BTCC General Discussion Thread

[S griffin]

Another driver we can add in the gentlemanly bracket. Good on you Smith. Let's hope you can emulate Colin and become the second driver from the Emerald Isle to become champion.

[porsche962fan]

and let's not forget Plato insulting a lot of drivers who are at front in reverse grids


at the end of the day who knows maybe many of those drivers will put up a stiff aggressive drive towards Plato but be much more gentle to Turks when title will go to the wire ...

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by S griffin

Another driver we can add in the gentlemanly bracket. Good on you Smith. Let's hope you can emulate Colin and become the second driver from the Emerald Isle to become champion.

I put it down to the way we're brought up in Ireland

Seriously though, it's quite clear that the performance of that WSR BMW is more Colin Turkington than the car. He is head and shoulders above anyone else in the BTCC and possibly among the top 2 or 3 touring car drivers in the world at the moment. In other sports, where equipment is not involved, the capabilities of the individual are more apparent and adversaries have no option but to respect/admire their accomplishments. It would be nice, for a change, to hear Jason Plato acknowledge that in Colin. I actually think most people would respect him more for it.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Originally Posted by davyboy

He is head and shoulders above anyone else in the BTCC and possibly among the top 2 or 3 touring car drivers in the world at the moment.

When you wrote possibly, you meant almost certainly

[steve_r]

Good lad Smith. A driver saying something refreshingly honest, instead of playing silly games.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by steve_r

Good lad Smith. A driver saying something refreshingly honest, instead of playing silly games.

And often just letting his driving do the talking for him.
Probably the complete antithesis of Jason Potato...

[Bernard Bram]

Can somebody point me to the race videos on youtube? Can't find them anymore, only highlights from the weekend. I did watch every race replay up to Croft on youtube this season. Did they delete the videos?

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Bernard Bram

Can somebody point me to the race videos on youtube? Can't find them anymore, only highlights from the weekend. I did watch every race replay up to Croft on youtube this season. Did they delete the videos?

Yep... apparently ITV have had them removed... and if somebody reloads them, they can expect to get something from ITV legal.

[Craner Curves]

I hope this has no impact on teams using the footage for their own video wrapups. I know they charge a good few hundred quid for a set length of video for a team/driver's use.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Craner Curves

I hope this has no impact on teams using the footage for their own video wrapups. I know they charge a good few hundred quid for a set length of video for a team/driver's use.

Things appear to have gone fairly quiet over the last few months as regards team updates on youTube. I notice WSR, Welch and RAR haven't shoved anything up in a while. Real pity that... I really used to enjoy the fly on the wall stuff after each event.

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Seems a bit unnecessary from TOCA. Yes, TV rights and all that for the full races, but the teams PR surely gives the series more of an audience, and I doubt that the teams would want to give the series a bad name! Alan Gow is like the second coming of Bernie, except Bernie is still here, and Mr Gow is just a pretender really! Although saying that, Bernie would probably like the idea of a reversed grid, boost equalisation, and success ballast!

[BillWiskins]

Originally Posted by davyboy

Things appear to have gone fairly quiet over the last few months as regards team updates on youTube. I notice WSR, Welch and RAR haven't shoved anything up in a while. Real pity that... I really used to enjoy the fly on the wall stuff after each event.

Indeed - I was a big fan of Welch Motorsport's videos particularly. I wondered why they'd stopped posting them, but I suppose now it all makes sense. RAR used to post a fair few clips to Facebook, but now that I think about it, I don't recall any for some time.

The result for me of all this taking down of unofficial video etc., is that I'm significantly less likely to want to attend the Brands finale. I love being there in person as much as the next guy, but not even Brands allows you to keep an eye on everything. A big part of race day for me is getting home and catching up on all the stuff I missed because I was elsewhere on the circuit/watching some other thing/falling over in the mud. I barely watch anything on TV so I don't have a fancy recorder-box, and if the weather is anything like it has been for the last two years I think my decision has been swayed well and truly towards a nice warm living room and the telly..!

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Biscuits In A Red Bull

Seems a bit unnecessary from TOCA. Yes, TV rights and all that for the full races, but the teams PR surely gives the series more of an audience, and I doubt that the teams would want to give the series a bad name! Alan Gow is like the second coming of Bernie, except Bernie is still here, and Mr Gow is just a pretender really! Although saying that, Bernie would probably like the idea of a reversed grid, boost equalisation, and success ballast!

Well Alan Gow and ITV certainly seem to be taking a leaf out of Bernie's book in their approach to multi platform media

[Bramzel]

I see a whole lot of assuming going on. Do we have any indication whatsoever that their lowered YouTube activity is caused by TOCA asking them not to? I honestly can't imagine that, after all a YouTube channel ripping and uploading full races is something completely different.

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by Bramzel

I see a whole lot of assuming going on. Do we have any indication whatsoever that their lowered YouTube activity is caused by TOCA asking them not to? I honestly can't imagine that, after all a YouTube channel ripping and uploading full races is something completely different.

We don't know what they've been told. Maybe it's just a co-incidence that the team 'fly on the wall' pieces have ceased at the same time as ITV have been sending their letters out. Who knows.

For what it's worth, I found this document which was distributed to the Formula Ford teams at the Donington meeting. Maybe the BTCC teams received something similar.

[Bramzel]

Ah, now there's a serious indication. If the BTCC teams indeed got that letter as well (which seems likely due to the title of the document) that's a rather royal middle finger from TOCA/ITV to the teams...

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

It is TOCA. As I've explained, I was formerly a big contributor to Youtube's motorsport videos (having 1 I'm proud of being shared by Autosport+ ) and was in contact with a few guys who uploaded BTCC clips. One, to prevent other users from "pirating" his own BTCC clips, added his own watermark. ITV noticed this, and called him up, asking him to remove the clips in question, as TV rights were violated. He asked the ITV man why they were doing this, and he said (paraphrasing) that Alan Gow is attempting to copy the FOM approach by removing the majority of online clips that could harm TV rights/coverage etc etc

So, unless the ITV bloke was lying, TOCA are behind it.

[VIVA GT]

Originally Posted by davyboy

We don't know what they've been told. Maybe it's just a co-incidence that the team 'fly on the wall' pieces have ceased at the same time as ITV have been sending their letters out. Who knows.

For what it's worth, I found this document which was distributed to the Formula Ford teams at the Donington meeting. Maybe the BTCC teams received something similar.

Wow! To me (as a total outsider), that seems a very heavy-handed document! (You can't even film your own car or have ownership of your own in-car camera footage...)

[Biscuits In A Red Bull]

Will the same apply to FIA F4?

[EastonNeston]

Those seem a pretty normal set of terms for most sports tv rights.

You should see the football league ones :-)

[davyboy]

Originally Posted by VIVA GT

Wow! To me (as a total outsider), that seems a very heavy-handed document! (You can't even film your own car or have ownership of your own in-car camera footage...)

It's very draconian and makes it difficult for a team to fully leverage social media. As I said elsewhere, this is serious blind spot / weakness that Alan Gow has. He's adopting the same approach the record companies took to streaming music - i.e. we don't understand it, so let's shut it down and force people to do things the old way. Unfortunately we saw how that ended up. It's a real pity because I credit Alan Gow with being a visionary in many facets of motor sport... but this is a serious and growing problem going forward.

[FIRE]

I can understand ITV doesn't want their full length coverage on Youtube. Officially BTCC should agree with that, unofficially they should be happy with it. It's resulting in more interest for the series.

[Bramzel]

Imagine the WTCC shutting down Tom Coronels channel for those reasons, utter stupidity.

[Sodemo]

I can't see why ITV don't stream the full race content themselves, on their ITV player or whatever they have for that. People want to watch full races, not 30 second highlights of the start and then the winner crossing the finishing line.

[porsche962fan]

Originally Posted by Sodemo

I can't see why ITV don't stream the full race content themselves, on their ITV player or whatever they have for that. People want to watch full races, not 30 second highlights of the start and then the winner crossing the finishing line.

and they could do it in 240p so the fans would still buy the DVD...