Any news on NBC Sports plan for F1 coverage?

Will Buxton joins NBC Sports Group as F1 reporter - IndyCar- NBC Sports

According to this they will: Canada and the last three of the season.

pitpass - What is NBC's plan for Formula One?
(Someone ought to remind pitpass that Austin *is* in the US. )

What I find interesting is this line:

Streaming?


edit: And it gets worse:

So: Linux and Firefox need not apply.

Apparently, even Microsloth is dumping Silverlight, instead grabbing control of Flash (to be embedded in W2008 IE -- but Adobe is dropping flash support for linux).
The future of streaming video doesn't look good. Between all the proprietary hacks, and the html5 code which *might* work, "some day", ....

 

Five hours/race is not a big deal, when you consider that the race coverage is normally about three hours total...that doesn't leave a whole lot for practice, qualifying, "studio shows and re-airs". So yeah...big whoop.

I actually had hopes that the coverage would improve with the change from Speed. I'm pretty convinced, based on what I've read so far, that it might be about the same, but probably worse.

 

From Bernie's site, my emphasis added;

A little sketchy on practice & qualy, but I remain optimistic for now......

Also read somewhere recently that Speed were indeed outbid by NBC - It wasn't that Speed bowed out.

Cheers,
Ian

 

How do you do that? I'd love to get the Sky or BBC feed.

 

Discussed previously, but search here sucks, so again;

- You firstly need to make the BBC/Sky/ITV "believe" you're in the UK. You do this with a VPN. There are a few free ones, but they tend to come & go, are not terribly reliable, and be ad supported - Gets old. I highly recommend "strongvpn" and for USA -> UK connections their $55 / year package. [No connection beyond being a happy user BTW. Their support is also top notch.]

Once that's running you can download all the players; BBC's "iPlayer", the ITV player and Sky Go. The BBC re-airs the races etc for a week or so a few days after the event. I believe if they've got the race live it's also available via their player. [Krafty?]

The next step (live Sky F1 channel coverage with your choice of cameras, timing and split screens etc) needs someone in the UK with a Sky Sports subscription that they'll allow you to use and possibly a UK iTunes account (depending on platform). Apparently, no alarm bells ring as long as there's never more than two people logged in to the service at once.

HTH, cheers,
Ian

 

kind of off subject but does anyone have VoilaTV ? its a box you hook up and get to watch French TV with (all France channels). I am thinking of getting it and if it shows F1 then that would seal the deal for me. I am thinking that since F1 is more popular there, perhaps VoilaTV would have more F1 coverage, I called them and the girl "didn't know" and could not look up the schedule since its too far in the future she said...Also could not look up last years schedule. The VoilaTV is $29/month but I want it for something else besides F1, for me the F1 coverage if it has makes it worthwhile.

 

Even TVRacer.com, which is usually pretty up-to-date is showing the broadcast time for Australia "TBA". Not a good sign for a race that's barely a month away.

 

My satelite provider (DirecTV) charges an add'l $4.99/mo. for NBC Universal.

No comment.


Joe

 

The following link indicates some races on NBC.

Schedule - Formula 1 - F1 - Racing - SI.com

 

Thanks. That looks encouraging.

 

Be prepared for more of that since the dominant cable operator, Comcast, now also owns the largest number of channels/content, through NBC Universal (with the possible exception of Viacom). Comcast essentially has a gun to the heads of its competitors (and their customers).

 

I am keeping an open mind.

OK, I can't find any details on broadcasts times etc even though we are only about a month out from the first race. Even so, I will remain optimistic, and see what we get.

I do remember years back not having any TV coverage at all, and only getting the occasional highlight recap a week or so after the fact. Not saying that would be acceptable today given the technological advances in the past 20 - 30 years, but just reminding myself. Whatever the new guys give us, it could always be, and has been , worse.

That said, if the coverage sucks, I will be complaining long and loud, but I will wait until I see it before complaining.

 

Damn. Don't tell me that I'm going to miss Varsha.

 

Ah, thanks for digging that up.

 

I sent them (NBC Sports) an email with my concerns. I will let you know if they respond.

[email protected]

 

Was it really weak? They aired one practice, qualifying, and the race live for every race, reaired practice and qualifying before each race and reaired the race twice (once midday on Sunday and again during the week) on top of having a weekly wrapup show and covering major F1 events on their news shows. All of that in addition to all of the online content.

At one point we had more hours of live F1 broadcast than the UK did. Short of being present at every race, what else could they have done? I think Speed delivered some of the most comprehensive F1 coverage in the world, which is remarkable given how small the audience is here.

 

Wow! A defender of Speed!..... Pretty much an extinct species around here - Bashing 'em is SOP it seems.

Anyway, I wouldn't go as far as the bolded section - Both the BBC & Sky air hours of pre & post stuff, generally live from the pitlane, which is the big difference.

For now at least, I remain optimistic they'll do a good job. Hopefully they'll air all the FP's in addition to qualy & race rather than just FP2. We'll see soon I guess - Less than a month to go!

Cheers,
Ian

 

Weak in the sense that it could have been much better...on the level of Sky or BBC. As you mentioed, on-scene coverage could have been much better. I've always been a defender of Varsha, Hobbs and Matchett. My beef was always with the (apparent) lack of budget and air time allocated to F1 as compared to, say, NASCAR. Clipping the coverage during the post-race a couple of times was inexcusable. For sure, this year's effort was by far Speed's best. Too bad they gave up on F1. I would far prefer them over NBC where auto racing will be just one of many sports covered.

 

Without real peeps (beyond Will of course) on-site, I beg to differ. Could it be better? Of course. Could it be better given their budgetary constraints? I dunno......

Again, I'm not sure that they did - IIRC, they were simply outbid by NBC. There was considerable "bitterness" at Speed at the time.

Love 'em or hate 'em, I really hope NBC does well with it - Both coverage & revenue.

Cheers,
Ian

 

The on air guys were sorry to lose the gig. The suits not as much.

I want to give NBC the benefit of the doubt but the clock's ticking.

 

I was referring to the ITV days when they didn't air anything but qualification and the race in the UK. I remember being surprised that they didn't get to see practices at all.

 

The bottom line is that TV coverage in the US will be minimal as long as F1 is not as popular, and what's popular brings the $$ in advertising and revenue.

Very similar situation with bicycle racing. Used to be just about nothing in the US, then with a US teams going to Europe and the popularity of LeMond and Armstrong, we got lots of coverage but still not the hours and hours of every stage like Eurosport and other channels overseas.

 

I agree. Speed's coverage was excellent in my opinion. I couldn't care less where the commentators are located. The guys worked very well as a team and had excellent commentary. They seem like genuine, down-to-earth guys who aren't full of themselves. Machett's technical insight is excellent and a welcome addition to Hobbs and Varsha.

 

ESPN used to send Varsha and Hobbs to the races, but the coverage wasn't any better as I recall. You generally only saw them at the front gate and then it was all off-camera commentary from some small TV van. The setup they had in the Charlotte studio at SPEED allowed for better viewing of the race (so better commentary) and they had access to statisticians and other folks to improve the coverage.

 

I ran into Hobbs in Charleston one day. I bought his lunch -- his daughter lives here. He told me that he loved being at the races, but it was incredibly much easier to call the races from Charlotte. He had lots of data and dozens of camera angles.