Speed Channel, USA: Fuming...

[Bibendum]

OK, I'm sufficiently ****ed off that I have to vent somewhere, and I'm curious to see if anyone in this forum shares my annoyance.

As recently as during its qualifying coverage, Speed channel advertised the race coverage as starting at 12:30 a.m. EST. Their web page schedule confirmed this. My digital cable's on-line guide gave the same time. It seemed odd to me (always trust your instincts!!), but I set my VCR accordingly, and had a leisurely breakfast. Turned on the TV at 12:25 to see a bit of race. Changed channels immediately, as I knew that the race would be shown again this evening (which is when I just watched it).

OK: So they made a mess of their scheduling; hell, even Pele makes mistakes. But then I turn on the TV about THREE MINUTES before the scheduled time of the re-show, to see F1 coverage on a motorsport news show. How stupid is THAT? So I turned it off and held my breath until it was 7:59:30 and turned on again. So then I got to watch the race, fortunately with a minimum of foreknowledge.

If this is the degree of inattention Speed is bringing to F1, I have a very nasty feeling that next year they'll ditch the series and we in the US will have only the smattering of ABC comedy coverage to look forward to. Perhaps I can emigrate to Canada where, as a British subject, I think I still have right of abode...

I plan to track down a Fox television telephone number and call and talk my way to someone at the Speed channel. It's infuriating to have this sort of nonsense going on.

Grrrrrr!!

[Jay]

That's never good. I know it's frustrating but every network has done it.... Complain...but they'll do it again...

[Powered by JPM]

Originally posted by Bibendum
OK, I'm sufficiently ****ed off that I have to vent somewhere, and I'm curious to see if anyone in this forum shares my annoyance.

As recently as during its qualifying coverage, Speed channel advertised the race coverage as starting at 12:30 a.m. EST. Their web page schedule confirmed this. My digital cable's on-line guide gave the same time. It seemed odd to me (always trust your instincts!!), but I set my VCR accordingly, and had a leisurely breakfast. Turned on the TV at 12:25 to see a bit of race. Changed channels immediately, as I knew that the race would be shown again this evening (which is when I just watched it).

Grrrrrr!!

hahaha i was going to post about this too....but i thought it might have been a mistake on my part. i set my vcr for 1230 too.

i got back home at 1240 from church and see MS on board shot..so i thought to myself "hmm...this better be last years highlight...or yesterdays".
i was royally P'ed off

i even left easter mass early to watch the begning at supposedly 12:30.....guess thats why the results of the race were not as i wanted. that will teach me to leave mass early again

[Lee Janotta]

They said 11:30 here, and that's when it was on. Bizarre...

[Maxmil]

It's not just the SpeedChannel that screwed up yesterday. Since I can't get SpeedChannel, I have been "watching" the races on Formula1.com. Yesterday they posted that the race would start at 12:00 noon USEST. F1Live, on the other hand, kept insisting that it would go at 13:00. In the end, Formula1 was right of course.

[EERO]

It was posted at 11:30AM here in Massachusetts as well.
I had no problem, other than I tried to watcjh the race with my parents and my wife and nine year-old son in the room. Needless to say, I missed a lot of the commentary.

[DMC]

At least you guys get the race live! Despite the massive follwing F1 has and finally having another local driver competing, Australia gets one of the poorest Formula One coverages in the world! The Australian, Canadian, United States and Brazilian Grand Prix are the only ones we get live with NO PRACTICE SESSIONS OR QUALIFYING at all. Even the championship deciders at the Japanese Grand Prix which is pretty much in the same time zone as us aren't televised live. Channel Nine's converage is pathetic, it starts ten minutes before the race "start" with two minutes of qualifying highlights then listen to Alan Jones and and idiot called Darryl Eastlake **** on about their irrelevant opinions until we "switch over to Murray and Martin" (James and Martin these days) seconds before the starting lights go out. Then we have to endure Jones and Eastlake **** on about the race so far after every commercial break then its over after the driver interviews at the end. Occasionally the have an "in the pits" feature but thats getting rare these days. An online protest group has formed at www.f1fansvschannel9.com which I recommend anyone who has problems with their local broadcasters to visit.

[StuiE]

u think u r hard done buy? in Perth we only get Malaysia live, maybe oz aswell


ch9 r pathetic!

[Bibendum]

Phew. OK, so things aren't SO bad. My annoyance partly came from having organized my Sunday around this nicely placed F1 treat, and partly from a sense of foreboding about Speed's increasing NASCAR obsession, which seems tumor-like and prone to displace everything else. But I should be grateful for what we do have -- and the live practice and qualifying, plus half an hour pre-race show, are great to have. (Though I must say, if one pays close attention to the web sites through the inter-race periods, as I dare say most of us here do, there's precious little new and interesting in the pre-race.)

[Splatz the Cow]

Please, stop you are sounding a trifle spoilt. I stayed up till 3:30AM to watch the race start only to see Montoya end his race on lap 1. Coverage was appaling. I watched lap after lap of Schumacher going round and round it was so ****ing boring. Why don't they stick to televising their soccer riots because that was so boring that I nearly wanted to watch Chuck Norris's infomercial. Its a ****ing Ferrari get over it! I felt like saying to the director. Honestly, some people have a major sexual disfunction with Ferrari that begs for therapy. One day they should organise a GP where Michael drives by himself and the directors can film him all day. Oh hang on **** I forgot that Montoya was carving his way through from 20th to 4th (with some DNF's to help). It's more interesting then watching the Ferrari sponsorship all race. There were actually some passes happening!!! Hopefully Schumacher will crash again this year, so they won't be able to show his car all the time.

[Bibendum]

Errrr, guess I touched a nerve there, Cow. Yes, as I said, we're very fortunate to have the coverage we have. And I agree that it's too bad we didn't get to see JPM moving up, which undoubtedly would have been good viewing. And then, when the Michael/Ralph dice was getting warmer they cut away to watch something else. But on the other hand, there was pretty good coverage of the McLaren/Renault fracas, and I'll take this coverage -- shot selection, camerawork, colour-values, you name it -- over Sepang *any* day.

[DMC]

I've watched every Grand Prix since Australia 1998 and I barely even get Channel 9 here! I stayed up until 3am to get the rare treat of being able to hear the commentary without having to tune into their parallel radio broadcasts and the screen was flickering nonstop. It used to be all fuzzy with no sound and I could just make out the shapes of the cars with the commentary coming from my radio. I sh1t you not!

[JPBeltoise]

Originally posted by Lee Janotta
They said 11:30 here, and that's when it was on. Bizarre...

Bizarre indeed, because Time Warner Cable of Akron (only about 30 miles south of Cleveland) had the 12:30 time listed, so I missed the beginning of the race, too. I thought I was losing it... But at least it was re-broadcast later.

[race aficionado]

Speed Channel start time fumble
..I'm still groggy, you see I'm a JPM fan and this is not how I had planned to feel . . .
but any way, I love JPM.

and yes, I also got screwed by Speed Channel

Speed channel had the race start time posted at 12:30 on my internal TV time and when I went to start seeing what I thought was pre-race, I found myself watching a race that was already on the 14th lap !!!!! and two Ferraris were up front, I felt like in the twilight zone and then thought that they were replaying a bit of last years Brazilian GP but when I heard them mention the F2002 I knew that I was in trouble.
Juan was not in the front, not in the top 8 . . . . I was very upset and confused.
I missed the whole debacle!!!!!!


. . . . Any way, It's tough being a JPM fan right now . . .
Michael's fans (and Ralf's) are feasting on us . . . .

I love JPM

[EERO]

Originally posted by Bibendum
...My annoyance partly came ...partly from a sense of foreboding about Speed's increasing NASCAR obsession, which seems tumor-like and prone to displace everything else.

It is frightening. Especially now that the promos for F1 feature crashes, such as Spa 1998 and not racing. The music's too loud, the images too violent, the soap opera's becoming real corn-pone.

Feh, bring back Sam Posey rather than this...

[Bibendum]

Soon, Speed's race coverage will neatly parallel their owner, Fox's, news coverage in quality and focus...which is to say, it'll be an unmitigated catastrophe of imbalance and reactionary vulgarity.

Not that I think NASCAR is necessarily reactionary and vulgar (though I do, sort of -- I see no appeal in watching a traffic jam circulating round an oval at speed, with 50 insignificant lead changes); it's just that there seems to be plenty of coverage in other venues, and Speedvision was filling a niche which nobody else addressed. I can still find Motorsport Mundial, WRC coverage, some interesting Legends of Motorsport, and so forth; but it's all getting compressed and pushed out of the prime hours by NASCAR everything.

As for Sam Posey -- I rather liked him in the end; he was funny, even when he made his crack about wearing (Ferrari) red underpants during the first Indy coverage! And whereas at first I found his would-be poetic introductory rambles a bit over-wrought, in the end I thought he was actually lampooning the self-importance of the genre rather nicely (I may give him too much credit), while occasionally turning a rather fine phrase. Now we just get, as you point out, very loud and apparently endless self-promos as transitions from race to commercial and back. Can't they sell any time? Do they have to fill dead air with advertisements for what we're already watching, rather than using the time (7 seconds is typical by my count) to show more racing?

However, I suppose I'm now glad that I am not in Australia; the poor Aussies apparently have very little to go on, and no practice or qualifying.

[Whiplash]

SOme one told me that they show digital f1 races on direct tv which has to be a lie. I have direct tv and i have never seen it Any 1 know if the USA will ever get digital f1 coverage? Because speed channel is pathetic

[strad]

It was shown just as advertised here. Right on time..

[strad]

By the way when I checked the SC guide it said 11:30..

[race aficionado]

Originally posted by strad
By the way when I checked the SC guide it said 11:30..

It was definitely wacky in some places.
Some New Yorkers had it posted correctly in their TV guides and in my case - Manhattan Cable in NYC, - they had it wrong by 1 hour.

What is for sure is that this is the last time that it happens to me, I will triple check.

It was not a fun feeling being surprised and add to that not seeing Juan leading the race when I tuned in for what I thought would be the pre race show.

live and learn . . . . . that goes for Juan and me.

[Nicholas]

Sometimes when I don't have access to a TV I listen to BBC Radio 5 Live, they always do the race with a 20 minute preview and sometimes do the last 15 minutes of qualifying.
It's better than nothing and you can listen online at www.bbc.co.uk and click the radio links.

[EERO]

Originally posted by Bibendum

As for Sam Posey -- I rather liked him in the end; he was funny, even when he made his crack about wearing (Ferrari) red underpants during the first Indy coverage! And whereas at first I found his would-be poetic introductory rambles a bit over-wrought, in the end I thought he was actually lampooning the self-importance of the genre rather nicely (I may give him too much credit), while occasionally turning a rather fine phrase.

You're making me strangely nostalgiac for old Sam.
I guess maybe I felt the same way.

I will say that last season, the package was crisp, the commentating excellent and the information level high. They have definitely slipped this year.

[Bibendum]

nicholaswhite -- thanks for the good info; I definitely will try that, perhaps in tandem with my tv coverage. That would be an interesting variation on the commentary, find out what James and Martin are up to.

Thanks again

[Nicholas]

It can be useful during the ad breaks.

[DMC]

You can WATCH the races live on the internet at http://www.juaralagutv3.time.net.my/...nlangsung.html and it's not just regularly updated stills its full streaming video. It's of the Malaysian telecast.