A couple of days ago BBC announced their new line up for the F1 coverage in 2012, and while there were few surprises in there it is a strong team. I like Ben Edwards a great deal. He has a broad knowledge of motorsport, including F1, and has a strong reputation in the sport. I don't think he'll miss many tricks, and I can see him gelling pretty well with DC too. I love Eddie Jordan (mentioning my love of Jordan GP and therefore Eddie will probably be a recurring theme in my posts!). He speaks his mind, and, while not always on the mark he always entertains. He's definitely good value to have on the box. And then there is James Allen on the radio coverage. James still comes in for a lot of criticism for his commentary. He had the thankless job of replacing Murray Walker, and for the first couple of seasons went too far down the line of trying to replicate him, with forced over-excitement at the starts especially . But I grew to really enjoy James and Martin Brundle together and am glad we'll get a chance to hear him again. Maybe after the time away people will be able to give him a fair hearing. recieved
Despite the BBC having a good team however, I expected the fact that Sky had all the races live and a commentary dream-team in David Croft and Brundle to make it an easy choice to fling a few fivers a month in their direction. I'm finding it a harder choice to make though at the moment.
I don't mind paying extra for my F1 coverage. I'm not happy about it, and I'm still not sure its right for the sport. But at the end of the day I love F1 and, like fans of other sports, it seems I have to accept a charge to see the whole lot live. However, the ongoing indecision about having the coverage on Virgin is really disheartening, and not a great sign about how the two companies may work together. They have past history of stupid decisions, punishing their collective viewers, so I'm really not putting it past them doing it again. And I really can't leave Virgin. My house is so far from Skys' transmitter (or whatever the tecnical-mabob is!) that their sales have told me the best broadband I'll get is 1mb. 1mb! I get over 10mb on Virgin on a cheap package! So I'd have to split my services, having Sky for the telly and Virgin for the web. That adds even more cost as you lose the package deal - and I'm not sure I'm prepared to put up with that extra cost.
Secondly, I feel Sky are missing a real trick if they fail to include more motorsport than F1 - and all the signs are so far they may do just that. They could move their Indycar coverage to the F1 channel, bring in GP2 and GP3 (which rumour would have you believe is virtually free once you have F1), and you have a top quality motorsport channel starting to develop. The addition of a wider variety of motorsport really would be a key factor in deciding whether to sign up.
Then, if you add in the fact the Beeb have a quality team lined up for the coverage they do have, and maybe I should give the extended highlights a go and spend the money I save on an evening's karting every month?
What does everyone else think they will do?
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