Copied and pasted from Digital Spy.
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showt...65431&page=110
“In short: The newspaper is pro-Tory. It’s F1 editor is openly wanting F1 to go to Sky. Hence, the article is best ignored as it is inaccurate throughout.”
1) “Its contract to screen F1 for five seasons until 2013 will cost £300m.
- incorrect. It is well known that the contract costs BBC about £200m over 5 years, with the next contract increased to £235m. I guess that may factor in production costs, but as far as I know they are minimal and definitely would not amount to an extra £20m per year.
2) “At about £3m per race, it is the most expensive BBC programme being broadcast.”
- incorrect. As the first point of £300m is wrong, the second point is also wrong. At 19 races, each race costs BBC about £2.1m. In my book, that is not £3m. The point “it is the most expensive BBC programme being broadcast” is factually incorrect. You cannot compare 5 hours of programming on BBC1 at £3m with a drama at 9pm on BBC1 which typically costs about £600,000. In fact, going on the £2.1m figure, F1 costs BBC about £420,000 per hour. I’ve even excluded things like the F1 Forum and Practice with that figure and all the other stuff they do, in reality the figure will be lower than that. Some dramas on BBC1 only get 4.5m viewers and cost £600,000, whereas with F1 you get you’re hard to reach 16 to 34 audience, it doesn’t cost much and you get at least 4.5m viewers on average per race. Everyone wins.
3) “An insider said the cost of covering 19 F1 races was more than the entire budget of BBC4.”
- again depends on whether the £60m per year figure is correct, because its the first time I’ve seen it. BBC4 costs £55m per year, so if the £60m per year figure for F1 is wrong, then the entire article is spouted with inaccuracy and riddles.
4) “The source said the BBC did not intend to rebid for the F1 contract when it expired in November 2013.”
- in which case, why did you have a scaremongering title saying ‘BBC AXES FORMULA ONE’. Axes suggests you’re terminating the contract early. No early termination is being seeked hear if you are to believe the article. Besides, they would not rebid for a contract an entire one and a half years before you would even begin discussing it.
5) “It has emerged that F1 costs £1 a head for every viewer, compared with the average 7p an hour broadcast cost for BBC1 and BBC2.”
-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets…rts_rights.pdf ; page 35
- Formula 1 2009 – hit in every category, only one of two events to do this.
- as a said at the time (page 36) : “[✂ Redacted] is the outstanding success, significantly exceeding all of its reach, average audience and cost per viewer hour targets” – is almost certainly referring to F1
- hence this on Page 4: “Formula 1 has been a significant success in 2009/10, exceeding all of its reach, average audience and cost per viewer hour target”
- report was done earlier this year into the process of acquiring sports rights
- see page 33: “Formula 1 and Premier League highlights attract a younger (16-34) male audience that is otherwise hard to reach….”
6) “Apart from the British Grand Prix, most races attract between 2m and 4m viewers.”
-
http://forums.autosport.com/index.php?showtopic=112436 – enough said at this point
- only one race has dipped under 4m, and that was because it was against a Ford Super Sunday triple header on Sky Sports
7) “It costs more for each hour than even the most expensive dramas such as South Riding, Cranford and Doctor Who.”
- again, this depends on whether the £60m figure is actually true. I mean, why have we only just heard about this now? They’ve had the rights for 2 and a half years, yet we’ve only just heard about the £60m figure despite numerous source saying £40m.
“The proposal to dump F1 will be among a package of measures to be put to the BBC Trust in the Autumn.”
- so only towards the end of the article do you actually tell us that they haven’t axed it, despite the headline saying to the contrary?
In short: The newspaper is pro-Tory. It’s F1 editor is openly wanting F1 to go to Sky. Hence, the article is best ignored as it is inaccurate throughout.
---------------
from the comments section of the F1Fanatic article.
Lock plz.