http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/57
Petition to bring the Sky deal to Parliment. Needs 100,000 signatures.
"Victory"? It's not a matter of winning and losing. Goal is to allow serious fans to follow their sport for free (or losest possible cost) and legally.Pup wrote:Just out of curiosity, at what point do you declare victory in this plan? Is it when the BBC's numbers fall enough that their already tenuous support for F1 drops to zero and they cancel their contract entirely, or is it after Sky realizes that their subscriber base isn't rising enough so they decide to supplement their revenue with adverts during the race?donskar wrote:I want to sincerely urge you technical boffins to work together (perhaps PMs?) to work out a workaround that is understandable, accessible, and usable by the average F1 fan. The ideal goal is to have thousands (at least) F1 fans watching the races FREE -- and legally. I ask not for myself: my 70-hour weeks provide me with enough filthy lucre to buy the cable package that includes Speed.
That 'serious' qualifier is interesting, but serious or not, I'm not sure of the ethics involved. Mind you, I don't claim a sainthood in that regard, but I'm self aware enough not to wrap that behavior in Robin Hood's cloak. No one here is fighting the man, or providing alms for the poor. As I've said before, F1 isn't a necessity of life, and there's no duty, public or private, to provide gratis F1 for the masses.donskar wrote:Goal is to allow serious fans to follow their sport for free (or lo[w]est possible cost) and legally.
Uh no, it needs an average of 280 a day. It's currently achieving about 3000 a day.Diesel wrote:This thing is really gaining steam:-
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/57
It needs to average 3000 signs a day to achieve the 100,000 before it's close date, if it continues at the current rate it'll make it no problems.
Signed.spinmastermic wrote:http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/57
Petition to bring the Sky deal to Parliment. Needs 100,000 signatures.
no idea where I got that 3000 number from, still if it keeps up at that rate it'll do it in approx a months time.beelsebob wrote:Uh no, it needs an average of 280 a day. It's currently achieving about 3000 a day.Diesel wrote:This thing is really gaining steam:-
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/57
It needs to average 3000 signs a day to achieve the 100,000 before it's close date, if it continues at the current rate it'll make it no problems.
Before you make that sort of serious accusation: "hijacking . . . to get someone to provide you a free stream" you might at least have the maturity to read my posts. I stated clearly that the financial issue does not concern me. Thanks to Toyota, my income makes the cost of getting Speed TV on cable trivial to me. I have no personal ax to grind here at all. How about you?Pup wrote:That 'serious' qualifier is interesting, but serious or not, I'm not sure of the ethics involved. Mind you, I don't claim a sainthood in that regard, but I'm self aware enough not to wrap that behavior in Robin Hood's cloak. No one here is fighting the man, or providing alms for the poor. As I've said before, F1 isn't a necessity of life, and there's no duty, public or private, to provide gratis F1 for the masses.donskar wrote:Goal is to allow serious fans to follow their sport for free (or lo[w]est possible cost) and legally.
But that's a broader, tangential discussion. If a Texan wants free F1, that's cool. I'm just not sure what that has to do with the BBC/Sky deal. The BBC was never providing F1 to the world, however broad their reach. They have gone to some trouble, in fact, to make sure that we in the US don't have BBC access. So your call to arms sounds, to me at least, more like you're hijacking the BBC issue to use our UK friends' ire as a means to get someone to provide you a free stream. And for me, too, so I actually wish you luck.
Rich is right here, but what some, including the person who started the petition on the HM Gov website seem to have forgotten is that showing races on BBC, ITV, Ch4 or Ch5 or indeed the tens of channels on Freeview is not Free to Air, it requires a subscription, it's called the TV license.richard_leeds wrote:As far as I can make out, F1 is not free. They charge a lot of people who have never watched a race. All those Vodaphone customers are paying huge amounts to McLaren for example. So one could argue that a subscription service is fairer.
However, teams will become more reliant on Bernie. The cash is being further concentrated in the hands of a few (ie Sky, Bernie, CVC) instead of many (teams & sponsors).
You've said that on numerous occasions, yes. But money isn't at issue, since there's no way you can get the BBC feed in the US right now no matter how much you pay. Hey, I'd love to get it too, and would have no qualms about watching it since I wouldn't be depriving the BBC of income by doing so. I just say be open about the motives, that's all. And if I'm wrong about them, I'm wrong. The distinction for me is that while I might take advantage of a stream were it available, I would not feel comfortable about encouraging others to break the law for my benefit.donskar wrote:I stated clearly that the financial issue does not concern me. Thanks to Toyota, my income makes the cost of getting Speed TV on cable trivial to me.
Surely many of the sponsors target the UK market along with the rest of the world, but I'm talking about those who are primarily targeting the UK. What I'm getting at is that if the UK is, say, 5% of the F1 market, and the Sky deal reduced that number by, worst case, half, then the average sponsor is only looking at a 2-3% drop in penetration overall, which is within the yearly fluctuations of the viewership anyway. And of the viewers who drop out, you of course have to ask if they were ever in the sponsor's demographics to begin with. That is, Mercedes or Tag Heuer probably don't care if someone who can't afford the price of Sky drops out of the market, harsh as that may sound; though someone like Santander might. That's what I meant when I suggested that the Sky viewership might well be more valuable to many sponsors, even if it's smaller.