IMO Anderson is a real find for the BBC. Eg – Kravitz spots a new front wing, talks to someone at the team and then reports whatever they told him about it. Anderson looks at a new front wing and works out what the changes are trying to do, reports that and also discusses the strengths and weaknesses of that particular solution. He may not have Ted’s clear diction but the content is untouchable. If you’ve had a chance to listen to him during the free practice coverage then his insight and comment there is fantastic – he gets a bit more air time than during the race coverage.
As for the Beeb cutting F1 – it’s still a massive audience for them on a Sunday afternoon, they sell their coverage to umpteen different countries who still take every race live so the BBC team needs to be there. Also AIUI the biggest cost was the levy to Bernie rather than the cost of filming their bits in the pit lane, so the deal with Sky has taken a huge lump sum out of their budget. You’d hope that whoever then signed up to this deal to 2018 got some sort of sign off on the costs before they went public and announced the ‘live F1 continues to 2018’ news.
Continued ‘free’ coverage beyond 2018 will depend on the new Concorde agreement as much as anything else – whether the teams (& their sponsors) decide that it’s in their commercial interests to have live races seen by the largest audience or to lose exposure in lieu of cash from a pay TV deal. Sadly the fans will always come 2nd to their ability to generate income and continue racing.
