Natalie Pinkham was hosting from Isleworth rather than Melbourne this weekend. Photo: Sky Sports
Some strange reports in the world of Formula 1 recently. and I'm not talking about Christian Horner's text messages. Sky Sports announced with some fanfare that it would cover the next three Formula One races from a British studio rather than on the track, and this weekend's Melbourne Grand Prix was held in an unfashionable area of west London, as is the upcoming Melbourne Grand Prix. The Japanese and Chinese Grand Prix.
However, this was presented as a special treat, since Natalie Pinkham and company will be working in the same studio that the broadcaster uses for broadcasting Monday Night Football.
<р>Sharing the studio with the football boys was presented by Sky as an impressive and exciting experience for Formula One fans, as if it were being broadcast from the Royal Albert Hall, Madison Square Garden or some other legendary entertainment venue, rather than from that location , where Gary Neville criticizes botched offside traps and the unemployed football managers who try to help them find work.
It's a big studio, no doubt, and they have a lot of screens to project graphics onto. But these days it's the same at Euston Station and people aren't as easy to please as they used to be. For many fans, the drama and spontaneity provided by on-track hosts was lost, and many were unhappy. If it's just a studio, it could be Melbourne, Rotterdam or anywhere. Surely one of the main attractions of an international sport like Formula 1 is the different tastes, sights and sounds of each country? And one of the reasons to turn on, especially during antisocial hours, is a little exotic.
New season of Formula 1, new studio 🎥😍
Take a look with Natalie, Karun and Naomi at our new studio, which will debut this year. weekend! 🇦🇺 pic.twitter.com/08iJo5pyQq
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) March 21, 2024
With no disrespect to Pinkham and her studio mates Karun Chandhok and Naomi Schiff — and while acknowledging that Sky did have boots on the ground in the form of Martin Brundle, David Croft, Rachel Brooks and Ted Kravitz — there was an unmistakable sense of «How bad is the concept studios? Feeling cheap and lacking a racing atmosphere. How could Sky be so wrong?» — asked one fan.
“We will have to perform in the pit lane so that you can feel the atmosphere of the weekend and the paddock. Feels detached. Like in the early 90s, when the Grand Prix abandoned the Grand Prix five minutes before the start,” said another.
«It's a shame to sell cost savings as an exciting new benefit,» one fan said online, while another fumed: «We're not paying outrageous prices for Sky Sports F1 just so you can't be bothered to feature racing based on actual racing «.
You get the picture. Especially in the gloomy British months, one of the joys of television sport must be transported to distant lands: the somber greens and blues of the Gabba Ashes Test match, the red clay courts of the French Open, the lush, sophisticated manicure. Masters of Augusta. You can put all the Carlos Sainz or Red Bull graphics you want on a huge digital screen, but it's not quite the same, is it?
And while there will be people who think Chandhok is messing around with The giant iPad is the latest in entertainment, but there will be people who aren't quite satisfied with it. Calling it all “augmented reality,” as Skye does, seems like a stretch; and I'm not even sure there are words to describe the strange children's television spectacle in which host Craig Slater runs around the studio pretending to be a broomstick car.
Out of context Craig Slater 😅 pic.twitter.com/OYp1Byra1N
— Sky Sports F1 (@SkySportsF1) March 22, 2024
Motor racing fans can happily pay Sky a couple, or maybe not. a hundred pounds a year for their Formula One, but they have a reasonable expectation that they will get a Rolls-Royce product for their money if they do so. That's not entirely true, and as with any used car purchase, there's a distinct, depressing feeling that you've been sold a lemon.
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