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In 2013 F1 will leave SPEED for NBC (and SPEED will become "The Sports Channel" with much less emphasis on motor sports). As part of this, SPPED is cranking down their current coverage and Varsha, Hobbes and Matchett, who were scheduled to be at the Austin track next month for the inaugural F1 race, will be staying home in the studio.
While 4 races will be broadcast on over-the-air NBC, it's not clear if the rest of the races will be broadcast on "NBC Sports Network" which is a premier-tier channel. It's not clear from the multiple press releases I've read whether qualifying and practice will be streamed via their website or shown on the "cable" channel.
Will have to wait and see, of course, but I'm not in favor of this change, particularly if things move to live streaming - I live on the west coast and a lot of these races are 2 or 3 am for me. Not getting up to watch a live stream, I need to be able to record it for later watching. Also, the choice of announcers is critical - I'm very fond of the current team. I'd read speculation that NBC wants "American" announcers for American fans. If they really think that, we are in trouble. There are very few Americans in F1, none in the driver's seat and if they think they need to generate the rah-rah coverage ala NASCAR, this could be unwatchable.
My hubby won't be happy when I tell him about that. As you said, it might become harder to see races now, especially with the whole live streaming thing.
Hopefully NBC will have a better race/advertising balance Speed is a about 50/50, it's so ridiculous and tiring that I cancelled cable and look for streams of the Sky coverage in the internet, or pay for a UK VPN for the races shown by BBC. If NBC manages to put something decent, I'll be watching there.
There are very few Americans in F1, none in the driver's seat and if they think they need to generate the rah-rah coverage ala NASCAR, this could be unwatchable.
NBC Sports is the worst. The American announcers are not to make it more rah rah coverage. NBC assumes its average viewer is a casual sports viewer and then dumbs down its coverage for them. Lots of backstory and soap opera sob stories to humanize the athletes, etc.
So yes, they'll cut into action to show more pre-canned clips of human interest stuff and break up the flow of the events. It's their M.O. and that's why sports is almost unwatchable unless geared to female sports like figure skating or gymnastics.
I woud say spped was very good ;Myself. the real problem is that all races rely on national camera crew coverage which can be terrible;no matter hwo carries the race.
They do rely on the F1 feed, but that doesn't mean they can't cut away to their own segments and vignettes. I really don't want to see the kind of coverage the Olympics had, filled with "human interest" and "human drama." Engineering segments are fine (a better explanation of the Coanda exhaust, for instance, than the spoon example Matchett is so fond of), brief stories about the teams, etc, but the point of watching F1 is the cars and the races.
I'm worried that NBC will try to make it much more "American viewer friendly," assuming that the audience has never watched an F1 race before. I hope that Hobbes and Matchett will be brought along to NBC (Varsha does a lot of other stuff for SPEED), but I suspect they will go for much younger announcers.
Wow, didn't know this. Speed sucks anyway but I'm a little concerned now.
Its gonna SUCK if they have American announcers instead of the original. It already annoys me when American announcers give their 2cents after the commercials in MotoGP.
On the Brazil broadcast this week, they announced that David Hobbs, Steve Matchett and Will Buxton will be going over to NBC. Googling around, the "network" commentator will be Leigh Diffey, who will also be doing Indycar.
On the Brazil broadcast this week, they announced that David Hobbs, Steve Matchett and Will Buxton will be going over to NBC. Googling around, the "network" commentator will be Leigh Diffey, who will also be doing Indycar.
Huh...missed that for some or other reason. Very glad to hear that. Though wish they'd have kept Bob Varsha too.
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