F1 Australian Grand Prix: Ads?

Not an F1 fan at all - but the most frequent comment about ITV's coverage I come across is the ads (exactly what do you miss? )

Anyhow, with the Aussie Grand Prix shown live overnight at the weekend, I'm just wondering if it was screened uninterupted.

If ad breaks were screened, did they actually contain any ads - or was it just trailers and PIFs.

I'm not a fan either, but judging by media coverage of F1 and its dull, processional predictability over the last few seasons, I doubt that you miss very much at all during the ad breaks...

I think its just that some people fail to graspe the concept of commercial television.

But during the night, ITV1 like other commercial channels show PIFs and trailers rather than adverts.

Yes, it seemed to be just trailers during the live coverage - but even the repeats only had a few adverts.

Just remember though its early days in the season and as the races move to a more civil time the amount of ads will grow.

Formula 1 is far more of an audience draw than the normal sellection of american fillers and ITV Nightscreen. There will be more ads than normal, after all that is the reason why ITV obtained the rights on the first place

It shouldn't be on commercial television anyway......

oh yes, what with formula one being the bastion of non-profit making, none-advertiser funded sport.

And as part of the sponsership deal, don't they have to show the sponsership sting so many times throughout the programme?
Could this be the reason they weren't to breaks even if they had no adverts. Though I did notice that they were showing actual ads during the qualifying, when they usually cut them off around 12 ish.

I don't mind them showing trailers etc where there should be breaks but cutting away to show trailers, especially during films is very strange, especially if they're not needed.

thing that annoys me about the ads on f1 is the double standard with football.

F1 races are only allowed to last 2 hours, so even if not all the laps have been completed the race will end after that time.

A football match lasts 1 hour 30 minutes plus 20 minutes half time - so the times are concurrent.

In F1 we have up to 5 ad breaks in that time period (roughly one every 20 minutes), sometimes two in the space of 10 minutes.

Yet in football we have two blocks of uninterrupted 45-minute action. We (f1 fans) aren't bemoaning ads on ITV1's F1 coverage, we are just annoyed that we get treated shoddily compared to footie viewers.

IIRC in Germany on RTE they split the screen and have the race action continuing in one corner whilst the ads are running on the rest of the screen.

I can't see the following happening: "and Rooney's on a break ... he's got two defenders to beat, Van Nistelrooy's with him... he must score... we'll find out after this break..."

I absolutely agree with you there.
Why can't they take a longer break before the programme, say 5-7 minutes before the pre show and a couple more breaks during the pre race to save them taking breaks through the coverage.
I suppose like at half time during a football match they could have an advert or two, and I do like that idea of having the screen spilt.

Of course the commentary would have to stop, and I suppose they would have the bottom section of the screen spare, unless of course they used it to display team information.

Could broadcasters not "timeshift" the race to fit in adverts?

ie: when adverts are on, the video is stored in a buffer, and can continue from the same point after the adverts- the downside would be that the further into the programme you are, the less live it becomes.