Several years ago, after enduring the woeful coverage of Formula 1 on Channel 9 with the twin wonders of Daryl Eastlake and Alan Jones, Channel 10 bought the broadcast rights and promised a new era of Formula 1 coverage. It sounded great, and I was looking forward to being able to watch races live (or close to live as they put it in the press release), and with improved coverage.
At first, they were good. Neil Crompton actually knew what he was talking about, and the races were shown live, or at 10:30 (after the Sunday night movie). I’m a realist. I know that they’re not going to broadcast something that doesn’t rate spectacularly well right in the middle of prime time. But at least it was within an hour or so of the race running, and at a standard time.
Then, Big Brother started. It consistently ran over time, which meant you had no idea when the race was going to be broadcast. Of course, BB was ratings gold, so it gets precedence. But still, it was annoying, particularly for those of us who think that BB is an horrific show. But, it was just indicative of the lack of care/attention they were paying to Formula 1.
And that brings us to today. The race is in Malaysia, which is in a similar time zone, meaning that it is run at 3PM Perth time. And when are they showing the race? 10:30 PM! OK, so there must be something that rates really well at 3PM, to take precedence? Let’s look it up. Hang on, “City Slickers II”???? WTF?
OK, so you don’t care anymore Channel 10. It’s not rating? OK. Don’t show it. Let the rights slide and let Foxtel show it. They do a good job with the MotoGP.
Sigh.