Author: David Nelson

Scheduling: The 2020 Qatar MotoGP

Update on March 4th at 20:40 – The article has been updated with the confirmed BT Sport schedule for the weekend. BT’s presenter Suzi Perry has confirmed on Twitter that BT are not sending any of their personnel out to Qatar for the race weekend, and that there will be no wrap-around presentation from their studios in London.

Commentary will still be provided however by BT’s Keith Huewen. In addition, the free-to-air highlights package will no longer air on Quest on Monday evening.

Update on Match 1st at 19:30 – the MotoGP race has been cancelled due to travel restrictions because of coronavirus. A revised schedule for Moto2 and Moto3 will be posted in due course.

Original article below

MotoGP heads to the Middle East for the first race of the 2020 season, as Marc Marquez looks to keep hold of the crown that he has held since 2016, in what MotoGP are billing as the start of a new era, on and off-air.

The coronavirus outbreak means that a question mark hangs over many sporting events currently, however, MotoGP’s governing bodies say that the Qatar race weekend will go ahead as scheduled.

All the action from Qatar takes place earlier in the day than previous years, with the MotoGP race itself taking place at 18:00 local time instead of 20:00 or 21:00 local time as before.

BT Sport continue as lead MotoGP broadcaster for UK fans, in what is their seventh year covering the sport.

Although the broadcaster has not formally announced their coverage plans for 2020, schedules show that fans should expect more of the same this year – which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Suzi Perry continues in her role as presenter of BT’s output, alongside the likes of Gavin Emmett, Neil Hodgson, and Colin Edwards, whilst Keith Huewen remains BT’s lead MotoGP commentator.

Quest will air free-to-air highlights of the series on Monday evenings, as part of a two-year deal signed between themselves and Dorna prior to the 2019 season.

Fans watching MotoGP via any outlet next weekend will notice changes from the get-go to kickstart the new era, with Dorna rolling out a new brand identity for MotoGP across all platforms, including a new look for their on-air graphics package.

MotoGP – Qatar (BT Sport 2)
Also airs live on MotoGP’s Video Pass (£)
06/03 – 08:30 to 16:15 – Practice 1 and 2
06/03 – 10:00 to 12:15 – Practice 1
06/03 – 14:00 to 15:45 – Practice 2
07/03 – 08:30 to 16:15
=> 08:30 – Practice 3
=> 11:30 – Asia Talent Cup Race 1
=> 12:00 – Qualifying
07/03 – 09:45 to 11:45 – Practice 3
07/03 – 13:00 to 16:00
=> 13:00 – Asia Talent Cup Race 1
=> 14:00 – Qualifying
08/03 – 08:30 to 17:00
=> 08:30 – Asia Talent Cup Race 2
=> 09:30 – Warm Ups
=> 11:15 – Moto3
=> 13:00 – Moto2
=> 14:30 – MotoGP
=> 16:00 – Chequered Flag
08/03 – 10:00 to 11:15 – Warm Ups
08/03 – 11:45 to 12:45 – Asia Talent Cup Race 2
08/03 – 13:00 to 16:15
=> 13:00 – Moto3
=> 14:30 – Moto2

MotoGP – Qatar (Quest)
09/03 – 18:00 to 19:00 – Highlights

Next weekend’s schedule is subject to change, so keep an eye on the MotoGP website for any potential alterations to the event.

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Sky Sports F1 launches 2020 promotional trailer

Sky Sports F1 have unveiled their 2020 promotional trailer, ahead of the new season which begins on March 15th.

The trailer, which comes with Fatboy Slim’s ‘Right Here, Right Now’ as the backing track, depicts the build-up to a Grand Prix, followed in the latter half by Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc trying to navigate his way past Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton.

Commentary from David Croft, and snippets of team radio from drivers, including Leclerc and Hamilton, also feature throughout the promo.

Given that last year’s trailer had a budget of £750,000 attached to it as part of Sky’s pre-season promotional drive, this year’s offering was always going to stand in the shadow of 2019’s excellent promo. Nevertheless, the 2020 version is still one of Sky’s better F1 efforts to date in my opinion.

In addition to the trailer launch, Sky have announced that they are bringing back their special F1 offer during March.

The offer, available until March 26th, allows Sky subscribers to add the F1 channel to their package for £10.00 a month for twelve months, a reduction on the usual price of £18.00, working out at a potential saving of £96.00 across the year.

Keep an eye on this site in March for a detailed summary of the different pricing options available for UK fans viewing F1 in 2020.

New look schedule for 2020?
A new look schedule is set to greet viewers of Sky’s Formula 1 coverage when the 2020 season begins, provisional schedules for the Australian Grand Prix suggest.

Since the middle of 2018, a live preview show called Welcome to the Weekend was the channel’s main offering on a Thursday afternoon. Now, the show will air live on Friday’s immediately before the first F1 practice session, increasing the build-up to the first session from 15 to 30 minutes.

The remainder of Friday’s schedule remains identical to 2019, with The Story so Far following the second practice session.

Current schedules suggest that Saturday’s offering will also remain the same, with Paddock Walkabout in between third practice and qualifying. The F1 Show remains in its post-qualifying time slot on the F1 channel.

However, it is race day that sees the biggest changes, with Sky revamping their build-up. The Australian Grand Prix schedule shows that Sky plan to go live on-air 130 minutes before lights out, increasing their pre-race offering by half an hour.

Only twice before have Sky gone live two hours before the race: for Britain and Belgium back in their debut season in 2012.

Sunday Social takes viewers through the first hour of the show, aiming to cover the main talking points, as well as the social media buzz. Grand Prix Sunday takes over afterwards to guide fans in the 70 minutes before lights out.

Following the race, Chequered Flag directly replaces Sky’s Paddock Live offering, whilst the Notebook is again a fixture of Sky’s schedule on race day. Currently, there is no sign of the Notebook returning to Saturday’s schedule.

Across the weekend, there is a net increase of 45 minutes in terms of time on-air year-on-year, based on the current schedule. Provisional schedules also show that, as in 2019, the race will air live across Sky One, Sky Sports Main Event and the F1 channel itself.

Sky are expected to confirm further details shortly.

Meanwhile, as exclusively revealed in January, Channel 4’s offering this year will also have a different feel to it, with their race day edit increasing year-on-year thanks to a revised deal agreed between themselves and Sky.

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Free-to-air “the right way forward” for Formula E in the short to medium-term

Free-to-air is “the right way forward” for the electric Formula E championship in the short to medium-term, according to one of the leading figures in the series.

This weekend, the Marrakesh E-Prix airs live on free-to-air television for fans in the UK on BBC Two, with presenter Jennie Gow reporting live on-site for the first time.

Only one other race has aired live on BBC’s linear television channels before now: the Hong Kong E-Prix in March 2019, where Gow presented live from their studios in Salford.

Since its inception in 2014, Formula E has struggled to find a stable home, moving from one free-to-air station to another in relatively quick succession.

The series started life on ITV4 for Formula E’s first two seasons, before moving to Channel 5 for a further two seasons. The series landed on the BBC for the start of season five in December 2018.

However, the potential for more money has not tempted organisers to move the championship exclusively to pay television.

And speaking exclusively to Motorsport Broadcasting ahead of the E-Prix this weekend, Formula E’s Head of Content Sebastian Tiffert believes that free-to-air remains is the way forward for the championship.

“I think wherever we have the largest audience is the right way forward, and you still get that through free-to-air broadcasters, and this is where we want to see Formula E in the future,” Tiffert said.

“Having the Marrakesh E-Prix on BBC Two is great, because we’re bring the race to a wider audience. We hope fans get excited [by what they see] because we believe we have a fantastic racing product with a lot of action on-track involving great drivers and great teams.”

“What the future holds I don’t know, but I think in the short to mid-term, free-to-air broadcasters and big broadcasters are the way forward for us,” he added.

Content teams realigned within Formula E’s structure
Tiffert joined Formula E last September, following a 14-year stint at Eurosport. Whilst at Eurosport, Tiffert moved through the ranks, to eventually becoming their Global Director of Motorsports before joining Formula E.

One of the main changes behind the scenes in recent months at Formula E has involved their content teams, which have all been centralised into one division under the leadership of Tiffert.

“Previously, we had the content team divided between broadcast, social media, and website platforms in different departments across Formula E, we have now centralised into a proper content team for the first time,” Tiffert told Motorsport Broadcasting during a wide-ranging conversation.

“We’ve regrouped under one roof, everything from broadcast to digital (meaning website and app content) and the social media content.”

“The analogy I always use is that we don’t want to tell ten different stories; we’d rather tell the same story, but in ten different ways depending on who we’re talking to.”

“There was the same look and feel I believe before, but you didn’t have everyone sitting together, making sure everybody was going down the same storyline. Sometimes one platform misses a story for one reason or another. The important thing now is that TV is working with social, social is working with TV, for each other, on the same story.”

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Scheduling: The 2020 Marrakesh E-Prix

Formula E heads to Morocco in Africa next weekend for round five of the 2019-20 season.

Jaguar’s Mitch Evans leads the way after winning last time out in Mexico, with BMW’s Alexander Sims just a point behind in second.

The event airs live on BBC Two as part of the BBC’s commitment to air two races this season via their linear television channels. Jennie Gow presents their coverage, with inaugural W Series champion Jamie Chadwick alongside her.

As in Hong Kong last year, the BBC are providing their own bespoke build-up and post-race wrap-up, dipping in and out of the World Feed throughout both parts, although it is unclear as of writing whether Gow and Chadwick will be in Salford or on-site in Morocco.

The cancellation of the Sanya round on March 21st means that the BBC are airing two races in a row live on BBC Two, with the next round in Rome on April 4th set to air on the same channel.

Elsewhere, the World Superbikes season kicks off down under in Australia. As revealed last month, Eurosport have retained the rights to the season, whilst free-to-air highlights also remain on ITV4.

Looking for the schedule for the second F1 Barcelona test? Head over here…

Formula E – Marrakesh
Shakedown, Practice and Qualifying air live on YouTube
28/02 – 15:55 to 16:55 – Practice 1 (BBC’s digital platforms)
29/02 – 07:55 to 08:40 – Practice 2 (BBC’s digital platforms)
29/02 – 09:45 to 11:15 – Qualifying (BBC’s digital platforms)
29/02 – Race
=> 13:30 to 15:15 (BBC Two)
=> 13:45 to 15:00 (Eurosport 2)
29/02 – 23:00 to 00:00 – Highlights (Quest)

World Superbikes – Phillip Island
Also airs live on World Superbikes’ Video Pass (£)
29/02 – 01:00 to 02:30 – Superpole (Eurosport 2)
29/02 – 03:45 to 05:15 – Race 1 (Eurosport 2)
01/03 – 00:45 to 03:15 – Superpole and Supersport Races (Eurosport 2)
01/03 – 03:45 to 05:15 – Race 2 (Eurosport 2)
04/03 – 20:00 to 21:00 – Highlights (ITV4)

The schedule will be updated if plans change.

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F1 TV subscribers to receive richer offering in 2020

Fans of Formula 1 watching the sport via F1’s over-the-top platform will receive a richer offering this season.

The platform has grown since it first launched in May 2018, both in terms of size and content. Now, F1 TV Pro subscribers will receive a bespoke pre-race build-up for the first time, fronted by Will Buxton.

Buxton, who joined F1 after covering the sport with NBC from 2013 to 2017, will continue to present F1 TV’s Tech Talk output as well as their post-race programming.

In addition, F1 says that they are improving their Pit Lane Channel this season, with a co-commentator joining Alex Jacques at every race this season.

The Pit Lane Channel will also feature new camera angles from the pit wall and pit box, as well as exclusive interviews from the paddock.

The premium-tier service is available in eleven additional countries for 2020, taking the tally to 77. For fans in the US, the service is available on Roku for the first time.

However, UK fans are still unable to access F1 TV Pro, meaning fans who want to watch F1 live will need to subscribe to Sky Sports F1 in some form.

Testing gets the full World Feed treatment
As part of the announcement, F1 also confirmed that subscribers to their over-the-top platform will receive an improved live timing experience.

The improved experience for fans was clear from the first seconds of testing, with a more detailed view of lap times for each driver.

From a graphics perspective on-screen, testing now feels like an extension to a race weekend: the timing wall, split times, on-board angles, and team radio all on offer as proceedings opened in Barcelona.

In fact, it was the second day of testing when coverage came into its element: revealing the ‘Dual Axis Steering’ (DAS) device on the new Mercedes W11, only noticeable via on-board camera angles.

Mercedes would have successfully hidden the device until Australia just two years ago, something that is now impossible thanks to the level of coverage F1 is giving testing.

You can criticise live coverage of testing all you want, but on days like today, it proved its use to both fans and journalists, giving F1 publicity that it would have not received in previous years.

As was the case twelve months ago, personnel from Sky and F1 formed the hybrid team for testing, with nine people live on-air during the first day of running.

Alex Jacques, Jolyon Palmer, Rosanna Tennant, and Tom Clarkson represented F1’s in-house digital output, with David Croft, Rachel Brookes, Natalie Pinkham, and Ted Kravitz joining from Sky, Kravitz back for testing after his absence last year.

Laura Winter was the ninth person on-screen during day one, Winter joining the F1 team during ten race weekends in 2020, whilst Will Buxton also featured during the second day.

Briatore to feature on Beyond the Grid
Clarkson’s stint in the commentary box saw him confirm Flavio Briatore as one of the guests on F1’s official Behind the Grid podcast this year.

Now in its third season, the first episode of 2020 lands on Wednesday 11th March prior to the Australian Grand Prix.

Elsewhere, German Formula 1 broadcaster RTL has announced that they are producing their coverage of the Vietnam Grand Prix from their base in Cologne because of the “incalculable spread of coronavirus,” with none of their personnel set to travel to Hanoi.

“We have a high level of responsibility for our employees. When reporting from Hanoi, the risks to their health appear to be too great after careful examination,” RTL’s sports director Manfred Loppe explained.

“We came to this decision after querying numerous information points and, bottom line, none from our point of view have received a reliable assessment of the situation on site.”

Motorsport Broadcasting has reached out to UK broadcasters to confirm their current stance on the Hanoi event, which takes place across the weekend of 3rd to 5th April.

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