Thetownend.com

in the GP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/7306123.stm

woohoo!

Indeed, hope they take Brundle, quite like his gridwalks and analysis. James Allen not so much.

And please BBC, spend some money and show this in HD. FFS.

HD would depend on the equipment and stuff already at the tracks wouldn't it?

bring back murray walker!

go go go!

Thats ace news, adverts annoy me beyond belief.

F1 on HD would be great.

YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!! FUCKING YES!

Right, ditch Allen, keep Brundle, keep Blundell (he's a comedy legend), show the press conference every fucking race, high definition, ditch Rider

all is good in the world.

Yes, I thought that FOM now did all races, so it should be OK on the front.

But there is also the broadcast rights issue as many shows have separate SD and HD contracts, i.e. just because the rights are won for SD doesn't automatically mean HD feeds will be secured.

Also, BBC HD has been pretty shit since they went from test to full channel status. NO football in HD so far, though I think the FA cup final will be. I hope they are just saving it up to blow the budget on Euro 08 and the Olympics this year.
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PS. Just in case it passed people by, ITV now show Friday practice sessions on their website.

A waste of license payers money for a niche sport.With the BBC making people redundant and constantly wanting more money they should be concentrating on original programing that they can sell not getting involved with motor sport.What a complete joke.

Its not as much of a waste of money as BBC 2 showing darts though.

Darts costs about £12 to broadcast

£12 too much in my opinion.

I'd have liked them to use it to televise more snooker.

thank fuck for this, ITV suck balls.

at least James Allen can now be led out to pasture, and quietly shot with a bolt gun and turned into glue.

now the amount of shows i watch on ITV will be pretty much zero. the channel is balls.

dooooooo doo doo doo doo-doo doo doo-doo doooooooo

I'll name that tune in 10 "doooo"

:) The Chain

Nonsense woman!

Darts, snooker and bowls are the staple diet of a lazy sports fan!

Darts rules!

Darts bore me to tears!

I like snooker though.

There's a few more crazy Chinese kiddies qualified for the World Championship. Ronnie's got a new 17 year old Chinese Ding II. Could be interesting.

No Jimmy White again though  :(

Stephen Lee amuses me as hes got a rather porky face.

He's got rather porky pork the fat fuck. I wonder if his upturn in form will continue.

He's got Joe Swail, then Ken Doherty or Liang Wenbo. Fat fuck will probably eat the pink thinking it's a ball of pork.

Wenbo might be a good outside bet. Purely because he sounds like a jedi.

F1 will be popular with the masses if Hamilton continues to be a success.

Darts is quality to watch.

I can even tolerate Golf if it's the Ryder Cup.

Biggest viewing figures outside the world cup and the olympics says otherwise

Really? I thought Snooker was the second most popular televised sport in Britain.

:soapy tit wank:

I was serious.

Wouldn't be suprised if snooker managed higher viewing figures than f1. Can't find any modern numbers though. 18.5 million stayed up to watch the 1985 final until 12.20am. Which is still a record for post midnight television viewing.

I'd find it hard to believe tbh. Their was stupid television viewing figures back then, because thier was a lot less choice

You mean there was less shit on telly.

that too

Thankfully BBC will be showing it again, I cannot stand ITV coverage. Get rid of the commentatory team - apart from Martin Brundle.

I am glad the sport has become popular, the success of the Grenadan ( :wink: ) has increased its awareness in this country and that can only be a good thing.

why can it only be a good thing?

surely sports that encourage participation at all levels would be better served with such increased awareness?

It is good to see it is becoming popular as for years many said is was rubbish.

I agree though, only a select few can afford to participate - so in that respect it will always remain a minority sport compared to football.

I was actually quite interested so have done some research. I guessed that the British Grand Prix and World Snooker Championship final would have the highest figures for each, so it seemed good to use them as a comparison.

2007
The British Grand Prix got 3.85m on ITV
The World Snooker Championship got 3.44 on BBC2.

This seems to be a good year for the grand prix though,  as unless I'm being blind, it doesn't appear to be in the the top 30 programmes on ITV in 2006 or 2005.

This means all I can gather is...

2006
British Grand Prix got less than 3m
Snooker got 3.65

2005
British Grand Prix got less than 3.14
Snooker got 4.79

I like both. hate golf though. dull dull dull.

Good work Ben, although I suspect that consideting a Brit is a favourite for the Championship then this years F1 figures may be considerably higher.

I also wonder what the viewing figures where during the Mansell years, or Coulthards year for example.

coulthard had a year?  :shock:

did coolthud have a year????

i don't know - did he?

in bangkok's mind, clearly he did. i must have missed it during the bloody adverts.....

if he had one it must have back in the old bbc days.

He won didn't he, or did I make that up?

2nd in 2001 was his best result.

in so much as he was hakkinen's tail gunner.....

and only won one !!!1111 race.

I'm guessing that if you took an average over 20 years snooker would probably edge it. Snooker's had a couple of pretty unexciting finals over the last few years, partly bought on by the tobacco sponsorship money crisis, and still came pretty close to f1 with Hamilton having a surprise season.

Of course Snooker has an advantage of drawing people in with a tournament played over two weeks. F1 lasts a season, with many of the races in different time zones. The Snooker has also become a bit of an institution, being pretty consistent viewing since the advent of colour telly.

I did that research about 5 hours ago, but had the distraction of baby nephew Charlie turning up. I'd written it out but forgot to press the submit button.