Coverage Calamities
"Coronation Street will follow shortly" read the caption on the tv screen. Sure enough, at 7.52pm it did, albeit two minutes late. Having been deprived the opportunity of watching the drivers' press conference from the Canadian Grand Prix, I sincerely hope for the thirteen million or so people who are incomprehensibly captivated by the British Mancunian soap, that "Ashley" can find a way to stop 'firing blanks', as I'm certain you must all be intrigued to learn.
My televisual weekend from hell started long before the lights went out on Sunday evening with Saturday's qualifying session being shown some 7 hours late. This was due to the apparent demand for such coma inducing programmes as 'Popstars Australia', "Catchphrase' and the ludicrously entitled 'Slap Bang with Ant and Dec'. Courtesy of the affore mentioned schedule, I am certain I was not alone in feeling levels of irritation seldom reached before. Be it Manchester United, Arsenal or another football team of apparent importance, executives at ITV have frequently re-shuffled their programmes to accommodate the likes of David Beckham et al and I for one feel that alongside a similar format, a little more consideration would go a long way to ensuring many a television screen is not met by the frustrated right boot of fellow grand prix viewers.
Take, if you will, the time allocated during a soccer match without the dreaded 'intervals'. Two 45 minute halves including the so-called 'half time analysis', amounts to a total of 1 hour 45 minutes; the equivalent of an entire grand prix. During this period, there is, on average, a maximum of 3 advertisement breaks, all coinciding with the half time stoppage and not the (God forbid) 90 minutes of playing time on the pitch. To have such a scenario occur during ITV's Formula One coverage is, to my mind, a situation born in Never Never Land and thus gives one the impression that disrupting the flow of advertisement breaks with scenes from a motor race are, to certain folk, a non-entity.
Back in early 1996, when the deal with ITV was first announced, assurances were made that whilst the grands prix would be disrupted via the 'ad breaks', the depleted flow of coverage would be limited to five occasions per race. Having been used to the BBC's "thou shall not be interrupted" form of television since 1978, Bernie Ecclestone's deal with the commercial station was, at the time, a bitter pill to swallow for many pundits. In the years since the announcement, there have been numerous instances when the 'ads' have sent many a person's blood pressure to stratospheric heights.
Latest Articles