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Formula One coverage on ITV

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The ITV Formula One coverage (commonly known as ITV-F1) was a British television programme dedicated to Formula One coverage that was supplied by the British broadcaster ITV between 1997-2008. The coverage was initally presented by Jim Rosenthal for the first eight years before Steve Rider became the presenter for the last three years of the Programme. ITV gained the rights for Formula One coverage for 1997 from the BBC and focused on more in-depth coverage, conducting more interviews and better camera angles. The programme was successful in collecting three consective BAFTA awards for sporting coverage but also garnered critism for showing advertisements during their coverage.

Formula One coverage on ITV
ITV F1 Logo 1999-2005
Presented byJim Rosenthal (1997-2005)
Steve Rider (2006-2008)
Country of originUnited Kingdom
Original languageEnglish
Production
Production ___locationWorldwide
Production companyNorth One Television
Original release
NetworkITV
Release8 March 1997 (1997-03-08) –
2 November 2008 (2008-11-02)

History

When the BBC lost their rights to broadcast Formula One, ITV gained the coverage for 1997. The deal worth £60 million was negoitated by FOM president Bernie Ecclestone. ITV chose to bid for the rights due to constantly being beaten at weekends while the Grand Prix coverage was on.[1]

ITV's first broadcast was at the 1997 Australian Grand Prix featuring Jim Rosenthal along with Simon Taylor and Tony Jardine as expert analysts along with Murray Walker and Martin Brundle as the commentators. The pitlane reporters James Allen and Louise Goodman stayed on for the whole of ITV's coverage over 11 years. ITV had set about focusing their efforts into more in-depth pre and post-race analysis, better camera angles and conducting more interviews.[2] Rosenthal, Taylor and Jardine all presented from a studio with a view of the paddock and the studio was transported to all the races. One feature for 1997 was known as 'Inside F1' where a driver would demonstrate a certain piece of equipment and summarise what the equipment does. There was also a track guide using a computer simulation provided by Psygnosis also for 1997. The post-race qualifying and race coverage was mainly a dicussion between the presenter and the experts going over the key facts of what occured.[3]

ITV also introduced Martin Brundle's hugely popular gridwalk at the 1997 British Grand Prix, where roughly 10–15 minutes before the start of the race Brundle would walk around the grid interviewing drivers, team personnel, celebrities and whoever else he could find.[1] Brundle had elected not to commentate from some races such as the Canadian Grand Prix in 1997 where he raced at Le Mans and missed the race in 1998.[4] He also elected not to attend the Hungarian Grand Prix on several occasions. When Brundle was absent, different people would stand in the commentary booth, including Derek Warwick, Jody Scheckter, Anthony Davidson and 1996 World Champion Damon Hill.

File:Steve Ryder.jpg
Steve Rider took over presenting duties in 2006

In a one-off move for the return of the United States Grand Prix in 2000, ITV moved the coverage over to ITV 2 as the schedule of the national channel could not occupy the coverage of the race.[5]

The 2001 United States Grand Prix was Murray Walker's last in the ITV commentary booth, having missed four other races that season.[6] James Allen moved up from his former role as pitlane reporter to replace Walker in the commentary box with Brundle still commentating as usual and Ted Kravitz inheriting Allen's old role.

In October 2002, the BBC had prepared pay £175 million to gain the rights off ITV when their contract was to expire at the end of 2004.[7] In April 2004, ITV signed a six-year extension to their contract worth £150 million.[8] With the advent of new Anti-Tobacco advertising laws in the United Kingdom that were placed in force on 31 July 2005, it was feared that Formula One coverage would be blacked out because with the showing of tobacco company logos on television, the broadcaster would face extra charges even in a country where tobacco sponsorship was permitted.[9] In September 2005, it was reported that ITV had secured Steve Rider's services and would replace Rosenthal from 2006 onwards to present coverage of Formula One. Rider made his debut broadcast covering ITV F1 coverage at the 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix.[10]

In March 2008, ITV announced the coverage would be transfered to the BBC from the 2009 season so that the Broadcaster could focus more on coverage on the UEFA Champions League.[11] The contract to show the sport at the time of announcement was worth £25 million.[12]

Sponsorship

Between 1997 and 2001, ITV's coverage was sponsored by Texaco who outbid RAC in December 1996.[13] For the first year, 5he sponsorship promotion was created by Steve Pickard and directed by David Harris who were both from IMP. Texaco placed £12 million pounds in the first three years of their contract with ITV. The credits were directed by Darryl Goodrich and Nicolas Unsworth who was the producer.[14]

In September 2001, Toyota signed a four-year deal worth £25 million seeing off competition from Foster's Lager which previously sponsored the ITV-F1 website.[15][16] The car manufacturer pulled out at the end of 2003 to focus on brand advertising.[17] The Daily Telegraph signed a one-year £4.5 million deal to take over the sponsorship in 2004.[18] In 2005, LG took over the sponsorship with a £3.5 million contract for a year. Their sponsorship inculded the promotion of the LG Mobile brand among the aim for younger viewers to watch the programming.[19] For a period in 2006, Swiftcover.com sponsored the coverage from that year's San Marino Grand Prix. The screening of their sponsorship included Formula One drivers who were frustrated whilst speaking over the team radio to chickens in the pit lane.[20] For 2007, Honda took over as the main sponsor which also inculded Honda's logo being placed onto the ITV-F1 website with the aim to attract younger viewers.[21] The idents for Honda's sponsorship were produce by Honda's creative agency Wieden and Kennedy which built upon the car manufacturers indisputable passion for motor racing.[22]

For 2008, Sony signed a deal that was negiotated by OMD UK as the final sponsor of the broadcasters coverage. The amount of sponsorship money was unpublished but was thought to be around £5 million. The idents were developed by fallon with digital and mobile assets developed by Dare.[23]

Awards

ITV were awarded three consective BAFTA awards for the 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix, 2007 Canadian Grand Prix and the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix.[24]

Critism

Showing of advertisments

A major critism of ITV's coverage was they were permitted to show advertisments during the coverage which promoted a huge number of complaints from fans. This was the case at the 2005 San Marino Grand Prix when the broadcaster cut to a commerical break during the closing moments of the race which garnered 126 complaints from viewers. Ofcom ruled that ITV breached section 6.7 of the Rules on the Amount and Scheduling of Advertising.[25] The broadcasters also had not shown the post-race press conference segment featuring Jenson Button comment's about the race.[26] ITV repeated the last three laps after the race and as a result of these complaints, the server on their website crashed. An on-air apology was made by Jim Rosenthal before the start of the next race in Spain two weeks later.[27]

Coverage

Many fans of the sport critised the coverage of the 2007 Canadian Grand Prix when the programme had ended just after the race conculded. ITV made arrangements for the next race that if coverage overran, the show would continued to be shown on ITV 4.[28]

Competition

In 2009, Ofcom ruled that ITV's handling of the competition for their last race broadcast had broken competition rules when 139,000 viewers rang a premium phone line charging £1 for a chance of winning the prize. The competition organiser Eckoh was not overseen by the broadcaster. In July 2009, ITV awarded the winner of the competition the prize that was not awarded because the winner's name was not published at the required time.[29]

Legacy

ITV's F1 coverage helped to pave the way on how Motor Sport would be broadcast in the modern era. Many of the features such as Martin Brundle's gridwalk and the pre and post-race analysis were all transfered when the coverage returned to the BBC.[30]

References

  1. ^ a b Walker, Murray (2002). Murray Walker: Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken. CollinsWillow. pp. 217–223. ISBN 0-00-712696-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |origmonth= ignored (help)
  2. ^ "F1's return to the BBC - what did you think?". crash.net. 2009-03-30.
  3. ^ "A look back at ITV's first live Formula 1 broadcast in 1997". The F1 Broadcasting Blog. 2012-06-05.
  4. ^ Fox, Norman (1997-06-15). "Pescarolo rolls back the years". The Independent.
  5. ^ "British F1 fans get raw USGP deal". crash.net. 2000-09-14.
  6. ^ Walker, Murray (2002). Murray Walker: Unless I'm Very Much Mistaken. CollinsWillow. pp. 356–359. ISBN 0-00-712696-4. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |origmonth= ignored (help)
  7. ^ Bryne, Michael (2002-11-15). "BBC prepares to snatch F1 from ITV in £175 million deal". Media Week.
  8. ^ "ITV extends F1 deal". Sport Business. 2004-04-26.
  9. ^ "ITV loses a big F1 supporter". Grandprix.com. 2004-11-26.
  10. ^ "Rider opts for some driver practice" The Times, 4 March 2006; Retrieved 2 April 2006
  11. ^ "ITV wins Champions League rights". BBC News. 2008-03-20.
  12. ^ "'Lewis success to bost revenue'". Planet-F1. 2007-04-09.
  13. ^ Beale, Claire (1996-12-06). "Texaco to pay pounds 12m for F1 motor racing sponsorship on ITV". PR Week.
  14. ^ Green, Harriet (1997-03-07). "ITV pulls out all the stops for F1 revamp with Texaco's pounds 12m". Campaign.
  15. ^ Whitehead, Jennifer (2001-09-10). "Toyota agrees £80 ITV sponsorship deal". Marketing Magazine.
  16. ^ Billings, Clare (2002-02-20). "Toyota pays £25m for sponsorhip of ITV Formula 1 racing". MediaWeek.
  17. ^ Kleinman, Mark (2003-10-30). "Toyotal pulls out of £25m ITV tie two years early". BrandRepublic.
  18. ^ Garside, Kevin (2004-02-24). "Telegraph drive into Formula One". The Telegraph.
  19. ^ "LG to sponsor F1". Mobile Today. 2005-02-23.
  20. ^ "Swiftcover.com backs F1 on ITV". MediaWeek. 2006-04-05.
  21. ^ Huff, Phil (2007-03-13). "Honda to sponsor ITV's F1 coverage". f1network.net.
  22. ^ "Honda moves up a gear". U Talk Marketing. 2007-03-15.
  23. ^ Ramsay, Fiona (2008-03-05). "Sony to sponsor ITV's F1 coverage". BrandRepublic.
  24. ^ Allen, James (2009-04-26). "ITV F1 wins 3rd straight BAFTA for Brazil coverage!". James Allen on F1.
  25. ^ Welsh, James (2005-07-18). "126 viewers complain over ITV F1 ad break". Digital Spy.
  26. ^ "F1 broadcaster guilty". updatef1.com. 2005-07-18.
  27. ^ Hancock, Matthew (2005-04-25). "Rosenthal sorry for race break". London: The Guardian. Retrieved 2008-06-12.
  28. ^ Collantine, Keith (2007-06-15). "ITV defends Canada F1 coverage". f1fanatic.
  29. ^ Allen, David (2009-12-23). "ITV F1 competitions broke the rules". Tech Watch.
  30. ^ "TV classics - ITV F1". blogspot.co.uk. 2011-06-28.
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