sky Coverage, its not up to the BBC's last years standards, and Simon needs to relax more, Hill is fine but a tad wooden and a swap with Ant is needed, Thompson is eye candy but the role is not required, Ant could do all the lap stuff next to Hill and Lazenby and Brundle, he needs to be there , not in a studio!!

However Brundle and Crofty are awesome just awesome, Edwards is too excitable, and needs to change its F1 not touring cars, DC is excellent.

The one thing that really is getting on my nerves though is Sky have paid for a dedicated F1 channel so why oh why is the schedule so rigid, at the end its all rushed, what harm would it do it the 34th repeat of F1 Legends was 30 mins late? why is the after show cut short, if Sky want to build up the rapport the BBC has with the teams, they need to mingle more, I have visions of them leaving the show after the interviews on race day and that is NOT GOOD ENOUGH for a dedicated F1 domain.

Skys are a little bit static , they need to walk around the paddock and also walk around the garages more, and interact with the key people. Also I don't want to kept being told this is the new F1 channel, and there is too much hype and BS about it being new, its not now and its all too much. Oh Pinkham is hot and very good

Just watching some of the BBC content on the internet, looks like Gary Anderson could be a big plus for the beeb this season.

I am sure that time will iron out the small things I dislike about Sky's coverage, but there are a few.

The main one is the flow of the program. I don't know if the BBC has better editors/directors/whoever is in charge of doing this, but the structure and arrangement of segments and interviews definitely feels more haphazard with Sky. Several times a segment was thrown out there when it had no relevance to what was being discussed and it seemed a bit disjointed. BBC on the other hand tell stories very well, and the picture of the weekend is made much clearer.

Something that kept bugging me was Lazenby staring off camera looking confused. In general though, and I can't really put my finger on why, whereas Jake carries himself as a strong presenting figure leading proceedings, watching Lazenby feels like he's reporting from the scene, not actually heading the show. Hopefully just nerves, and not representative of his true style.

I don't see the point of Georgie. She seems to be great at her role, but nonetheless it's a role that seems unnecessary to me.

I hope Damon Hill settles in quickly and starts offering greater insight to discussions, because right now he's just stating the obvious, and there's a Coulthard shaped hole that needs filling. I think Coulthard has been the best contributor in BBC's coverage, or at least on par with Brundle. When he talks, I want to listen.

These gripes aside though, Brundle and Croft are great. Ant and Croft are great. Kravitz is great. Pinkham is great. Those new headshots are ace too.

where was eddy on the beeb today?

I enjoyed the Sky coverage. Here's my list of pros and cons:

Pro:

- At the heart of the action. Nice to see they still mill around the paddock/pit area instead of centralising everybody into a studio a la ITV.

- The commentary. David Croft can shout a bit, but he rarely makes mistakes as Legard did. He knows his stuff and should settle into the role well. MB seamless as usual.

- I actually think Damon Hill was OK. He's a new face, and I'm sure he'll be of use as the season progresses. I did read somewhere before that he would only attend certain events though.

Con:

- Lacking that personal touch that the BBC mastered. That'll come in time I hope.

- The cutaways during live sessions. Disrupts continuity, whatever information it's providing.

- Georgie Thompson. What value does she bring apart from being a great pair of tits?

All in all, very slick and professional as you'd expect from Sky. Hopefully they'll settle down and become a bit more informal as they get used to their roles. Look forward to it!

NB. I saw Gary Anderson on the BBC coverage. Spoke way too fast and gave very little info aside from, "according to my simulations", which we were given very little detail of.

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Words. Flamable. Inflamable. Anti-inflamable.
...Why are there three? Either the thing flams or it doesn't!

Last year was terrible on the BBC, well it certainly went downhill after Hungary, the forums were the dullest hour of TV ever. They used to be the best thing about the BBC coverage.

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Warning: The above post may contain sarcasm.

Monaco 2011 forum a highlight? I thought that was the best forum for the laughs

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Jenson Button Fan.

There's a total lack of warmth with the Sky coverage. That's where I'd fault it - it's too clinical. Whilst I despise the playground attitude of the BBC's coverage in terms of Jake & DC vs Eddie, when they get it right, they get it spot on.

One thing's for sure, just from qualifying alone... I miss Brundle + DC.

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PLAY A RECORD KARL COS I'M GUNNA KNOCK YOU OUT!!!

Well that was before Hungary.

All I remember of last year is them being sat in the McLaren hospitality fawning over whos fault it was, Massas or Hamiltons for 19 races.

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Warning: The above post may contain sarcasm.

Still out of the few that I watched before Hungary the one that I can remember

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Jenson Button Fan.

Sadly I tend to end up just quoting posts that reflect my opinion, I've typed mine out too many times!

Missing Brundle & DC will be the hardest part of this season imo. Last season's commentary was perfect. The BBC have uncovered a gem with DC though, I'll definitely be watching the BBC highlights as well as the races on sky for his insight. You can tell DC was missing Brundle, he'd say something interesting and Edwards would completely ignore it to go and be excitable about a bee or something.

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Official Kamui Kobayashi Fanboy

They both have plenty good points, I feel happier watching BBC because it's so much more familiar but I'm sure Sky will improve as they get a bit more experience with F1. The new BBC intro is a massive improvement but my favourite part of the BBC coverage was the way they stuck Petrov's head on top of Truli's when introducing the line-ups.

Maybe he thought it was China? Tbh I was wondering the same thing though. I agree with mr coconut that Gary Anderson was a major asset in the show today. I can't compare the coverage to sky but I heard it's blue.
Someone should tell Jake and DC to wear matching, vastly unimaginative, jeans and blue shirts just to see how daft it looks when they stand side by side, like two young brothers dressed identically by their mother because she thinks it looks cute.
Oh wait.

I'd pay the exhorbatant sky fees just to listen to Brundle again, I missed him. My poxy tv provider (upc) haven't concluded a deal with them yet though.

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Trying to use 'tongue in cheek' humour in a forum is like wearing a Borat t-shirt in Kazakhstan.