Podium or Pits is Badger’s weekly guide to what’s hot and what’s not in Formula One. Stay tuned for all matters F1, including Vettel on television (part. 2), Bernie chats about television, Lewis gets wet, Tamara has nice things and Red Bull fall out of the sky…
He really is a very good advocate for F1 – Sebastian Vettel isn’t necessarily the most beloved driver in F1. That said, when Badger’s seen him involved in any sort of interview outside F1, he’s always come across very well.
As we mentioned in last week’s POP, he was due on the David Letterman show in the US to a) promote F1 and b) whip up excitement in this year’s Grand Prix in Austin, Texas.
Notwithstanding the fact that David Letterman is exceptionally annoying (just let the man speak, for heaven’s sake), it’s well worth a watch.
Man who made controversial decision attempts to justify said decision – Oh Bernie. Really?
The man who brought us such well thought through plans as sprinklers to make races artificially wet and short cuts on circuits has been chatting about the BBC/Sky TV deal in Britain.
Now, his argument for this was backed this up using some seriously dodgy stats. According to Bernie, “Sky reaches over 10m. We don’t get 10m on the BBC, normally about 6m or 7m.”
All this would be fine if he was comparing like-with-like, but he’s not. He’s saying that Sky reaches 10m households. Ok, fine. The BBC reaches all of the country.
The six of seven million people he’s referring to were the number of people actually watching the races on the BBC last season. So to make it work he would need to get 60% of the people with a Sky subscription watching in order to get the same viewing figures. Likely? We doubt it.
By way of some context, the Guardian compare the two broadcasters’ experiences of this year’s Chinese Grand Prix (the first race this season broadcast live on both the BBC and Sky) “[The BBC's] viewing figures were down by 1m on 2011 to a peak of 4.21m. Sky’s coverage of the race peaked at 887,000 and averaged at around 1m over the first four races of the year.”
See Bernie, it doesn’t make any sense. At all.
What is it with F1 drivers and water – Vettel and Webber did it at Monaco last year and now Hamilton’s got involved, backflipping into a pool of water (don’t worry, it was deep enough).
If you want to see pictures, head over the The Daily Mail website, here.
Rich person has expensive things shocker! – Yep, that’s right, it’s a Tamara Ecclestone story.
She has an expensive handbag. See more, here.
Red Bull – they’re always up to something, aren’t they? – Yep, that’s right, Red Bull are back at it.
This stunt sees Mark Webber and a skydiver swapping tips and then racing.
Full video here:
kate
June 14, 2012
Webber is king of back-flips, twice in Monaco, twice at Le Mans and once at Valencia… that’s enough of that now.
Vettel has never done a back flip (that we know of, in public) preferring a standing jump into the Monaco pool.
Alan Gent
June 14, 2012
Its time Ecclestone er, how can I put this politely, went forth and multiplied??
It’s not enough to try and take the p*ss once again out of the UK in suggesting that of all the countries taking a GP feed, it would matter the least if the BBC lost the rights .
Unbelievable. There is no greater fan base of F1 than in the UK and his use of statistics is, as usual, disingenuous.
Get lost Bernie, you’ve been screwing up the last 5 years, it’s only the critical mass of F1 that’s actually sustaining your position. Take yourself and especially your odious daughters and disappear into the stratosphere.
Alan Gent
June 14, 2012
Its time Ecclestone er, how can I put this politely, went forth and multiplied??
It’s not enough to try and take the p*ss once again out of the UK in suggesting that of all the countries taking a GP feed, it would matter the least if the BBC lost the rights .
Unbelievable. There is no greater fan base of F1 than in the UK and his use of statistics is, as usual, disingenuous.
Get lost Bernie, you’ve been cocking up the last 5 years, it’s only the critical mass of F1 that’s actually sustaining your position. Take yourself and especially your odious daughters and disappear into the stratosphere.
Alexis
June 14, 2012
Im with bernie. In fact, pull it from the bbc next year. It’s a pathetic lame duck of a system and they should have given it all to channel 4 or all to sky.