Month: March 2016

Steve Jones confirmed as Channel 4’s Formula 1 presenter

Steve Jones will be presenting Channel 4’s coverage of Formula 1, it has been confirmed today. Jones succeeds Suzi Perry as lead presenter of Formula 1 on terrestrial television in the United Kingdom, Perry having presented BBC’s coverage from 2013 to 2015.

The appointment of Jones will come as a surprise to many Formula 1 fans given his lack of experience in presenting sporting events. As revealed though on the site, Jones has been widely expected to become lead presenter since late January. Channel 4 are going down the same route as they took with their American Football highlights coverage in 2013. In that instance, the corporation hired Vernon Kay as lead presenter.

Jones has had a long relationship with Channel 4, dating back to the early 2000s when he presenting their children strand T4 from 2003 to 2010. Since then, Jones has had stints with other broadcasters, such as presenting Let’s Dance for Comic Relief on BBC One and The X Factor USA on Fox. In recent years, Jones has returned to Channel 4, presenting Young, Free & Single: Live and My Kitchen Rules: UK.

Analysis
Inevitably, there will be people who see the appointment of Jones and instantly write off Channel 4’s coverage of Formula 1. It may remind readers of Melanie Sykes’s failed stint of presenting BT Sport’s MotoGP coverage, in that both did not present sport before their respective motor sport stints. What Jones will have on his side is that the Australian Grand Prix is a highlights weekend for Channel 4. As I discussed last month, Australia will be a dry-run for the whole team, it will be an opportunity for Jones to get used to presenting Formula 1 without the pressure of live television.

I think, in the very least, Jones should be given a chance. Just because Sykes did not work out in MotoGP, it does not mean Jones should be dismissed as Channel 4’s Formula 1 presenter. I’m optimistic that it will be successful. As always, time will tell but Jones has an experienced team of Formula 1 experts around him, including David Coulthard to help guide and steer the ship.

Channel 4 confirms Australian Grand Prix build-up programming

Channel 4 has revealed their confirmed schedules for up to, and including, Friday 18th March meaning that we now have official details about their build-up programming for the 2016 Formula One season.

There are two main programmes in the schedule. The first is a special edition of Speed with Guy Martin, which airs on Thursday 17th March at 21:00. The special sees Martin go head-to-head with David Coulthard, who himself will be part of Channel 4’s F1 coverage. Coulthard, in the Red Bull F1 car (I believe 2011 or 2012), with Martin in his Tyco BMW Superbike, filmed the episode at Silverstone in the middle of February. There are multiple head-to-head challenges pitting the Red Bull against the Tyco BMW, including a drag race, a brake test and a circuit race.

Martin and Coulthard also test their fitness and reaction levels during the one-hour special, with physical and mental challenges. The special was produced by North One Television, the first programme produced under the contract for them to deliver supplementary programming surrounding Channel 4’s Grand Prix coverage. In this instance, Speed with Guy Martin is normally produced by North One, so it made sense for them to produce a special Formula 1 edition alongside the other three editions commissioned for broadcast on Channel 4 this year.

The second show is a five-minute teaser on Friday 18th March at 21:00. The teaser, entitled Fast and Furious, will air directly before Channel 4’s biggest show Gogglebox, meaning that the slot will reach around 3.5 million viewers. The five-minute window is billed as “an exclusive preview of the epic launch to Channel 4’s coverage of the 2016 Formula 1 season”. Meanwhile, provisional schedules for the Australian Grand Prix weekend are now available. As with all provisional listings, the following is caveated as the schedules are subject to change.

Currently, highlights of the qualifying session from Melbourne are in a 105 minute slot from 12:30 to 14:15. Preceding it is an episode of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., with Channel 4 Racing following it at 14:15. Highlights of the race on Sunday 20th March are provisionally billed in a 135 minute slot from 13:30 to 15:45. Preceding it is Channel 4’s three-hour magazine programme Sunday Brunch (which has been pushed back an hour from 09:30 to 10:30), and following it is a repeat of Guy Martin’s programme Last Flight of the Vulcan Bomber.

At this stage, the main information to take out of the provisional schedules is the length of both programmes. Both shows are longer than their BBC counterparts in previous years. As discussed before, the highlights programming on Channel 4 will contain adverts. I don’t expect the weekend schedule to radically change when we see the finalised copy on Wednesday, nevertheless the above should give us an idea as to what to expect.

Scheduling: The 2016 Mexico City ePrix / IndyCar opener

Formula E heads into new territory in more ways than one for round five of the 2015-16 season. Next weekend is the first race for the series in Mexico, but also is the first race not to be shown live on ITV in the UK. Due to a snooker event, ITV4 will be airing delayed coverage later in the evening.

ITV’s delayed coverage will have the usual studio build-up and race reaction with Jennie Gow presenting alongside Jaime Alguersuari and Marc Priestley. On the Formula E World Feed, Scott Speed is deputising for Dario Franchitti, the latter is in St. Petersburg for IndyCar next weekend. It means that Jack Nicholls and Franchitti will now not be together until the Paris ePrix on April 23rd, as Nicholls will be missing the Long Beach round due to his Formula 1 commitments with BBC Radio 5 Live.

> FREE Full Race Replay – 2015 Beijing ePrix
> FREE Full Race Replay – 2015 Putrajaya ePrix
> FREE Full Race Replay – 2015 Punta del Este ePrix
> FREE Full Race Replay – 2015 Buenos Aires ePrix

As a result of ITV4 not showing the race live, it means that the race will be available for UK viewers to watch online as well as BT Sport Europe. It is the first time that BT have shown a Formula E race live. Obviously the viewing figures for both that and the YouTube stream will be interesting to monitor as a comparison to ITV4’s usual numbers.

Next weekend marks the beginning of the aforementioned IndyCar Series from St. Petersburg. The series will again be broadcast on BT Sport in 2016 as part of a deal that runs through to the end of 2022.

The schedule as usual can be found below:

Formula E – Mexico City (online via FIAFormulaE.com and YouTube)
12/03 – 14:10 to 15:10 – Practice 1
12/03 – 16:25 to 17:10 – Practice 2
12/03 – 17:45 to 19:10 – Qualifying
12/03 – 21:30 to 23:30 – Race

Formula E – Mexico City
12/03 – 21:30 to 23:30 – Race Live (Virgin Media – channel 997)
12/03 – 21:45 to 23:30 – Race Live (BT Sport Europe)
12/03 – 23:15 to 01:15 – Race (ITV4)
13/03 – 09:30 to 10:25 – Highlights (ITV)

IndyCar Series – St. Petersburg (BT Sport//ESPN)
13/03 – 16:30 to 19:30 – Race

As always I will update the schedule if anything changes.

Update on March 11th at 19:40 – Virgin Media will be showing the race live in the channel slot 997 tomorrow evening. The reason for the strange channel number is for Virgin Media customers that do not have access to BT Sport Europe. It will be interesting to see if the programme has the BT Sport Europe DOG. If it does not have BT Sport graphics, then this is a clean feed straight from Formula E, which will be the first time we’ve had that happen for Formula E in the UK. There’s clearly some flexibility in the contract that allows this to happen.

Webber, Wolff and Chandhok set to feature in Channel 4’s F1 line-up

Mark Webber, Susie Wolff and Karun Chandhok are all set to feature in Channel 4’s Formula 1 line-up for the 2016 season.

The word on the ground
Channel 4 and Whisper Films have only officially announced one person so far, that being David Coulthard. The remaining announcements, along with coverage plans, are set to come at this coming Tuesday.

As reported multiple times over the past month on this site, Steve Jones will be presenting Channel 4’s coverage. Jones is currently in Barcelona for the second week of testing preparing for the start of the season and has already conducted interviews with the likes of Nico Rosberg. Coulthard will be alongside Jones and also up in the commentary box with Ben Edwards, the two moving straight across from their BBC F1 partnership. In the pit lane will be Karun Chandhok. Chandhok is also out in Barcelona, with AUTOSPORT. This blog learnt yesterday that Chandhok will be Channel 4’s pit lane reporter, something that has been supported in F1 Racing’s season preview magazine.

Chandhok will not be the only person in the pit lane for Channel 4 as Lee McKenzie will also be reporting from track side. McKenzie was first reported by James Allen’s website a few weeks ago. It is great that McKenzie will be continuing to cover Formula 1, although it is assumed McKenzie will not be at every race due to her BBC duties this year covering Wimbledon and the Olympic Games (the latter does not clash with the F1, but will require some preparation).

On the punditry side of things, according to The Guardian, Mark Webber and Susie Wolff will be part of Channel 4’s team. Speaking to The Guardian, David Coulthard said “We’ll have a professional presenter. Then we’ll have a mix of diverse people, some of whom will be recognisable to the masses, some will not. We will have a range of different views. The full team will be announced next week, but as a fan of motorsport, which is what I am, I am excited by some of the people we have coming in.” If true, Webber is a fantastic signing. Watching the BBC’s final Grand Prix broadcast last season, you got the impression that Webber was auditioning for a role somewhere which I commented on at the time.

The signing of Wolff will surprise people. I’m not too surprised. From an anecdotal perspective, I predicted this in my series of posts over Christmas, plus she rated highly in the site survey that followed. Coulthard’s comment to The Guardian implies to me that the analysts will be rotated across the season in an effort to keep the output fresh. This is where the likes of Alain Prost are likely to come in. Whether Eddie Jordan fits into this category too, I don’t know.

The 5 Live conundrum
As referenced on Tuesday, Jack Nicholls will be BBC Radio 5 Live’s lead commentator. This blog understands that Nicholls is set to be announced as covering the role full-time. Note the phrase “full-time”. The problem is that there are clashes between the Formula 1 and Formula E calendar. Specifically, the Long Beach ePrix clashes with the Bahrain Grand Prix weekend and more notably the season finale in London clashes with the Austrian Grand Prix.

As of writing, Nicholls is not scheduled to be commentating on the Long Beach ePrix on Saturday 2nd April. Instead, Nicholls will be with the 5 Live team in Bahrain. The question you have to ask is whether it is feasible to have the lead Formula E commentator also commentating on Formula 1 full-time going forward. I don’t know the answer to that, but there are people high-up within the paddock bound to be unhappy that the same voice is commentating on both Formula 1 and Formula E…

Alongside Nicholls are understood to be Tom Clarkson, Jennie Gow (already confirmed) and Allan McNish. As with all these things, we don’t know whether anyone was offered a Channel 4 role and rejected said role, or have been offered other avenues to pursue within the BBC.

Update on March 3rd at 19:20 – Nicholls has confirmed his 5 Live role on his Twitter account. Obviously this also means that, as reported previously, James Allen will not be part of 5 Live’s output this year.

Update on March 3rd at 20:20 – Mark Gallagher has confirmed that himself and Clarkson will be part of the 5 Live preview show tonight. I’ve updated the various pages on this site to reflect the confirmation. Not sure about the status of McNish at the moment.

Update on March 3rd at 21:40 – Jennie Gow has confirmed on the 5 Live preview show that Allan McNish will be alongside Nicholls in the BBC 5 Live commentary box for the 2016 season. So, the confirmed 5 Live team is Nicholls, McNish, Clarkson, Gow and Gallagher.

Update on March 4th at 13:35 – Chandhok is confirmed! He interviewed Lewis Hamilton during the lunch break in Barcelona, conveniently holding a Channel 4 microphone.

The merry-go-round: what we know

With just 19 days until the Australian Grand Prix and the Qatar MotoGP, we are none the wiser to the identity of Channel 4’s Formula 1 team or BT Sport’s MotoGP team. But, there are some things that we do know. And, as always, it looks like we could have some shocks on the cards…

BBC part company with James Allen
The F1 Broadcasting Blog can confirm that BBC Radio 5 Live have parted company with James Allen. Allen has been part of BBC’s 5 Live F1 team since the beginning of 2012, working as lead commentator for the majority of races. In the races that Allen did not cover, either Jonathan Legard or Jack Nicholls substituted for Allen. It is understood that the decision to drop Allen for 2016 was made prior to the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix. Allen has since updated his LinkedIn to confirm his BBC exit.

Jack Nicholls will again be commentating on some of the races with 5 Live. We do not yet know which races, but Nicholls is unlikely to be commentating on any race which clashes with the Formula E Championship. Alongside Nicholls will be Jennie Gow, who is staying with 5 Live. As that link shows though, what exactly the ‘team’ consists of appears to be shrouded in some mystery. The problem we have is that: the BBC took a decision to exit its Formula 1 TV contract. Anyone under a BBC F1 TV contract for 2015 is therefore still under contract with BBC, unless they are able to escape from said contract. Even though Gow is radio, inevitably no TV coverage means that the radio operation is being downsized.

Allan McNish looks like he is staying with BBC F1. Recent tweets certainly give the indication that McNish is remaining with the BBC, and will be by default be 5 Live’s co-commentator one would imagine. At this stage, we don’t know about the status of Tom Clarkson in all of this. Who will be Allan McNish’s partner when Nicholls is not around? Your guess is as good as mine. However…

Is a shock on the cards at Channel 4?
This blog understands that the Channel 4 team does contain at least one major surprise. And given that Allen is not tied to the BBC any more, the chances of him turning up as part of Channel 4’s team increases significantly. Inevitably, thoughts turn to Allen potentially grabbing the lead commentator role instead of Ben Edwards, a move which would shock a lot of people reading this post.

A more likely thought I feel is that Allen could be one of Channel 4’s pit lane reporters alongside Lee McKenzie, with Edwards remaining in the commentary box. Bear in mind that Alex Kalinauckas, writing on James Allen’s website on February 9th, stated that McKenzie and Edwards would be part of Channel 4’s team. You would not write something that is knowingly inaccurate. Allen becoming pit lane reporter would not be surprising if Tom Clarkson is tied into a BBC contract. Bear in mind that the Channel 4 photo shoot occurred in the week beginning February 8th, so the team would have been finalised at the time of Kalinauckas’ post.

If Allen is Channel 4’s pit lane reporter, then it would be a role that I would be happy to see him in given that I enjoy reading his thoughts and also enjoyed his original stint as pit lane reporter with ITV. Allen is good in front of the camera too, and given that Channel 4 are having two presentation teams in one, Allen could be the face they want to help in that respect, not necessarily as presenter but in a journalist style role. Like I said though, if Allen though was announced as lead commentator, that would be major shock. And, I imagine for those reading this, not exactly a positive shock either. Assuming for a second that Allen is in as lead commentator and Edwards is not, then the latter is presumably still locked into a BBC contract.

Alternatively, Allen may not be part of Channel 4’s team at all…

Suzi Perry set to join BT’s MotoGP team
According to Charles Sale writing in the Daily Mail, Suzi Perry has been signed up by BT Sport to work on their MotoGP coverage. Sale does not elaborate much further, saying that Perry has been signed up to “work on a variety of roles” for their coverage. If true, it is a fantastic signing for BT Sport and bolsters their MotoGP coverage following a successful second season. It is difficult to read much into a small paragraph, but the implication is that there is some change to the BT Sport team.

Craig Doyle was understood to be one of the four on Channel 4’s shortlist to host their Formula 1 coverage. Whether we can expect Doyle to jump, I don’t know. My instinct is that BT want Doyle to focus on their rugby coverage as opposed to juggling between rugby and MotoGP. A tweet from Ben Constanduros on Monday 29th February went as follows: “Last week was a good one, spoke to People from BBC, C4, Sky and FOM – enlightening! broadcasting shocks coming – not involving me though!” The follow-up was that it doesn’t involve Channel 4, so we will have to wait and see on that front.

Finalised television listings go to press on Wednesday 9th March. No matter what, we will all know the answers soon. Unless we hear anything more in the next few days, this will probably be the final piece of this nature. So, tomorrow, Thursday, Friday. Or next week, whenever it may be. Let the announcements begin!

Update on March 1st at 19:55 – As I said, before Wednesday 9th March. David Coulthard has gone on public record on yesterday’s Hawksbee and Jacobs Show on talkSPORT (14:30 to 15:00 segment, 20 minutes in) that the Channel 4 press launch will be taking place on Tuesday 8th March.

Update on March 2nd at 21:25 – This blog learnt late last night that the announcement of Perry to join BT’s MotoGP team, which was scheduled for today, had been pushed back at the last minute. Perry was due to appear at the MotoGP test in Qatar, but has not showed up.