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Australians can thank Webber for Ten's F1 backdown
The Radical
Roar Rookie
27th April, 2012
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The Radical
Roar Rookie
27th April, 2012
2
2267 Reads

If Mark Web­ber never wins the World Cham­pi­onship, he can be proud of one thing. Single-handedly ensur­ing that Aus­tralians con­tinue to receive live For­mula One coverage.

The most insult­ing deci­sion of all time by Net­work Ten, to remove high def­i­n­i­tion broad­cast from mul­ti­chan­nel One, as well as delay­ing race cov­er­age in west­ern mar­kets, was met with uni­ver­sal condemnation.

Last weekend’s Bahrain Grand Prix was an eye­sore for all, except those bright indi­vid­u­als who used “alter­na­tive” sources for view­ing, either through the desire to watch F1 in HD, or under­stand­ably through dis­gust at Ten’s actions, refus­ing to be party to the network’s income.

A Channel Ten boycott fan­page resulted, attract­ing over 1700 sig­na­tures as of April 26.

While this page was a sign that fans are tak­ing finally tak­ing a defin­i­tive stand against greedy, rat­ings-obsessed execs, it appeared to have fallen on deaf ears.

Until Webber’s intervention.

He may be known as the only man to have fin­ished in fourth posi­tion in sea­son 2012, but he is surely everybody’s favourite num­ber four, after tak­ing to Twit­ter to knock some sense into the ‘brains trust’ at Ten.

On his page, Web­ber launched the most learned of appeals to the sta­tion, post­ing “Come on @tensporttv @onehd I hear out [sic] great Aus­tralian motor sport fans are not happy with resched­ul­ing of tim­ings of the GPs.”

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Pretty inspir­ing stuff, but that was noth­ing on his final and most telling plea, sim­ply stat­ing “#letsgolive.”

Heck, he can be my num­ber four anyday!

You could think of this as a per­sonal favour from Ten to Web­ber. After all, his many years of toil have played an inte­gral role in bring­ing in the viewers.

Lo and behold, we are greeted with the news that the west­ern mar­kets, namely West­ern Aus­tralia and South Aus­tralia, will not only have live cov­er­age restored, but also in glo­ri­ous high definition.

Ok, so the whole coun­try can’t yet enjoy F1 in HD, but at the very least, the entire coun­try can enjoy F1 live, so that’s something.

One vic­tory at a time, and even­tu­ally it will be all for (For­mula) One and (For­mula) One for all! (Though not One.)

San­ity will pre­vail, and the real­i­sa­tion of the boffins at Ten that this is 2012 should be the num­ber One priority.

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High definition is the only way when it comes to For­mula One, but for now, Aus­tralians have Mark Web­ber to thank for con­tin­u­ing to be afforded the most basic priv­i­lege of watch­ing him lay every­thing on the line in real time.

As for the V8 Super­cars, don’t even get me started on Chan­nel Seven’s mon­u­men­tal balls-up last Sun­day, when they lost trans­mis­sion with two laps remain­ing dur­ing the final race ever at New Zealand’s Hamil­ton Street Cir­cuit, before cut­ting to an ad-break, rejoin­ing cov­er­age with Mark Win­ter­bot­tom per­form­ing cel­e­bra­tory donuts.

Clearly Seven and V8 Super­cars would also ben­e­fit from Webber’s input.

Young chil­dren can proudly say “When I grow up, I want to be Mark Webber.”

If only every­body had a Mark Web­ber, the world would be a bet­ter place…

Editor’s note: Network Ten has contacted The Roar and advised that the decision to return live F1 coverage in Adelaide and Perth to ONE was made well before Mark Webber tweeted his comments. Mark’s tweet had no bearing on Ten’s decision, which was based on feedback from F1 fans over the preceding days.

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