Mercedes TV coveragegate

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Jolle
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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I remember at the beginning of the season it was quite clear that there was a policy to not show a Manor on track, because Bernies opinion that they were only there to clear the 50 million or so prize money from the year before.

There is so much money involved, there must be special instructions from Bernie to the FOM how and for how long he wants all the teams and sponsors on air.

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bdr529
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Joined: 08 Apr 2011, 19:49
Location: Canada

Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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bauc wrote: Sure, what Mercedes did is understandable and clearly they what to justify the money invested by the sponsors by giving them brand recognition and TV time, but I really think that it was just a race focus issue instead of some ''punishment'' plan by Berine
You hit the nail on the head, TV screen time and individual team sponsorship values($$$) are directly connected.
the more your cars appear on tv the more you money you can command for sponsorship.
its very similar to Home Depot or a large grocery store chain, the supplier pays more for their product to be at eye level then they do for the bottom shelve down by your feet
6 minutes of screen time for the last race is not going to cut it for Mercedes and their sponsors

Just_a_fan
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Joined: 31 Jan 2010, 20:37

Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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Jolle wrote: There is so much money involved, there must be special instructions from Bernie to the FOM how and for how long he wants all the teams and sponsors on air.
Bernie has only one goal - to ensure maximum profit for his paymasters at CVC. Anything else is fair game to him and he will burn anyone who gets in the way. He is a nasty little man, always has been, always will be.
If you are more fortunate than others, build a larger table not a taller fence.

Jolle
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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Just_a_fan wrote:
Jolle wrote: There is so much money involved, there must be special instructions from Bernie to the FOM how and for how long he wants all the teams and sponsors on air.
Bernie has only one goal - to ensure maximum profit for his paymasters at CVC. Anything else is fair game to him and he will burn anyone who gets in the way. He is a nasty little man, always has been, always will be.
Sport is great for business, business is rarely good for sport....

A very clever but indeed, a very nasty man

i70q7m7ghw
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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The weirdest thing for me was the camera watching Turn 2 at the start. Instead of following the two championship contenders having an on track battle, it followed some midfield car going wide!? We actually still don't have any clear footage of that battle apart from the on-boards...

alexx_88
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Joined: 28 Aug 2011, 10:46
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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IMO, Bernie is doing what's good for his business and, in the end, what's good for this sport. That means doing whatever is necessary to keep RB and Torro Rosso in the game, with the former battling at the top. If that means twisting Merc's hand a bit, then so be it. When you have an item that plays such a huge role in performance, the PUs, but which is outside of the teams' control, you're playing a very, very difficult game of balancing those forces. The big OEMs want to have an advantage for spending hundreds of millions on building the engines, while the customers complain that it's unfair for them to be penalized over something that's outside of their control. Both parties are right, but since you can't have F1 without any of the two, a compromise must be reached.

Nobody is going to benefit if these two teams leave the sport. And, let's be serious, people are not lining up to enter F1. The last serious entry was Mercedes, 6 years ago! Since then, viewership has declined, sponsorship values have declined, F1 has declined. F1 needs top drivers battling it out in closely matched machinery to produce exciting races and reverse this trend, not technical prowess that's locked in place by development regulations. Nobody, ever, in the history of sport, has turned on the TV to watch stuff that he already knows or he doesn't care about which, in this case, would be the superior performance of Merc's PUs.

Richard
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Joined: 15 Apr 2009, 14:41
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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The coverage from Japan was poorly directed generally, it wasn't just Merc.

We often saw random shots, a few without a car in sight. There was that sequence with the side camera view of a car being overtaken, except the move took place on the other side out of view. Then there was the loooong look out of Alonso's rear looking cam, yes it was nice to see a midfield battle but unimaginative directing to to show a single camera shot for so long.

Then there were the bizarre situations when the on screen graphic didn't match the picture. We'd get graphics showing the gap closing or widening between two drivers but the view was of a different contest. Then the several occasions where we had the circuit graphic showing a driver's position on track closing on a driver in the pits but not bothering to show the view down the straight so we could see which of them actually got to turn to 1 first. I can't recall seeing that view once in the race.

IMHO The lack of Merc screen time was more about poor directing, it was a cockup rather than conspiracy.

ps -Why do we have to have "gate" appended to a noun any time something goes wrong? Most "gates" turn out to be "stuff happens", people get things wrong sometimes. Or as Forrest Gump would say, life's a box of chocolates.

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dans79
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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alexx_88 wrote:Nobody, ever, in the history of sport, has turned on the TV to watch stuff that he already knows or he doesn't care about which, in this case, would be the superior performance of Merc's PUs.
Your bias is showing here. Merc fans are turning in and droves as where RBR fans when Vettel was winning every race.
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sgth0mas
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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dans79 wrote:
alexx_88 wrote:Nobody, ever, in the history of sport, has turned on the TV to watch stuff that he already knows or he doesn't care about which, in this case, would be the superior performance of Merc's PUs.
Your bias is showing here. Merc fans are turning in and droves as where RBR fans when Vettel was winning every race.
Im not sure how hes showing bias.

Nobody wants to watch a race that pans out the same as the previous 10. RBR got boring to watch even to their fans...and they were never this dominant.

The german GP cancellation is enough to show that merc fans really arent that into it anymore.

wesley123
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Joined: 23 Feb 2008, 17:55

Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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alexx_88 wrote: Nobody, ever, in the history of sport, has turned on the TV to watch stuff that he already knows or he doesn't care about which, in this case, would be the superior performance of Merc's PUs.
People often watch the news.
"Bite my shiny metal ass" - Bender

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dans79
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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sgth0mas wrote:
Im not sure how hes showing bias.

Nobody wants to watch a race that pans out the same as the previous 10. RBR got boring to watch even to their fans...and they were never this dominant.
I take it you didn't watch the 2011, or 2013 seasons then?
sgth0mas wrote: The german GP cancellation is enough to show that merc fans really arent that into it anymore.
So, you have to be German to like merc? Give me a few moments I need to call a bunch of people I know, and let them know.
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Facts Only
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Joined: 03 Jul 2014, 10:25

Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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dans79 wrote:
sgth0mas wrote:
Im not sure how hes showing bias.

Nobody wants to watch a race that pans out the same as the previous 10. RBR got boring to watch even to their fans...and they were never this dominant.
I take it you didn't watch the 2011, or 2013 seasons then?
sgth0mas wrote: The german GP cancellation is enough to show that merc fans really arent that into it anymore.
So, you have to be German to like merc? Give me a few moments I need to call a bunch of people I know, and let them know.
I tend to wonder if German F1 fans find it a bit of a turn off that the Merc F1 Team and Engine House are based in the UK and that there star driver is English and the German driver has become effectively a No. 2? I wouldnt think it would generate a lot of National pride in the team.

I'm sure people will now point out that the bills are paid from Germany so its a German team but to the casual (and cynical) fan the flip side of that is that a German company are paying some British people to do something (winning in F1) they couldn't do themselves.... Controversial! (well I'm sure people will read some sort of ridiculous out of context nationalism into it)

As for the race at the time it seemed like there was some really bad editiong going on, but I didnt think of a conspiracy. If its true though Sauber and FIF1 might as well not turn up for the rest of the season.
Last edited by Facts Only on 01 Oct 2015, 17:53, edited 2 times in total.
"A pretentious quote taken out of context to make me look deep" - Some old racing driver

sgth0mas
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Joined: 18 Mar 2015, 03:42

Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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dans79 wrote:
sgth0mas wrote:
Im not sure how hes showing bias.

Nobody wants to watch a race that pans out the same as the previous 10. RBR got boring to watch even to their fans...and they were never this dominant.
I take it you didn't watch the 2011, or 2013 seasons then?
sgth0mas wrote: The german GP cancellation is enough to show that merc fans really arent that into it anymore.
So, you have to be German to like merc? Give me a few moments I need to call a bunch of people I know, and let them know.
Answer the question...how is he being biased.

I watched both of those seasons, neither were as dominant as the 2014-2015 period. There was also a break between those seasons of even less dominance.

Again, how was he being biased?

tok-tokkie
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Joined: 08 Jun 2009, 16:21
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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There was an opinion piece in the Guardian about it.
In fact, we have seen just 16 minutes of Mercedes cars in the past two races, while they were on screen for a full 30 in the race before, in Italy. The pictures we see on TV are governed not by Sky or the BBC but by Ecclestone’s Formula One Management’s feed.

This immediately triggered a conspiracy theory, of which there are plenty in this most gossipy of sports. Ecclestone – to employ an F1 term – went purple earlier in the season when Mercedes refused to provide engines for Red Bull, whose break from Renault was already reaching the decree nisi stage, and whose future in the sport is in considerable doubt.

At the Belgium Grand Prix in Spa, a month ago, Ecclestone had warned the German car makers about their position. He said: “They would rather not, I think, but they ought to think carefully about not giving one [an engine]. But it didn’t change minds at the top table at Mercedes.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2 ... s-hamilton

Final paragraph:
Ecclestone may be 85 next month but he hasn’t lost his incredible grip on F1. What happened at Suzuka on Sunday hurt not just Mercedes but the entire sport. I just hope all the TV viewers don’t switch off. As they did at the end of The Truman Show.

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dans79
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Re: Mercedes TV coveragegate

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sgth0mas wrote:
Answer the question...how is he being biased.
If you can't read between the lines and tell that's an anti Merc dominance bias, i feel sorry for you.
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