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ITV held the rights to show

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

races in the United Kingdom between 8 March 1997 and 2 November 2008. ITV gained the rights for Formula One coverage for 1997 in late 1995 from the

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and focused on more in-depth coverage, conducting more interviews and gaining access to better camera angles. The coverage was initially presented by

Jim Rosenthal Jim Rosenthal (born 6 November 1947) is an English sports presenter and commentator. In a long broadcasting career, Rosenthal has presented coverage of many sports including football, rugby, automotive racing, boxing and athletics. He has covere ...

with veteran commentator

Murray Walker Graeme Murray Walker (10 October 1923 – 13 March 2021) was an English motorsport commentator and journalist. He provided television commentary of live Formula One coverage for the BBC between 1976 and 1996, and for ITV between 1997 and 20 ...

and former racing driver

Martin Brundle Martin John Brundle (born 1 June 1959) is a British former racing driver, best known as a Formula One driver and as a commentator for ITV Sport from 1997 to 2008, the BBC from 2009 to 2011, and Sky Sports since 2012. Brundle contested the 1 ...

being the initial commentators before Walker's retirement after the

2001 United States Grand Prix The 2001 United States Grand Prix (formally the 2001 SAP United States Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on September 30, 2001, at Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana in the United States. The 73-lap race was the sixteen ...

and was succeeded by pit-lane reporter James Allen. Rosenthal left in 2005 and was succeeded by Steve Rider who presented the coverage until ITV ceased to broadcast Formula One after 2008. Formula One coverage returned to the BBC in 2009 for ITV to focus on more extensive coverage of

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

football matches. The programme was successful in collecting three consecutive BAFTA awards for sporting coverage but also garnered criticism for showing advertisements during their coverage along with their handling of competitions held by the broadcaster. In December 2015, ITV was rumoured to take over the broadcasting rights from BBC from 2016 onwards, after BBC had terminated its broadcasting contract three years early. However, on 21 December 2015 it was announced that

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

would broadcast F1 alongside

Sky The sky is an unobstructed view upward from the surface of the Earth. It includes the atmosphere and outer space. It may also be considered a place between the ground and outer space, thus distinct from outer space. In the field of astronomy, ...

History

1997–2008

When the BBC lost their rights to broadcast Formula One in late 1995, ITV gained the coverage for 1997. The deal worth £60 million was negotiated by FOM president Bernie Ecclestone. ITV chose to bid for the rights due to constantly being beaten at weekends while the '' Grand Prix'' coverage was on. ITV's first broadcast was at the 1997 Australian Grand Prix and was hosted by

along with Simon Taylor and Tony Jardine as expert analysts and

and

as the commentators. The pitlane reporters James Allen and

Louise Goodman Louise Goodman is a British reporter and presenter who worked on ITV's Formula One coverage until it ceased at the 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix. She now co-presents ITV's coverage of the British Touring Car Championship. Her late partner was Joh ...

stayed on for the whole of ITV's coverage over 11 years. ITV had set about focusing their efforts into more in-depth pre- and post-race analysis, better camera angles and conducting more interviews. Rosenthal, Taylor and Jardine all presented from a studio with a view of the paddock and the studio was transported to all the races. One feature for 1997 was known as 'Inside F1' where a driver would demonstrate a certain piece of equipment on a Formula One car and would summarise what operations the equipment performed along with its effects. There was also a track guide using a computer simulation provided by

Psygnosis Psygnosis Limited (known as SCE Studio Liverpool or simply Studio Liverpool from 1999) was a British video game developer and publisher headquartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. Founded in 1984 by Ian Hetherington, Jonathan Ell ...

also for 1997. The post-race qualifying and race coverage was mainly a discussion between the presenter and the experts going over the key facts of what occurred. In the same year, Simon Taylor was left unable to broadcast live after feeling seasick during the Monaco Grand Prix when the team were presenting on a yacht that kept moving around. Sometimes the presenters hosted from the ITV studios for the Asian races due to costs of travelling. In the early years, ITV also showed ''Murray & Martin's F1 Special'', which usually aired on Saturday teatimes at each Grand Prix weekend. Introduced by Murray Walker and Martin Brundle, the programmes featured detailed reports on the day's qualifying session, along with interviews and features with the drivers and team personnel. The programme was slowly phased out in 1999, with fewer specials airing, before being dropped altogether at the end of 2000. ITV also introduced Martin Brundle's hugely popular gridwalk at the 1997 British Grand Prix, where roughly 10–15 minutes before the start of the race Brundle would walk around the grid interviewing drivers, team personnel, celebrities and whoever else he could find. Brundle had elected not to commentate from some races such as the Canadian Grand Prix in 1997 where he raced at Le Mans and missed the race in 1998. He also elected not to attend the Hungarian Grand Prix on several occasions. When Brundle was absent, different people would stand in the commentary booth, including

Derek Warwick Derek Stanley Arthur Warwick (born 27 August 1954) is a British former professional racing driver from England, who lives in Jersey. He raced for many years in Formula One, collecting four podiums but never winning a Grand Prix. He did, however, ...

Jody Scheckter Jody David Scheckter (born 29 January 1950) is a South African business proprietor and former motor racing driver. He competed in Formula One from 1972 to 1980, winning the Drivers' Championship in with Ferrari. Scheckter remains the only Afri ...

Anthony Davidson Anthony Denis Davidson (born 18 April 1979) is a British former racing driver, currently working as an analyst for the Sky Sports F1 television channel, as part of the commentary team for WEC TV, as colour commentator for the F1 series of vide ...

and 1996 champion

Damon Hill Damon Graham Devereux Hill, (born 17 September 1960) is a British former professional racing driver from England and the 1996 Formula One World Champion. He is the son of Graham Hill, and, along with Nico Rosberg, one of two sons of a Formula ...

. ITV were not able to show the qualifying for the 1999 French Grand Prix due to a dispute with

Formula One Management The Formula One Group is a group of companies responsible for the promotion of the FIA Formula One World Championship, and the exercising of the sport's commercial rights. The Group was previously owned by Delta Topco, a Jersey-based company ow ...

. FOM President Bernie Ecclestone asked ITV if they wanted live coverage with the broadcaster refusing stating they would show coverage at a later time. Ecclestone apologised in the Sunday Express and the race coverage was unaffected. In a one-off move for the return of the

United States Grand Prix The United States Grand Prix is a motor racing event that has been held on and off since 1908, when it was known as the American Grand Prize. The Grand Prix later became part of the Formula One World Championship. , the Grand Prix has been held ...

in 2000, ITV moved the coverage over to ITV2 as the schedule of the main channel could not occupy the coverage of the race. The

was Murray Walker's last in the ITV commentary booth, having missed four other races that season. James Allen moved up from his former role as pitlane reporter to replace Walker in the commentary box with Brundle still commentating as usual and

Ted Kravitz Ted Kravitz (born Theodore Joseph Nathaniel Slotover; 21 March 1974) is a British Formula One pit-lane reporter who works for Sky Sports F1. Early career Kravitz was born in Hammersmith, London. His mother is American and is from Union City, N ...

inheriting Allen's old role. In October 2002, the BBC had prepared pay £175 million to gain the rights off ITV when their contract was to expire at the end of 2004. In April 2004, ITV signed a six-year extension to their contract worth £150 million. In that same year, the coverage dropped its trackside studio and the presenters and analysts provided the coverage directly from within the paddock, allowing them to be at every race location for the first time – in previous years, for certain races, particularly for those held in Asia, the trackside studio was based in London, using satellite link-up to broadcast the race. With the advent of new anti-tobacco advertising laws in the United Kingdom that were placed in force on 31 July 2005, it was feared that Formula One coverage would be blacked out because with the showing of tobacco company logos on television, the broadcaster would face extra charges even in a country where tobacco sponsorship was permitted. ITV was the UK's live television broadcaster at the time of one of F1's most controversial races in the form of the farcical

2005 United States Grand Prix The 2005 United States Grand Prix (officially the 2005 Formula 1 United States Grand Prix) was a Formula One motor race held on June 19, 2005, at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and was the ninth race of the 2005 Formula One World Championship ...

at which 7 of the 10 planned team entrants on Michelin tyres withdrew on the formation lap due to tyre safety concerns leaving just 3 teams using Bridgestone tyres ( Minardi,

Jordan Jordan ( ar, الأردن; tr. ' ), officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan,; tr. ' is a country in Western Asia. It is situated at the crossroads of Asia, Africa, and Europe, within the Levant region, on the East Bank of the Jordan Rive ...

and Ferrari (6 cars) to compete in the race. In September 2005, it was reported that ITV had secured Steve Rider's services and would replace Rosenthal from 2006 onwards to present coverage of Formula One. Rider made his debut broadcast covering ITV F1 coverage at the 2006 Bahrain Grand Prix. ITV extended their contract with North One Television for a further five years in an agreement that started at the first round of the 2006 season and would produce over 100 hours of content which also included qualifying and the highlight shows. ITV were the host broadcasters for the British Grand Prix. In March 2008, ITV announced the coverage would be transferred to the BBC from the 2009 season so that the broadcaster could focus more on coverage on the

. The contract to show the sport at the time of announcement was worth £25 million. ITV later announced that they had enacted a clause within their contract enabling them to leave F1 coverage after the 2008 season. Ironically, ITV F1's highest ever broadcast rating came in its final race, the

2008 Brazilian Grand Prix The 2008 Brazilian Grand Prix (formally the Formula 1 Grande Prêmio do Brasil 2008) was a Formula One motor race held on 2 November 2008 at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace, Interlagos, in São Paulo, Brazil. It was the eighteenth and final ra ...

, which attracted 8.8 million viewers, peaking at 12.5 million viewers and saw

Lewis Hamilton Sir Lewis Carl Davidson Hamilton (born 7 January 1985) is a British racing driver currently competing in Formula One for Mercedes. In Formula One, Hamilton has won a joint-record seven World Drivers' Championship titles (tied with Mic ...

win his first Formula One Drivers' World Championship title. On 17 November 2008, BBC announced that Martin Brundle would continue his commentary role alongside Jonathan Legard during the 2009 season, while Ted Kravitz would continue his pit-lane reporter role alongside

Lee McKenzie Lee McKenzie (born 1 December 1977) is a journalist and presenter who is a reporter and deputy presenter for Channel 4's F1 coverage and also the main presenter of the W Series and Channel 4 Rugby. McKenzie also works on a variety of sports ...

Features

Theme music

ITV's F1 coverage used five different themes throughout its lifespan. The first theme was a special, untitled, track performed by

Jamiroquai Jamiroquai () are an English funk and acid jazz band from London. Formed in 1992, they are fronted by vocalist Jay Kay, and were prominent in the London-based funk and acid jazz movement of the 1990s. They built on their acid jazz sound in th ...

which lasted from 1997 to 1999. This theme was commissioned in February 1997 and cost £100,000 to compose. Neil Duncanson, who worked for Chrysalis Sport and was ITV-F1's producer, was a friend of frontman

Jay Kay Jay Kay (born Jason Luís Cheetham; 30 December 1969) is an English singer and songwriter. He is best known as the co-founder and lead vocalist of the acid jazz and funk band Jamiroquai, which was formed in 1992. Early life Jay Kay was bo ...

, who is a fan of Formula One. In 2000, Jamiroquai's theme was replaced by "Blackbeat" by

Apollo 440 Apollo 440 (also known as Apollo Four Forty or @440) are a British electronic music group formed in Liverpool in 1990. The group has written, recorded, and produced five studio albums, collaborated with and produced other artists, remixed as ...

which lasted until 2002, replaced the following year by a remixed version by Arnon Woolfson of " You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet" by

Bachman–Turner Overdrive Bachman–Turner Overdrive, often abbreviated BTO, were a Canadian rock band from Winnipeg, Manitoba, founded by Randy Bachman, Robbie Bachman and Fred Turner in 1973. Their 1970s catalogue included five top-40 albums and six US top-40 sing ...

. Throughout 2004, ITV incorporated the song "Catch Me If You Can" which was written specifically for the programme by Woolfson and performed by singer-songwriter Louise Griffiths, who at the time was engaged to BAR driver

Jenson Button Jenson Alexander Lyons Button (born 19 January 1980) is a British racing driver. He won the 2009 Formula One World Championship when he drove for the Brawn GP team. After his F1 career, he became champion of the 2018 season of the Super G ...

. The final theme was " Lift Me Up" by Moby which ran from 2006 until 2008.

Website

The ITV-F1 website was launched in March 1998 as a joint venture between ITV, ''

F1 Racing ''GP Racing'', formerly ''F1 Racing'', is a monthly magazine focused on Formula One racing that launched in March 1996. Launch and development ''F1 Racing'' launch was the culmination of a year of preparation by UK publishers Haymarket. The ...

'' and Business Net at a cost of £700,000 for the year. Initial content was provided by ''F1 Racing'' with news updates from Murray Walker and Martin Brundle. The site was revamped in July 1999 with the addition of a superstore selling Formula One merchandise along with a multimedia content area and a loyalty club. The website was closed in January 2012 citing the joint televised deal between the BBC and Sky as the reason.

Sponsorship

Between 1997 and 2001, ITV's coverage was sponsored by

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an independent company unt ...

, who outbid RAC in December 1996. For the first year, the sponsorship promotion was created by Steve Pickard and directed by David Harris who were both from IMP. The sponsorship credits were based upon the speed and excitement of a Formula One team refuelling one of their racing cars with a circular theme involving the Texaco logo. Texaco placed £12 million in the first three years of their contract with ITV. The credits were directed by Darryl Goodrich and produced by Nicolas Unsworth. In September 2001,

Toyota is a Japanese multinational automotive manufacturer headquartered in Toyota City, Aichi, Japan. It was founded by Kiichiro Toyoda and incorporated on . Toyota is one of the largest automobile manufacturers in the world, producing about 10 ...

signed a four-year deal worth £25 million seeing off competition from Fosters, who previously sponsored the ITV-F1 website. The car manufacturer pulled out at the end of 2003 to focus on brand advertising. ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' signed a one-year £4.5 million deal to take over the sponsorship in 2004. In 2005, LG took over the sponsorship with a £3.5 million contract for a year. Their sponsorship included the promotion of the LG Mobile brand among the aim for younger viewers to watch the programming. For a period in 2006, Swiftcover.com sponsored the coverage from that year's San Marino Grand Prix. The screening of their sponsorship included Formula One drivers who were frustrated whilst speaking over the team radio to chickens in the pit lane. For 2007,

Honda is a Japanese public multinational conglomerate manufacturer of automobiles, motorcycles, and power equipment, headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. Honda has been the world's largest motorcycle manufacturer since 1959, reaching a producti ...

took over as the main sponsor which also included Honda's logo being placed onto the ITV-F1 website with the aim to attract younger viewers. The idents for Honda's sponsorship were produced by Honda's creative agency Wieden and Kennedy which built upon the car manufacturers indisputable passion for motor racing. For 2008,

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professiona ...

signed a deal that was negotiated by OMD UK as the final sponsor of the network's coverage. The amount of sponsorship money was unpublished but was thought to be around £5 million. The idents were developed by fallon with digital and mobile assets developed by Dare.

Scheduling

All races were broadcast live with occasional reruns in races where the start time was considered early for fans who had elected not to watch at an earlier time. Originally, qualifying sessions for races held in North America were not shown live and were instead screened as delayed coverage, usually beginning at 11:00pm. From 2005, these sessions were shown live, but on ITV2 and ITV3 and in 2006 and 2007 the sessions were screened live on ITV3 and

ITV4 ITV4 is a British free-to-air television channel which was launched on 1 November 2005. It is owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc, and is part of the ITV network. The channel has a line-up that consists of sports, cult classic ...

, with it being repeated on

ITV1 ITV1 (formerly known as ITV) is a British free-to-air public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the British media company ITV plc. It provides the Channel 3 public broadcast service across all of the United Kingdom except for t ...

later that night. In 2008, all qualifying sessions were screened live on ITV1. When qualifying was split into two sessions from 2003, ITV1 broadcast the Friday session as delayed coverage in a late night slot, usually at around midnight, except for the British Grand Prix, in which the Friday session was shown live. The Saturday session was broadcast live as normal. In 2004, when both qualifying sessions were held on Saturday, only the second session was shown live, with only brief highlights from the first session shown in the build-up. When qualifying for the Japanese Grand Prix that year was postponed to Sunday owing to a typhoon alert, neither session was shown live. For 2005, when qualifying was split into a Saturday–Sunday format, only the Saturday session was shown live, with brief highlights of the Sunday session shown in the race build-up. This format proved unpopular with fans and was scrapped following the first six races that year, with qualifying for the rest of that year reverting to just a single one-lap session on Saturday. The highlights programme lasted for one hour and would normally have started at around 11:35pm depending on the schedule.

Production

ITV's coverage was originally produced by Mach 1 Productions from 1997 to 1999. In 2000, production was taken over by Chrysalis Sport in association with United Productions. Prior to the start of the 2002 season, United Productions was taken over by Granada Media, making the coverage a Chrysalis/Granada co-production. Chrysalis became North One Television in 2004, which continued to co-produce the coverage with Granada until the end of 2005, before becoming the sole production company from 2006.

Awards

ITV were awarded three consecutive BAFTA awards for the Best Sports Programme for their coverage of the

2006 Hungarian Grand Prix The 2006 Hungarian Grand Prix (officially the Formula 1 Magyar Nagydíj 2006) was a Formula One motor race held on 6 August 2006 at the Hungaroring, Mogyoród, Pest, Hungary. It was the 13th race of the 2006 Formula One season. Jenson Button won ...

2007 Canadian Grand Prix The 2007 Canadian Grand Prix (formally the Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada 2007) was a Formula One motor race held on 10 June 2007 at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was the sixth race of the 2007 FIA Formula One World C ...

and the

Criticism

Showing of advertisements

A major criticism of ITV's coverage was they were permitted to show advertisements during the coverage which promoted a number of complaints from viewers. Many key events in races were not shown as live as a result over the years of the coverage, some of these included: Damon Hill overtaking Michael Schumacher for the race lead at the 1997 Hungarian Grand Prix (where he eventually finished second due to a hydraulic failure), Schumacher's retirement at the 1998 Japanese Grand Prix which handed the drivers' championship to Mika Häkkinen, Schumacher's crash at the 1999 Canadian Grand Prix, Schumacher's engine failures at the 2000 French Grand Prix and 2006 Japanese Grand Prix, Fernando Alonso's engine failure at the 2006 Italian Grand Prix, Lewis Hamilton's gearbox troubles at the 2007 Brazilian Grand Prix which cost him the championship to Kimi Räikkönen, and Räikkönen's engine failure at the 2008 European Grand Prix.

2005 San Marino Grand Prix coverage controversy

The most serious incident however occurred at the

2005 San Marino Grand Prix The 2005 San Marino Grand Prix (formally the Formula 1 Gran Premio Foster's di San Marino 2005) was a Formula One motor race held on 24 April 2005 at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola, Italy. The 62-lap race was the fourth round of the ...

when the broadcaster cut to a commercial break during the closing moments of the race whilst

Michael Schumacher Michael Schumacher (; ; born 3 January 1969) is a German former racing driver who competed in Formula One for Jordan, Benetton, Ferrari, and Mercedes. Schumacher has a joint-record seven World Drivers' Championship titles (tied with Lewis ...

and Fernando Alonso were engaged in a close on track duel for the race victory. This decision garnered 126 complaints from viewers. Ofcom ruled that ITV breached section 6.7 of the Rules on the Amount and Scheduling of Advertising. The broadcasters also had not shown the post-race press conference segment featuring

's comments about the race. ITV repeated the last three laps after the race and as a result of these complaints, the server on their website crashed. An on-air apology was made by Jim Rosenthal before the start of the next race in Spain two weeks later. In a 2022 interview on The Race's ''Bring Back V10s'' podcast looking back retrospectively at this particular race Ted Kravitz (who was ITV's pitlane reporter at the event) stated ITV held off going to the final commercial break because Jenson Button had been leading the race at certain points and the assumption that Schumacher would pass Alonso relatively quickly as the reason for the channel delaying an advert break until the closing laps and also criticised Ofcom for their response to complaints.

Coverage

Many fans of the sport criticised the coverage of the

when the programme had ended just after the race concluded. ITV made arrangements for the next race that if coverage overran, the show would continue to be shown on

Competition

In 2009, Ofcom ruled that ITV's handling of the competition for their last race broadcast had broken competition rules when 139,000 viewers rang a premium phone line charging £1 for a chance of winning the prize. The competition organiser Eckoh was not overseen by the broadcaster. In July 2009, ITV awarded the winner of the competition the prize that was not awarded because the winner's name was not published at the required time.

Legacy

ITV's F1 coverage helped to pave the way on how motor sport would be broadcast in the modern era. Many of the features such as Martin Brundle's gridwalk and the pre- and post-race analysis were all transferred when the coverage returned to the BBC.

References

External links

* * * {{Twitter 1997 British television series debuts 2008 British television series endings 1990s British sports television series 2000s British sports television series Formula One mass media ITV (TV network) original programming ITV Sport Television series by All3Media English-language television shows