Originally Posted by FOM Fan:
“Yes I have, and the impression i've got is that it's stuck in a rut, and yes there's definitely a 'laddish' atmosphere to it, which I don't like, but is understandable given the 9/10ths male presenting team, and given that Sky Sports have mostly done Football coverage before. Personally I think the coverage should go through a complete overhaul. The only thing i'd keep is Ted's notebook tbh. I can understand keeping Hill on, as he's actually an F1 champion, but personally If I wanted to freshen it up a bit, I'd drop Herbert and probably Brundle, in particular, I'd replace Brundle with a driver with more recent experience in F1, e.g. Di Resta or Davidson. I mean Brundle last contested an F1 race 20 years ago & frankly his commentary is more sounding like an angry granddad now tbh. I don't think his analysis adds much to it any more, it would be far better with a younger, post-2009 driver at the very least.”
Even by your standards this is woefully ignorant.
Sky have decades of experience of a whole range of sports: rugby, cricket, tennis, golf, boxing, darts, NFL and of course motor racing.
When they set up Sky Sports F1, not a single person on that team came from Sky's football department. The head of SSF1 Martin Turner was previously head of rugby union at Sky Sports, and before that a senior producer at FOM.
The team he assembled included a couple of APs he knew from his rugby team and one who had worked on Sky's Indycar coverage. He also poached FOM's VT director, and an associate producer who had been working on F1 for North One until 2008. Simon Lazenby had started as a motor sport presenter at Sky almost a decade earlier, hosting their Le Mans Series coverage among other things.
What you describe as being "laddish" is camaraderie - it is the sort of relationship among colleagues that you will find at any team in F1... in fact any team in racing. Many broadcasters have presented from the paddock in the past. They've all failed to reflect what being in a paddock is like, until Sky.
As for your assertion that the presentation team is 9/10ths male, which of Nathalie or Rachel are you suggesting is a man?