To be fair, though, this is a new team coming together for the first time and it's quite a dry studio format. Once the races start and the team gels it might get better. Also, I'm anti-Sky so I'm looking for things to criticise. I think I'm being fair but everyone thinks their interpretation is right, right? When I first got Sky I got the full package including sports channels. I watched a fair bit of football just because I had it and Sunday afternoons offered little else over the winter. I cancelled sports before the first year was up because I just couldn't bear the presentation or the commentary. SSF1 looks the same to me. As a football fan you're probably well used to Sky so you might not bridle as much. Natalie Pinkham's surprisingly not awful and there was some northerner on earlier - Guy something, maybe? - he was quite amusing. I'm sure they'll be repeating the show ad infinitum over the weekend so you can make up your own mind.
This is a good point. Having followed testing and some forum discussions the technical appraisals seem quite superficial but if the audience is coming to the season for the first time with this then it's actually probably more in-depth than what the BBC does. The graphical representation of the McLaren and Caterham was good. They should use that more. That woman with Ant Davidson is ghastly. She just asked him a question immediately after he'd answered it. Steve Ryder interviews Nigel Mansell. Joy.
The woman is Georgie Thompson and she is a bit of tart. I mean to dress in leather when interviewing Button is ridiculous and it looked like she was flirting with him to.
The countdown to F1 disappearing behind a paywall begins now, guys. Fair play to Sky, their coverage will hook people in, they've done an excellent job. But it should never have existed in the first place.
Thank god i didn't get sky. From what i've heard, it hasn't exactly been brilliant. Think i'll stick with the beeb, and stream the races they don't have, and just have 5live commentary (JA & JA)
I quite liked it, considering the BBC don't do much of a preview show it's filling a viewing slot with little competition. I suppose the real comparisons can be drawn on a shared race weekend when both broadcasters are using the same feed, that's when we'll see a true difference if any. I'm 50/50 right now but I would have like to have seen Lee McKenzie in Georgie Thompsons roll
I thought the F1 Shw was pretty good. Bit of studio chat, bit of analysis, bit of tecy stuff, a few intervies. What more could thy do!? Just seen the scedule for today, season reviews of 1988 & 1989 from lunchtime. Clearly some people are just anti-sky and would hate it regardless of whay they did, but as an F1 fan, the content they are putting up looks impressive and will give us something to watch in between the races. When did the beeb or ITV ever do that?
Don't do much of a preview show? Did you not see Jake Humphrey and David Coulthard dressed as pirates on the One Show? Sky will try to play to their strengths and they have an entire channel to endlessly loop content on (at the moment they're showing the time lapse building of the FW34... again), including the FIA's back catalogue of season reviews. The BBC can't compete with that. Sadly, Sky also looks on paper to have the head-to-head race comparison won as well with David Croft and Martin Brundle in the commentary box, which will be the only discernible difference between the presentations. I may be mistaken but I don't think the wealth of additional in-race red button content that Sky provides will be used by the majority of its audience. From last night's show I think Sky's weakness is in its supporting cast. Simon (the anchor, not sure of his surname) was bland and generic and he pulled the expert panel (Hill and Brundle) down to his level, which is my experience of Sky football punditry, too. This can be improved, though, because he also seemed a decent and likeable chap. He just needs to express more enthusiasm and provide more information than simply reading out what we can see on screen (e.g. the race calendar). What I don't think can be fixed includes Georgie Thompson, who is simply a very poor presenter with zero interest in what her colleagues are saying, and the Sky approach to everything it does, which is to make 'Sky' rather than the sport (or the news or the drama, etc.) the focus of its presentation. This is ingrained and comes from News Corp. and the Fox ethos. I've heard it referred to as advertainment and everyone's familiar with and accepts product placement but with Sky you're often hard pushed to spot the entertainment or find the information in what they're really pushing. It wouldn't surprise me to see a sky logo superimposed on the FIA feed throughout the races despite their claims that they will be shown uninterrupted by commercials. I don't think anyone's "just" anti-Sky. There are sound socio-economic reasons for being wary of News Corp's influence on our lives.
Those of us who can make our own minds up about what we choose to read and wacth have the ability to ignore and not read all that trash that they write in their papers. I am a sports fan and unfortunately accept that to watch the sports I like, I now have to pay for it. I don't like that aspect anymore than many others, but I am not going to 'boycott' sky just becuase of how they (and the rest of the media becuase none of them are saints) have gone about their business over the years. Having seen what sky are going to put up for F1 fans, they should be congratulated from mkaing a dedicated F1 channel. If people want to watch half the races live and half on extended highlighs, that's fine, I have no issue with that, but as there is a dedicated F1 channel, why can;t we be happy, soak it up and enjoy it? Surely it's what we've all been after for so long?
I saw a timelapse recording of the Caterham being built this morning and there was some bloke bent over it with his arse hanging out for most of it, I bet he's getting ripped about that. Caught the end of the preview show on Sky 1, Nathalie Pinkham was interviewing Mark Webber at a football stadium when I started watching. I was impressed with her to be honest. I agree with people comments about Georgie Thompson though, especially Bob's suggestion of replacing her with Lee McKenzie. I liked the detailed look at Webber's overtake on Alonso at Spa, this is the sort of area I expect Sky to be better, the BBC would've just shown a few replays of it. Overall the 15 minutes or so were quite good I thought.
That time lapse was amazing. It just shows that you can just big bits on, its all the little fiddly time consuming bits. It did make me laugh this one guy who was caught leaning on the side alot yapping all the time.
Who said you can't? Nobody's telling you what to think or what's good for you. Nobody's making any judgement at all on who you are or what you enjoy, and yet you claim that those of us who think differently "are just anti-Sky and would just hate it regardless," or imply that we can't make our own minds up because we're slaves to "all that trash" we read in the newspapers. I haven't been 100% dismissive or critical of the show or the channel; I pointed out what I disliked (most of it) and explained why but I also mentioned a couple of areas that I was impressed by. I even included a caveat that I am biased and for good reasons.
Genji, I am referring to the some members of the forum in general, not just you. It is clear there are 'anti-sky' people out there who will hate it regardless. No one has, or will say, I cannot enjoy what I like, neither have I suggested otherwise. I hope that those who had jumped on the bandwagon that we must not watch sky have a look at what they are doing for F1 fans (mainly in between the races which previously has been lacking on terrestrial tv) and realise it is a good thing there is a dedicated channel. Sky won't ruin F1 with money as they have hardly paid a penny for it and as it's a truly global sport they won;t be able to strangle it like they have done with football.
Pretty decent show, a little rusty in places but an entertaining programe with a lot of potential, cannot wait for the race coverage, might have to shift to this channel permanently.
If you abandon the BBC's coverage then you justify their decision to get rid of half of it in the first place. Then we WILL lose it completely.
Actually I think that was just a rehash of what the BBC actually did (Martin Brundle on the big screen TV that the BBC referred to as "a big screen TV" and Sky refer to as "the Skypad") on the F1 Forum following the Belgian GP last year. It was good but I don't think they gave us anything the BBC didn't.
