ITV will not show US Grand Prix live

[Gerard]

UK broadcaster ITV will not be showing the US Grand Prix live.
The broadcaster, who was voted as the F1 broadcaster of the year last season, has opted to offer 'as live' tape delayed coverage from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for both the qualifying session and the race itself with no live coverage.

ITV will show qualifying in the prime time Saturday 11.25pm slot and the race itself Sunday at 10.45 as they have opted to broadcast their usual Cilla Black **** and gameshows instead. So much for commitment to the sport...

ITV: Broadcaster of the year. Yeah right!

[Sparky]

D'you know, Gerard, when I watched Monza, and the times for the nexy GP at Indy were announced at the end, I thought that something was not quite right. But with the events of the day, and the way I felt, I never got 'round to investigating the time difference in relation to the racing and the transmission.

Now I just feel cheated....

What about the US? Is it live there? Or is it the whole planet??

[Murph]

The FOX series of sports TV stations in the states are supposed to carry some (but I think not all) of the practice sessions on Friday/Saturday live along with live coverage of qualifying and the race. I really don't know how many of the stations will carry the Sat & Sunday programing in that these stations have college football and major league baseball contracts as well..... Speedvision will carry Q and the race live. I have to make some arrangments for a neighbor to tape it all for me as I will be at Indy for the entire weekend.

Murph

[wodonnell]

Live coverage of the race in the will be shown in the UK on ITV2. Not much use to anyone without digital cable or OnDigital.

Tonight ITV are showing live football at Prime Time, with the soaps being shifted back.

As F1 has the second largest TV audience after the Olympics I don't see why football should be handled preferentially.

[White Van Man]

Luckily for us, modern day F1 is so dire that we'll not miss it

[Minardi fan]

I found this out tonight and was utterly disgusted with ITV. It simply goes to prove how they really view their F1 coverage - a second-rate commodity which they use to boot up the ratings.

You may also like to know that ITV are not showing the Malaysian Grand Prix live either. Yes, that's correct - the SEASON FINALE, is NOT being shown live.

God knows how ITV won the F1 Broadcaster of the Year with the amount of adverts they show during it - now this simply proves they REALLY don't deserve it.

ITV are *******s. Simple as that.

[wodonnell]

I think ITVs 'best broadcaster award was probably "Best British F1 broadcaster".

[Valve Bounce]

Stop teh whingeing, Pommes!! We don't get quals at all here in Oz, and God knows when the GP will be televised.
Just watch the Olympics and be thankful. Don't forget the Thorpedoe will be racing tomorrow.

[Ade the Shades]

ITV coverage is far worse than the BBC's was, but at least it is freely available! Next time the franchise comes up for renewall Sky will produce a huge bag of gold and F1 TV will be for the lucky few, just like every other major sport. Let's enjoy what we can, while we can!

[angst]

Quite. Depressing, but almost certainly true Ade. By the way, welcome to the forum.

[Billy_Hunt]

I Don't normally post on forum's but I just felt I had to vent my anger some where .
I find my self getting increasingly ****ed off with the coverage ITV are givng F1 .
My only hope is it doesnt start to drive the fans away .
I'm quite sure it was the BBC coverage in the UK which which helped make F1 such an hit and the bonus was you could always watch coverage of practice sessions over on Eurosport.
Their timing for adverts seem to get worse and worse and is it me or are they getting longer and more frequent .I think it was in Canada two cars went over the line and they immediatley went for a break WHAT !
As for them switching to ITV 2 I think it's just a ploy to try and increase sales in ther ever loosing battle with Sky to get people to buy ON Digital (the only way I can get ITV 2)
The best thing that could happen for F1 coverage in the UK is for it to go to Sky there is so much potential in F1 coverage for multi cameras etc. as Sky have done with there football coverage just think about it.
I would gladly pay extra for a service like that .
Ideally it would be better to run with ITV at the same time
surely it could be done as with BBC and Eurosport
Something has got to be done
Martin Brundle and some fancy intros just arent enough

[wodonnell]

I have no doubt that it is a ploy to get you to go to OnDigital so you can get ITV2.

ITV2 has run several F1 theme nights lately. The first couple I saw were pretty poor as they consisted entirely of either repeated programmes or parts of the following days race programme. Nothing really worth shelling out any extra for.

The last theme night though I thought was an excellent effort. It started with a programme following the Lotus team during the 1967, followed it with the Jordan party (which was also shown on ITV following the race). Next up was a documentary on Fangio. It is available on video but is pretty expensive. It was nice to see something a bit different from ITV. They rounded off with a bit of a chat to Murray Walker, a look at the grid for the race and then a complete run of Martin Brundle's Driving School.

Again, a lot of it was shortly to be shown material or stuff available on video and it wouldn't have been worth getting OnDigital just for the show but it made a change from a programme made up of things which had all been shown during the last week.

If anyone IS interested in getting ondigital, QXL do some pretty good offers on prepaid boxes. I got a 12 months prepaid box for 16 quid!

[jvilleneuve2000]

I have just looked in my on digital tv guide, and it says nothing about the gp being live. They might have changed the schedule?????. where did you see it wodonnell?

[wodonnell]

I think I first saw it on http://www.itv-f1.com

There was certainly a bit about it in their newsletter.

I presume it was a late decision by ITV to show the race live on ITV2 when people discovered that there was going to be no live coverage on terrestrial.

[jvilleneuve2000]

Thanks wodonnell I am happy again D
BTW f1 will always be on terrestrial tv, Bernie has always said this. It will never go onto sky sports, but skt digital are likely to get the tv rights for digital f1

[Valve Bounce]

Stone the Crows - the Pommes are still whingeing. Don't you do anything else but whinge, whinge, whinge??? Give it a break, mate!!

[WoodyTJ]

Ok in English whats happening. Is it being shown. if so where and when????

[wodonnell]

Qualifying ITV, Saturday 23:45-01:10
Race ITV2, Sunday 18:00-21:00 (LIVE)
Race ITV, Sunday 22:45-01:40 (as live)
Highlights ITV, Monday 04:00-05:00

[Minardi fan]

F1 is one of the sports which by law HAS TO BE shown on terrestrial TV - the others are I believe the Olympics and the World Cup.

Yes, the adverts ARE getting more frequent, and they ARE getting longer.

In a 90 minute football match they only put in adverts at half-time, and even then there aren't many - so why put 5, 6 or 7 lots of 4 minute adverts into a 2 hour F1 race???

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

By the way, I left a very rude message at the ITV site...

[Billy_Hunt]

How did you leave a message at the ITV site I'd like to tell them exactly what I think

[Ralf's Girl]

They have a new message board that's only online for a certain amount of time because they're seeing if it's popular.

So - guess what we get instead of a live F1 race???

CORONATION STREET

Last time I checked it wasn't live. But God forbid we should miss half an hour of a fictional TV programme to watch an hour and a half's live F1. Noooooo...we couldn't do that!

I'm pretty mad about this. I'm listening to it on the radio, because there's no chance of me getting through the 24 hours after the GP without knowing the result. Yes, that's right, I can't watch the GP till Monday afternoon. I need digital in the next week!!!!!

[wodonnell]

Another thing that really annoys me about ITV is that they insist on showing the news immediately before the race. They have done this virtually every single time a race has been either shown delayed or repeated.

Of course the last item on the news before the weather is always the sport so if you are not careful you end up turning on the TV 5 minutes early only to hear "Mika Hakkinen has won the US GP" or whatever which then makes watching the race to see who wins a bit pointless.

[Ralf's Girl]

It's pathetic! ITV think they are catering (by showing Coronation Street and all that c r a p) for the majority audience. And the little people who'd rather watch something real are clearly very unimportant.

Bring back the Beeb!!!

[wodonnell]

BTW, I did read something somewhere about a live episode of Coronation Street being shown sometime. I think it was to celebrate a thousand years of the show or something. Knowing ITV they will probably show it delayed anyway!

[Minardi fan]

You can comment at the ITV site, the non-F1 version. I couldn't find the message board people have mentioned.