ITV

British broadcaster ITV was the home of Formula 1 from the start of the 1997 season after the rights to host coverage of the sport moved over from the BBC.

Initially the ITV F1 coverage was fronted by Jim Rosenthal, with the legendary Murray Walker joined in the commentary box by Martin Brundle. When Walker retired from the job, James Allen moved up from his role as a pitlane reporter to assume commentary duties while Steve Ryder would later take over from Rosenthal as the main presenter with former racer Mark Blundell as his right hand man.

While ITV has worked hard to improve the terrestrial coverage of Formula 1, it has come under fire for its use of advertisements, with its status as a commercial station leading to advert breaks during the racing action. This came to a head in 2005, when the station went to a commercial break with just three laps left in the San Marino Grand Prix as Michael Schumacher and Fernando Alonso diced for victory. More than 100 people complained to OFCOM, with the complaint later being upheld.

For 2008, ITV announced a new addition to its coverage with practice sessions being shown live via the ITV-F1.com website, but despite the success of British driver Lewis Hamilton since moving up from GP2, ITV F1 will come to an end at the end of 2008 with coverage returning to the BBC.

Aside from F1, ITV was home to the WRC for a number of years before it moved to digital channel Dave for 2008 although it remains the home for the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC), which will feature extensive live coverage on ITV4 during 2008.

ITV also held the rights to the British Superbike Championship in 2006 and 2007, but the series has now moved to Eurosport leaving F1 and BTCC to spearhead the companies motorsport activities – until the end of 2008 at least.