ITV hands F1 coverage to the BBC: a post-mortem on ITV's coverage

On Thursday I woke up too early. Having had a little over three hours of sleep, I stumbled out of bed to prepare for the day. I have outgrown the days of getting up early on my birthday, but this time it happened by accident. And I was brought a rather good birthday present by Bernie Ecclestone — it was announced that the BBC had regained the rights to broadcast Formula 1 from 2009. I couldn’t get back to sleep after I heard that.

Obviously there was much celebration among the Formula 1 fans of Britain. ITV has won few fans for its coverage. From the very start it was bad news due to the realities of commercial television meaning that races would be routinely interrupted.

This very fact is probably what, in the end, made ITV give up their contract two years early. Bernie hinted that it was ITV’s decision when he said:

It’s not that we are unhappy with ITV but I think maybe they will have their hands full with other things.

Sure enough, ITV confirmed that it was “a straightforward commercial decision”. And it probably isn’t a coincidence that on the very same day ITV won the rights to broadcast the Champions League.

But what made ITV pull out of the deal with two years of their current contract to go? ITV have been broadcasting for 12 years and if anything it had appeared as though their commitment had increased.

In the past year or two ITV have been much less likely to drop their live coverage of qualifying or shut it to another channel. And just days ago ITV announced that they had won the rights to broadcast practice sessions on the internet — the first ever time that UK viewers have been able to watch free practice.

It makes sense that ITV would up the amount of coverage given the success of Lewis Hamilton. Surely they will be able to increase their revenue now that there is a successful British driver. But ironically, I think it might be the arrival of Lewis Hamilton that was the final straw for ITV. Let me explain.

In the off season, along with the car launches and testing times, there is one story that seems to be an annual occurrence. Almost every year, ITV struggles to find someone to sponsor its coverage. This year, they even had to reduce the amount they were asking for — even following the success of Lewis Hamilton.

Honda pulled out of their £2.5 million deal after just one year. I seem to remember that was a last-minute deal, just as this year’s Sony one was. And the year before, ITV could only do a deal with Swiftcover to start sponsoring coverage four races into the season.

Why do ITV constantly have so much trouble finding a sponsor for their coverage? Simple. Each brand that sponsors the coverage becomes associated with interrupting the race. Instead of appealing to the millions of ITV viewers, sponsors simply piss them all off.

Andrew MacKinlay MP may believe that F1 coverage “could be provided, and should be provided, on commercial television.” He obviously doesn’t know much about the sport. Because if there is a sport that is wholly unsuited for commercial television, it is Formula 1.

Try as I might to think of another popular sporting event that may last as long as two hours plus without a single interruption, I have drawn a blank. Every other sport I can think of has some kind of break where commercials may be shown on television. (If anyone can think of a popular sporting event that may last for two hours uninterrupted, please leave a comment.)

It is a truism to say that, when the BBC and ITV jointly own the right to broadcast the World Cup final, everyone prefers to watch BBC. This is said to be mostly because the BBC does not have adverts. But at least when ITV broadcast a football match commercials are run at half time, well out of the way of the actual action. If adverts obscure the match, it is by accident, and only for the first few seconds of the second half.

With F1 though, ITV systematically, deliberately, routinely interrupt the action to bring us some words from their sponsors. There have been campaigns against this behaviour. It has been pointed out that 17 minutes and 15 seconds of the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix (Lewis Hamilton’s first ever F1 victory) were missed by ITV viewers. In total for the entire season, viewers lost 4 hours 6 minutes and 4 seconds — the equivalent of well over two average-length Grands Prix.

Moreover, several pivotal events have been missed by British viewers. Ironically, the moment when Lewis Hamilton effectively lost the 2007 Drivers Championship happened just seconds after ITV had gone to a commercial break. British viewers missed it, and the moment wasn’t even shown in the highlights package because James Allen and Martin Brundle were having their brief break (before resuming for other broadcasters who receive their commentary), so there was no commentary for it.

The year before, the pivotal moment also happened almost immediately after ITV went to a break. When Michael Schumacher’s engine blew in Japan, effectively handing the 2006 Drivers Championship to Fernando Alonso, British viewers were completely unaware. If football fans had to endure this sort of thing, there would probably be riots in the streets.

Yet, it is a commercial reality. ITV simply cannot afford to let two hours’ worth of televisual real estate go by without screening an advert. ITV were probably waiting for someone like Lewis Hamilton to come along to let them make more money. This would partly explain their fawning coverage of Golden Boy. But the opposite happened. As the viewership increased, it simply increased the amount of people who were pissed off by the adverts. When they struggled to find a sponsor even at the height of Lewismania, it was probably the final straw.

It is fair to say that the vast majority of fans will not be sorry to see the back of ITV. Their coverage has become laughably one-sided, with all of the commentators unashamedly obsessing over Lewis Hamilton to the extent where some viewers might be surprised to find that when the race started there were 21 other drivers.

It is, of course, understandable that ITV would concentrate on the British hope. But the sheer obsessiveness, to the point where Hamilton’s father and brother have both been elevated to the status of minor celebrities in their own rights, utterly grates. Imagine if football broadcasters started every programme with a hour’s worth of, “Well, we really hope Manchester United can do the business today,” and interviews with Cristiano Ronaldo’s brother and Wayne Rooney’s father. And all without a mention of any of the other teams in the Premier League. You would be thoroughly sick of it.

Whenever they weren’t stalking Lewis Hamilton, viewers were treated to patronising fluff of the lowest order. Who could forget ‘Cooking with Heikki’ or the tour of Jarno Trulli’s vineyard? Just one race into the season, ITV delivered a gem presented (sic) by Tamara Ecclestone. She “interviewed” the Ferrari drivers going skiing, but all she could say was, “That’s wonderful. Amazing. Just incredible.”

Then, of course, there is James Allen. You don’t have to dig deep to find swathes of people on the internet criticising his coverage, often in rather rude terms. He is a good writer, but his contrived excited style really grates and he is constantly putting his foot in his mouth. Murray Walker made plenty of mistakes as well, but that was more endearing. James Allen has an air of smugness about his commentary that most people cannot abide.

It is strange because James Allen is a really good writer, and I thought he was a fine pit reporter as well. But he simply isn’t suited to the role of main commentator. ITV’s inaction over this matter — this is Allen’s seventh full season as ITV’s main commentator — earned them a major black mark in most F1 fans’ minds.

It is not all bad news though. It is easy to forget that ITV truly have revolutionised coverage of F1 since they won the rights in 1997. Even though the preview show is often annoying, at least it exists. The BBC used to do the bare minimum. A bit of competition is healthy, and no doubt the BBC will up their game. It certainly sounds like it from the little hints we have been hearing already. But I will write a separate post about that.

Still being a cheeky youngster, it often annoys me when people use old names of things that changed ages ago. You know the sort of thing I mean — people who still say West Germany instead of Germany and the European Cup instead of the Champions League.

Loads of people still say Czechoslovakia, which particularly annoys me because I can actually remember Czechoslovakia existing but I still manage to remember that it is now two separate countries: the Czech Republic and Slovakia. It seems to me as ridiculous as still saying Austria-Hungary, or saying Yugoslavia instead of Croatia.

But as I get older, I guess I’m realising that old habits die hard. The other day I walked in to a room with football on the television and I said, “Is that the Charity Shield?” even though I know it’s now called the Community Shield.

Place names are always changing, and often it is difficult to keep up. I’ve just about got to grips with Peking changing to Beijing. That seems to be official, done and dusted, and everybody accepts it.

But sometimes a place changes its name, yet it doesn’t seem to quite be official. Or worse still, it has two different names, both of which are acceptable! I saw in a recent issue of The Economist, “Timor-Leste, formerly East Timor…”

“Right,” I thought to myself, “I’ll have to remember that from now on. I might even write a blog post about that and everything. Mind you, that would probably be dreadfully dull.”

But has East Timor actually changed its name? Wikipedia redirects Timor-Leste to East Timor. The article introduces the topic as “East Timor, officially the Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste…” Later on it says:

The Portuguese name Timor-Leste and the Tetum name Timor Lorosa’e are sometimes used in English.

Well now I just don’t have a clue what this place is called any more. It has an official name but it doesn’t really seem to be widely recognised. And to further confuse matters the native language calls it something different again. The CIA World Factbook doesn’t really help matters.

Not long afterwards, this was posted on the BBC Editors blog:

Mumbai/Bombay?

One caller to the BBC complained that in the coverage of the bombs in India, the name Mumbai was used without an explanation that it was formerly known as Bombay.

There is no BBC rule about using Mumbai, just guidelines. It is up to each individual programme to decide what to say. Most use ‘Mumbai’ and nothing else; a few use ‘Mumbai, formerly known as Bombay’. The thinking is the city has changed its name (some time ago) and Mumbai is now well known to most, if not all, the audience.

The post has an interesting discussion in the comments about the matter. That is, until the inevitable nutjob wades in with a completely unrelated and bonkers point about the Taleban. And then we have the inevitable Biased-BBCers claiming that the BBC referring to ‘Mumbai’ is to do with political correctness (!!). That is what I like to call political correctness gone mad gone mad. As Ally said,

It WAS called Bombay. It is NOW called Mumbai. This is not a question of political correctness. Many Indians may still call the city Bombay, just as I sometimes call a Snickers a Marathon, but it has changed.

I have to say, I think you must have been living in a cave if you had never heard ‘Mumbai’ before last month’s train bombs. But I can kind of sympathise. I never really noticed the Indian place names changing. It was only a few years ago when I saw the placename ‘Kolkata’ for the first time. Nevertheless, it was hardly difficult to work out what city it was referring to.

But who decides when a place name actually changes? Is it technically correct to say ‘Pa-ree’ instead of ‘Pa-riss’ even though it will make you sound like a pretentious bumhole? Is it technically correct to write ‘Köln’ instead of ‘Cologne’ even though it means going to the hassle of finding the ‘ö’ character on the keyboard?

Who decides this? Does the media do it unilaterally? I doubt it. Does the Foreign Office release a list of places that the British government officially recognises as having changed its name? Or is it just down to local bureaucrats? If some bored paper-pusher at Fife Council decided to re-name Kirkcaldy ‘Winky Bum Poo Jizz’, would BBC journalists suddenly find themselves reporting from ouside Winky Bum Poo Jizz Sheriff Court?

When in doubt, I turn to The Economist, famous for its clear writing style.

Use English forms when they are in common use: Cologne [etc]… But follow local practice when a country expressly changes its name, or the names of rivers, towns, etc, within it. Thus… Mumbai not Bombay…

Seems fair enough.

doctorvee

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