BBC vs Sky

[carvetia]

I think the Sky coverage has every bit of class I expected it to: Gaudy graphics, vacant anchors, irrelevant cameos and sleep-inducing analysis (hey everybody look at the shiny touch screen). Very much missing the understated slickness of the BBC's coverage and the respect they had in the paddock, and i think the creativity deficit is most obvious in the build-up reels. Budget for budget, Sky is poor. Commentary is fine, but we can thank ITV & BBC for that anyway.

[Red Schneider]

One thing I will say about Sky: when you're showing analysis of a pole lap for God's sake put the damn thing on full screen. I don't need to watch you watch it.

[Richard]

That's the Sky way of doing things. They constantly look push themselves into the story with name dropping, harping on about how great they are, and cross promotion of other NewsCorp ventures.

They did that when they started football coverage, they'd go to a reporter on the pitchside wearing huge headphones and a commentators microphone - his voice couldn't heard over the noise of the crowd. It's only purpose was to say "look at us and how clever we are because we can get someone to stand on the pitch with a camera crew to talk live to someone with a seperate camera crew in a studio 50m away". If they cared for the quality of the output (as opposed to the razzamtaz) then that person would be in the studio giving articulate analysis of the game instead of muffled comments drowned out by the crowd.

Its a bit of a shock when you're used to the traditional method of the commentator being secondary to the action on the pitch/track.

The "watch me watching the screen" can be useful in technical discussions where the commentator can point to features on screen, Brundle used to do that on the BBC. I think Sky overdo it because they want to push the personalities of the presenters in your face ahead of the content. They want to hook you onto that presenter so you come back to Sky due to presenter loyalty.

The Now Show did a fantastic spoof of Sky this week, UK people can catch it on BBC iPlayer until Friday. Starts at 2:20 http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... Episode_1/

[simieski]

Is captain chuckles, aka, mr villeneuve just a one off? Can't put up with that ray of sunshine every week!

[Red Schneider]

Skinhead Jacques shocked me. I liked what I saw though.

[beelsebob]

It's the second time I've watched Sky this year, and I have two big comments:
Their anchor, and Jaques are *terrible*... Bring on Eddy and David.
Their second commentator has no --- clue what he's talking about... MB: Well, the crucial thing for him now is that he's tucked up in the warm air; that'll be crucial for his tyres. Second Commentator: Yes Martin, that'll really help him. MB: Well, I think he might much rather be in clean smooth air than boiling bubbling hot air that's worked very hard.

I prefer the BBC team by far, though I did think Martin + David together was a better commentary team than either of the two split apart.

[Hangaku]

It's the second time I've watched Sky this year, and I have two big comments:
Their anchor, and Jaques are *terrible*... Bring on Eddy and David.
Their second commentator has no --- clue what he's talking about... MB: Well, the crucial thing for him now is that he's tucked up in the warm air; that'll be crucial for his tyres. Second Commentator: Yes Martin, that'll really help him. MB: Well, I think he might much rather be in clean smooth air than boiling bubbling hot air that's worked very hard.

I prefer the BBC team by far, though I did think Martin + David together was a better commentary team than either of the two split apart.

The Sky anchor is not as good as Jake Humphrey, I will agree with that. However, that's my only complaint about the Sky coverage. As a whole, the Sky F1 team is better.

Eddie Jordan not making my eyes or ears ache is a good thing. David Coulthard constantly mispronouncing words and names throughout commentary is also not missed at all.

[timd]

I’m thinking about cancelling my sky sports. Sky are doing my head in with their mistakes, lead presenters who clearly don’t know the sport and regurgitated content. Crofty was alright for the radio but he is starting to get on my wick. Georgie and Lazenby are just sky people, not F1 people. A lot of their coverage is just over extended and boring with a nice smothering of "Sky pad" cheese. Oh and its not in HD on virgin.

If only the BBC could have all the races.

[beelsebob]

It's the second time I've watched Sky this year, and I have two big comments:
Their anchor, and Jaques are *terrible*... Bring on Eddy and David.
Their second commentator has no --- clue what he's talking about... MB: Well, the crucial thing for him now is that he's tucked up in the warm air; that'll be crucial for his tyres. Second Commentator: Yes Martin, that'll really help him. MB: Well, I think he might much rather be in clean smooth air than boiling bubbling hot air that's worked very hard.

I prefer the BBC team by far, though I did think Martin + David together was a better commentary team than either of the two split apart.

The Sky anchor is not as good as Jake Humphrey, I will agree with that. However, that's my only complaint about the Sky coverage. As a whole, the Sky F1 team is better.

Eddie Jordan not making my eyes or ears ache is a good thing. David Coulthard constantly mispronouncing words and names throughout commentary is also not missed at all.

I honestly have no idea what so many people have against Eddie. Yes he's outspoken, but more often than not, there's a kernel of truth in what he's outspoken about. I'd much rather have a genuine debate between two well informed people making intelligent arguments from opposite extremes (as Eddie and David typically do) than have the sky buffoons simply mumbling regurgitated nonsense based on no real background.

[timd]

It's the second time I've watched Sky this year, and I have two big comments:
Their anchor, and Jaques are *terrible*... Bring on Eddy and David.
Their second commentator has no --- clue what he's talking about... MB: Well, the crucial thing for him now is that he's tucked up in the warm air; that'll be crucial for his tyres. Second Commentator: Yes Martin, that'll really help him. MB: Well, I think he might much rather be in clean smooth air than boiling bubbling hot air that's worked very hard.

I prefer the BBC team by far, though I did think Martin + David together was a better commentary team than either of the two split apart.

The Sky anchor is not as good as Jake Humphrey, I will agree with that. However, that's my only complaint about the Sky coverage. As a whole, the Sky F1 team is better.

Eddie Jordan not making my eyes or ears ache is a good thing. David Coulthard constantly mispronouncing words and names throughout commentary is also not missed at all.

I honestly have no idea what so many people have against Eddie. Yes he's outspoken, but more often than not, there's a kernel of truth in what he's outspoken about. I'd much rather have a genuine debate between two well informed people making intelligent arguments from opposite extremes (as Eddie and David typically do) than have the sky buffoons simply mumbling regurgitated nonsense based on no real background.

I agree. Eddie is a dick but he does often have some sense behind the muddled way he presents his arguments. I have also got used to him as some comic relief. There is nothing natural about the chemistry of the sky coverage other than the fact that Johnny Herbert seems to be a generally cheery bloke.

[Callum]

I'm enjoying the sky coverage so far, however 1.5 hours pre-race is just a bit too much for me. I don't need to watch qually again.. I watched it the day before!

On Martin and Crofty I sometimes get the feeling that Crofty is just a little slow compared to MB. He's good at talking but makes mistakes (he's only human..) Personally, I'd rather have MB and Antony Davidson. We'd see two real drivers talking and get some great analysis.

I'd rather have anchors that knew what they were talking about instead of pretty people... enough said.

My perfect team?

Martin Brundle and DC - commentating,

Jake, Johnny H, and Eddie doing the pre-show.

Antony Davidson and Ted doing technical stuff...

P.S i think the big touchscreen TV is great, so what if it is "fancy" It definitely beats a piece of paper!

[raymondu999]

P.S i think the big touchscreen TV is great, so what if it is "fancy" It definitely beats a piece of paper!

Heh yeah. I remember Gary Anderson borrowing Jake's iPad and using it as a clipboard once to show his sketches to the camera

[beelsebob]

P.S i think the big touchscreen TV is great, so what if it is "fancy" It definitely beats a piece of paper!

I actually think the big touchscreen TV sums up the sky coverage perfectly – it's a giant pretty gimmick which works less well, and gives you less information than the BBC's guy with a pad of paper explaining things from a position of knowledge.

Aside – I'm pretty confident it's not a giant touch screen TV, but instead, a bluescreen, and a bunch of pre-prepared slides.

[raymondu999]

They've got some killer timing if that's what it is.

[beelsebob]

They've got some killer timing if that's what it is.

Not really, it's had latencies of up to a second or two before. The latency varies at random, so I'm pretty sure it's just a guy sat in a control room going "and he's pressing it.... now"