F1 TV coverage threadFormula 1

[F1 fan]

A bit off topic, but Speed is having a poll just now on facebook.

Here is the link. It's a poll asking you for your favourite racing series. Even though I don't get speed, I voted for Formula One. If you have facebook, please vote to help our American friends. It's still going to get destroyed by Nascar, but if we can get a respectable amount of votes, it may help.

 

[shawnjets]

Here in the US sure Speed/FOX dosen't cover F1 as well as BBC does but it isn't all that bad. We get practice, quali, and the race all live with British commentators. And if you have a DVR Cable box here in the US you can simply record the race live (since most are at like 7 am anyway) and watch it later then simply fast forward through the ad's . I can't really complain. I have every race of the season so far recorded and saved on my box.

Oh and since we're on the subject of the BBC, BBC America SUCKS! LOL it's only good for Top Gear. "Doctor Who" is the worst television show I've ever seen

 

[Robin]

"Doctor Who" is the worst television show I've ever seen

+1 such junk and looks so cheap compared to US sci fi.

 

[Ardius]

Yes but the problem is the cost of everything has increased whilst the license fee has stayed relatively the same. The wages, electricity, equipment, petrol etc have all increased which are costs the BBC has to absorb that actually reduces what they have to spend on programming year on year.

So either they increase the license fee (which no one wants) or they expand private ventures such as selling more programmes abroad, more merchandise or maybe launch a private ad funded channel. Or cut stuff.... which is what they are doing.

As for the BBC quality, I would say its real hit and miss. There's lots of things the BBC put money into that most have no interest in but they do so to keep their programming varied because they are providing a public service and are literally obligated please everyone even if that group is small hence why they have so many TV and radio channels.

My point was that in theory the BBC's funding is fairly constant - because everyone has to pay the license fee. This means that the BBC always has a fairly hefty budget to play with compared to any other TV/media network. Generally speaking this means high quality programming generally ends up on the BBC because the BBC have the big budgets. Thats not to say private broadcasters can't have big budgets..but its just that the BBC has nearly always had a big budget due this nature.

As I said, the "quality" is subjective, but the BBC have produced a lot of very successful programmes and sports coverage.

+1 such junk and looks so cheap compared to US sci fi.

Does it? I feel Doctor Who is a good example of the kinds of budgets BBC programmes get - i.e. pretty expensive stuff.

Off topic but - I'm not at all a fan of Doctor Who but I don't think its "junk" or "the worst television show I've ever seen". The Sci-fi genre isn't particularly filled with the finest literature and productions in any case. Surely Stargate SG-1 is "junk"? Doctor Who at least has some good writers on it from time to time.

 

[Christian_C]

http://plus.autosport.com/premium/feature/3736/a-good-deal-for-f1-but-what-about-the-fans/ - This pretty much sums up how I feel about this whole thing. Unfortunately you need a Autosport subscription to read it so for those who can the link is there, for those who can't heres a few bits from it:

The future model of F1 coverage already exists in UK football's FA Premier League. It has made a select group of teams and their players enormously wealthy. Spotting their chance to gorge at the trough, this is why the likes of Martin Whitmarsh and Adam Parr have refused to criticise the deal. Parr even had the cheek to suggest fans should support this move as part of a noble crusade to cut costs! Cut their costs maybe, but not ours.

If you want to make F1 less expensive, reduce what it takes to compete in the category, or else find more sponsorship. Don't pass your expenses on to television broadcasters and the fans

In short, I don't want to make a group of very rich people even richer just because they tell me I have to. The price of tickets for F1 races is already ludicrous (£274.72 for a simple raceday admission to Silverstone at the British Grand Prix!) and now the price of watching the sport on TV is going up too.

 

[Sureboss]

Some would say the gap between the rich and poor teams is all ready far too big.

 

[Ardius]

^Its been "too big" since the 1990s really, as thats when the manufacturers started bringing in the super-budgets.

I agree with the general feeling on Adam Parr's comments - its amazing that he suggests that "everyone has to cut costs" at the moment but ignores that what we are talking about here is not cutting any costs inside F1. I'm pretty sure Bernie/FOM/CVC/whoever could reduce the TV license fees to help, but of course they won't.
This all wouldn't be such a problem if the BBC didn't have to pay the crazy-high fees in the first place.

 

[Robin]

Does it? I feel Doctor Who is a good example of the kinds of budgets BBC programmes get - i.e. pretty expensive stuff.

Off topic but - I'm not at all a fan of Doctor Who but I don't think its "junk" or "the worst television show I've ever seen". The Sci-fi genre isn't particularly filled with the finest literature and productions in any case. Surely Stargate SG-1 is "junk"? Doctor Who at least has some good writers on it from time to time.

It just looks so 'man in shed' even with a decent budget put in. I'm not talking primarily about the writing quality, mainly the visual quality. The sets, costumes and cgi are laughable... it really does look like a kiddy series and I cannot understand why adults like it. TBH most UK sci fi looks budget I guess because its not as massive here as it is in the states and I doubt the BBC has the cash of someone like Paramount.

If you look at US sci fi the production values are top notch, things like Heroes and recently the Event (which sadly got canned) have movie level production quality. Stargate and particularly Star Trek have always looked very polished.

Robin.

 

[Famine]

Off topic but - I'm not at all a fan of Doctor Who but I don't think its "junk" or "the worst television show I've ever seen". The Sci-fi genre isn't particularly filled with the finest literature and productions in any case. Surely Stargate SG-1 is "junk"? Doctor Who at least has some good writers on it from time to time.

Doctor Who is terrifyingly bad - and a terrific example of waste in the BBC. It has a huge, secret budget and it appears to be spent on... nothing that I can determine. Compare the production values of Doctor Who to stuff like Firefly, Stargate: Universe, FlashForward or the BSkyB-funded Threshold (boy, was that good). At least the BBC stick to the original Doctor Who trademarks of wobbly sets and dodgy costumes, though they're CGI these days.

As for the quality of writing compared to something like Stargate: SG-1, watch an episode like Heroes. Atlantis is a bit weak, but Universe has writing that equals anything in any television series ever. Writers on Stargate series include the people behind Threshold and Batman Begins...

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Doctor Who is terrifyingly bad - and a terrific example of waste in the BBC.

The problem with "Doctor Who" isn't excess or a wasted production budget. The problem is in the writers' room - the writers are clearly making things up as they go. Remember the explanation that the Doctor takes on a new form when his body dies? The writers made that up to explain away William Hartnell's departure from the series and William Troughton being cast in the role. It was never planned (like, say, the way the first three seasons of "Angel" directly affect the fourth season); they simply wrote it in and kept running with it, and it's been going on for so long that they're stuck with it short of rebooting the series entirely. At least the writers of "Torchwood" plan their seasons out, even if they are filled with ridiculous leaps in logic.

 

[Famine]

Patrick Troughton. And that was forty years since, when Doctor Who had no budget at all

The present one has a completely secret budget - despite being, you know, funded by public money collected and enforced as a tax - but it is allegedly colossal.

 

[F1 fan]

Patrick Troughton. And that was forty years since, when Doctor Who had no budget at all

The present one has a completely secret budget - despite being, you know, funded by public money collected and enforced as a tax - but it is allegedly colossal.

Really? It always reeked of low budget to me. I'm not a fan, but at least there's one thing they're doing right.

 

[Famine]

The ballpark figures I've heard are £750k (£10m a series, 13 episodes) to £1m per episode.

 

[F1 fan]

The ballpark figures I've heard are £750k (£10m a series, 13 episodes) to £1m per episode.

Jesus... I remember seeing one episode and thinking "it looks ok for a low budget show". Guess I was wrong.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

Patrick Troughton. And that was forty years since, when Doctor Who had no budget at all

I don't know too much about the series, but I'm taking it Troughton wasn't received too well?

No matter. The point is that "Doctor Who" has bigger problems than a wasteful budget. There have been plenty of good television shows made with small budgets, just as there are plenty of bad shows with big budgets. "Glee" is another show that is particularly guilty of this - the second season abandoned all of the previously-established characterisation, and instead simply had the characters do whatever the episode called for them to do. Combined with the habit of drawing storylines out for two or three times as long as they needed to be (the Karofsky-is-gay storyline lasted about sixteen episodes when it should have gone for four), inexplicable shifts in internal logic (seriously, Rachel doesn't know that Cats left Broadway decades ago?), abandoning subplots for no apparent reason (the Sunshine Corazon plot could have been great) and the writers' intention of emphasising the sickly-sweet after-school special "everyone is unique and that makes them perfect in their own way" theme at every bloody opportunity (the Lady GaGa episodes, anything dealing with a character's sexuality, etc.), the show became practically unwatchable in its second season.

It happens all the time, really. Producers and creators see that they're onto something good and insist on trying to make it bigger and better to be more appealing to a wider audience - to the point where they lose focus. And at the opposite end of the scale, you have some truly brilliant shows filmed on a limited budget, like "Arrested Development" (single-camera setup) and "Flashpoint" (you just know they only have one set and everything else is done on location). Big budget does not always equal high quality.

 

[Seismica]

Big budget does not always equal high quality.

Back to the topic in hand, it did in the case of BBC F1.

I read in Autosport magazine that F1 was the most expensive show on BBC per viewer hour. Due to this I accept that F1 could no longer remain exclusively on the BBC because their business model is severely flawed. They are looking for 'value' not 'viewing figures' (i.e. popularity) or 'customer satisfaction'.

Quality programmes cost money and when the BBC is strapped for cash, they go straight for the big budget productions regardless of their popularity.

The real issue here is not keeping F1 on the BBC, it is keeping it from pay to view TV and also changing the way the BBC is funded to bring it in line with the modern world. Next time it'll be Wimbledon or Match of the Day that will go. Freezing the TV license fee was always going to be a disaster, they may aswell stop avoiding the subject and scrap it completely, and make BBC a commercial station.

 

[Famine]

I don't know too much about the series, but I'm taking it Troughton wasn't received too well?

Oh no, Troughton was as loved for his gruff, prickly Doctor as Hartnell was for his avuncular one. In fact all of the first six doctors were celebrated and brought their own personalities to their Doctors - Jon Pertwee's teacher figure, Tom Baker's batty genius, Peter Davison's introvert and Colin Baker's bipolar egomaniac were all missed when they moved on. Only Sylvester McCoy's seventh Doctor caused any waves, with some fans being heavily turned off by his bumbling, jester-like Doctor - though some loved him for the same reasons, seeing the character as a cross between Hartnell and Baker's Doctors.

I thought Ecclestone did a stand-up job as the ninth Doctor (Paul McGann was briefly the eighth doctor in 1996, for a one-off TV movie at Christmas designed to reboot the series, but failing), but the storylines bored me and the ridiculously telegraphed "Bad Wolf" writing turned me off before he regenerated. My daughter loved Tennant's tenth Doctor, though I'm unfamiliar with anything of his beyond an excessively long storyline involving the ninth Doctor's first Companion Rose which seemed like an excuse to keep Billie Piper in the show as long as possible, the ever-irritating Catherine Tate and an attempt to reboot the Third/Fourth Doctor companion Sarah Jane to relive the terrible "K-9 Adventures" from the 1980s. I can't look at Matt Smith's eleventh Doctor, as he looks like he had his head trapped in a lift door for too long.

No matter. The point is that "Doctor Who" has bigger problems than a wasteful budget.

No, but it's indicative of how the BBC wastes money. The show's CGI is very poor quality and sparse, whereas something like Stargate Universe has a significant quantity of CGI and is absolutely top quality. The cast is a group of nonentities known for little other than the show - Universe pulls in Robert Carlyle and legacy Stargate actors (who are also known for Farscape and Andromeda); Threshold had Brent Spiner, Pete Dinklage, Carla Gugino and Charles Dutton; FlashForward had Joseph Fiennes, John Cho, Dominic Monaghan, Jack Davenport, Gina Torres, Shohreh Aghdashloo, hell even Ricky Jay. The writers are a bunch of British sitcom writers (okay, Coupling was great), whereas the US series bring in Next Generation and 24 writers, film writers (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, Blade, Jumper, Man of Steel, Trek films obviously). Okay, Universe had a budget of $2m (£1.2m) per episode but look at where it went - where does the rumoured £1m per episode of Doctor Who go? Can 20% more money for 25% less runtime (52 minutes per episode for US syndication compared to 65 for Who) really produce such a superior product as we see from over that there pond? And Universe's budget was big precisely because of 10 seasons of SG-1 and five of Atlantis giving them a track record to pitch on - other shows don't get nearly so much wad.

Of course the up to Doctor Who is merchandising. We've got so many posable figures of Captain Jack and a Tardis anything-you-can-Tardis it's not even funny. I haven't encountered any Carson Beckett action figures or real-swooshing Chappa'ai models recently.


Wow. When we drift away from the original topic, we drift hard!

 

[Tired Tyres]

Take you talk of Dr Who to the Dr Who thread people.

If there are 29.5 million households in the UK and the licence fee is £145.50 that would add up to £4,292,250,000 !!

I would have thought that £50 million or so for F1 would be easily available if the BBC is run in any form of efficient way. (Throwing away £900 million on transferring staff from London to Salford for no good reason at all for example.)

I wonder how many households pay the £45 for a B/W licence and how many of them pay nothing at all.

 

[F1 fan]

Well I think if we've learned anything from this episode, it's that Interludes watches Glee.

 

[Tornado]

The present one has a completely secret budget - despite being, you know, funded by public money collected and enforced as a tax

Wait, how does that work?

 

[Sureboss]

The enforcement of the license fee?

 

[dhandeh]

Seeing that we are discussing Doctor Who in a car based website, what the hell...

Its The KLF! And the best thing to come out of Doctor Who.... until Billie Piper turned up anyway.

Well I think if we've learned anything from this episode, it's that Interludes watches Glee.

I dont often agree with you, but 👍

 

[Famine]

Take you talk of Dr Who to the Dr Who thread people.

If there are 29.5 million households in the UK and the licence fee is £145.50 that would add up to £4,292,250,000 !!

I wonder how many households pay the £45 for a B/W licence and how many of them pay nothing at all.

TV Licensing collects about £3.6bn a year. TV Licences are free to the over 75s.

I would have thought that £50 million or so for F1 would be easily available if the BBC is run in any form of efficient way.

I'll just point out that the BBC is effectively an arm of government - it is subject to the fiats of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, it is funded by taxation and it is answerable to a variety of public bodies. If I may respond to the concept of an arm of government being run with efficiency by way of emoticon, it will be " "

Well I think if we've learned anything from this episode, it's that Interludes watches Glee.

Oh, harsh.

Wait, how does that work?

The Communications Act 2003 requires a TV Licence to operate equipment to recieve television programming as it is broadcast. The Licence fee is set by HM Government - £145.50 - through the advice of the DoCMS. The BBC has an arm named TV Licensing which collects TV Licence fees from households that require one. There is a database of licensable households and licensed households and they periodically send rude letters, burly men (they have no power of entry, but will not admit this) and vans with aerials on the roof (detector vans - there are four of these in the UK) to addresses they believe should be licensed but which are not.

Failing to pay the TV Licence when you require one is classed as a criminal offence of tax evasion. You may be fined by the courts for it.

 

[Sureboss]

But don't the government pay something like £500m of that figure for those who have licenses but don't pay for them? I swear I read that somewhere.

Four? That is amusing.

As said before, it's a silly and inefficient system. Hopefully it'll go the same way as Her Majesties posties is going and get sold of to people who actually understand the concepts of business and efficiency.

 

[Tornado]

The Communications Act 2003 requires a TV Licence to operate equipment to recieve television programming as it is broadcast.

No no, not that.


What I meant was, how does something like the budget of a TV show end up getting away with being hidden when it is paid for with public funds?

 

[Famine]

Same way that you have to buy DVDs of your favourite programmes from a public broadcaster after already paying for them to be made in the first place.

 

[Tired Tyres]

But don't the government pay something like £500m of that figure for those who have licenses but don't pay for them? I swear I read that somewhere.

Four? That is amusing.

As said before, it's a silly and inefficient system. Hopefully it'll go the same way as Her Majesties posties is going and get sold of to people who actually understand the concepts of business and efficiency.

That would be called ITV then and if that's efficiency then stuff that. The BBC can stay as it is as far as I'm concerned.

As for the detector vans, they are not used as evidence in court cases either according to a Freedom of Information release by them, so I really don't see the point of them.

 

[Moot]

As for the detector vans, they are not used as evidence in court cases either according to a Freedom of Information release by them, so I really don't see the point of them.

Could you see the point in them before you knew they were useless?

It's psychological warfare.
Enforcement is based on fear of being caught.

 

[prisonermonkeys]

What I meant was, how does something like the budget of a TV show end up getting away with being hidden when it is paid for with public funds?

They just don't disclose the budget figures because they're not obligated to.

 

[shawnjets]

I like how I turned this thread into something else haha, none the less interesting read