BBC / Sky Sports

[i70q7m7ghw]

If this doesn't affect you I suggest you go do one. ThanksYou're just baiting for an argument. Let us brits do what we do best and have a good moan. You've had your say, made your point, now just leave it.

No baiting, just tough love. I think you guys should just buck up and deal with it. You'll have to get over it eventually, so why not start now?

The BBC deal you guys have had the past few years was a fantasy anyway. There was no way it could last. And it's the very fact that F1 is important to Britain that dooms you to pay. It's just the way the market works - the more popular the sport, the more it will cost. Sport is run by capitalists, and if it weren't Bernie, it would be someone else.

Last few years? F1 has always been free to air in the UK, get your facts straight.

Oh and don't worry, I'm already working on a solution, and it doesn't include paying £700 a year.

I just wish we got the coverage the Brits do here in the US. We get a cut down grid walk, no real interviews, and cut down podium and after the race press conference coverage. I'd love to get the same level you guys do!

It's a certaintly that the Sky coverage will be sub-par. They don't need to do a good job because SKY have the monopoly in the UK, I think that's what you all don't seem to understand.

We don't like SKY because a) they charge extortionate amounts of money b) they still have adverts c) the production quality of SKY tv/sports is poor. As you've all said, we have no choice now but to get the SKY coverage, so they don't need to make it good, it's like it or lump it.

This is what SKY (News Corp) do, they just buy everything so nobody else can have it, and then up the prices.

I would welcome back ITV + adverts with open arms over this Sky deal.

[forty-two]

+1 on welcoming back itv coverage, even with ads.

We do have a choice though. It is possible to switch off.

Murdoch will not be seeing a penny from me!

[JamesS]

I've just been doing a bit of casual browsing to see how many subscribers have Sky Sports. It's in the order of 4-5 million, which is a 0.9% audience share across a week of programming. This has been declining in recent years (most likely due to the recent recession).

Compare that to BBC One / BBC Two, which is in EVERY UK household, 24 million or so, across the week it's audience share is 21%+.

Even with an extra million pounds per team per year, this will surely dent sponsor prospects due to massively reduced viewing figures?

[forty-two]

Thinking about it, weren't there some trials of 3d cameras on f1 cars some 2-3 years ago?

Surely this format couldn't be used with the beeb's transmission, so perhaps this has been looming for longer than we thought.

I feel shunned by the teams, and robbed by this decision by the bbc.

[Tozza Mazza]

Not happy.

I can't afford it. I don't want to pay it. Why Should I pay it?

If Sky can justify £700 a year for a service I don't feel I need, then they can try. Somehow I can't see it happening.

[JamesS]

Thinking about it, weren't there some trials of 3d cameras on f1 cars some 2-3 years ago?

Surely this format couldn't be used with the beeb's transmission, so perhaps this has been looming for longer than we thought.

I feel shunned by the teams, and robbed by this decision by the bbc.

The BBC can broadcast in 3D, they did a 3D transmission during the Wimbledon Finals.

It went over their HD channel.

[forty-two]

I never thought I would say this, but come back Max, all is forgiven.

I bet he would have had something to say about this!

[Sawtooth-spike]

I feel shunned by the teams, and robbed by this decision by the bbc.

This Sums it up for me. I watched quali yesterday, but it didnt get the same joy out of it.

[Derek]

This is disgraceful how can they get away with this
sky will ruin F1 weekends with more ads than itv ever had
and pointless 2hour pre shows

Wit each passing year Bernie gets even more greedy
has he not milked enough out of F1

I will not be buying a sky box any time soon so any body that has
a solution for me please send me a pm

[Pup]

....

removed content because it was in response to edited post

But my response made you chuckle, didn't it?

fwiw, I've changed my mind about this. We should all be paid to sit through McLaren's excruciating strategy choices.

[munudeges]

I'm pretty familiar with how F1 works. See, there are these cars, and a bunch of guys get together and drive them around a track as fast as they can without killing anyone too often...

I love people who write stuff that has no relevance to what's been written. It tells me what their argument is......

Your formula assumes that A) viewership will fall, B) that the fall will be significant enough to affect advertisers, C) that the Sky viewership won't be more valuable to advertisers even if it is smaller, and D) that even if money is lost by individual team sponsorships that it won't be made up for in added broadcast money.

A) Viewership will fall because subscriber channels have less viewers. Barriers to entry and all that.

B) Yes, it will. Any fall in viewers makes advertisers sensitive, and in the case of F1 sponsors they want coverage. Why on Earth do you think DRS was put in and overtaking has been such an issue? To increase viewing figures.

C) Why would Sky viewership be more valuable when there are less of them? A lot less.

D) Broadcast money runs into tens of millions. Sponsorship money, hundreds of millions. Do the maths.

Show me the evidence you have for those things, and I'll buy the argument that this move is bad for F1 as a whole.

If you can't see how the above is bad, and how all this happened before with Indycar and other sports, there's not much that can be done.

The only evidence we have one way or the other right now is that the teams are all behind the move, and that's not a point in your favor, I'm afraid.

They're not. They were told and are stuck with it.

I'm not sure why you think that if the UK has to pay more for F1, that the rest of the world will, too.

Because the UK runs F1 and it's based there. As simple as that. Tens of millions also get free-to-air coverage from the UK so there's more at stake than the UK and any coverage they get from Sky will have to be paid for as Sky try and make money from it.

I know a lot of people would love this to be about a lot of British people stamping their feet, but it isn't, and as I said it shows a lack of knowledge about how the sport works and is paid for.

[Just_a_fan]

As an experiment, I recorded the race today and watched it a couple of hours later. It was a great race, no doubt, but not having access to the additional info available during the live race (live timing from the FIA etc) really ruined it for me - I've grown used to being able to monitor who is doing what and how the gaps are changing etc.

Presumably "fans" don't do this sort of thing which is why the BBC (who are doing this all for the fans' benefit apparently) considers it's ok to only show half of the races live...

[doink]

It's a certaintly that the Sky coverage will be sub-par. They don't need to do a good job because SKY have the monopoly in the UK, I think that's what you all don't seem to understand.

I think that Sky will do a very good job of it, unfortunately... I got sky after they took the Cricket in 06' immediately after an Ashes win at home but they have really invested in it, and I hate to say it, it's very, very good. The BBC coverage will be hard to beat though and it is a real shame, but we cannot blame sky for this, it's the BBC who cut the costs in the first place.

It sickens me that this is such a similar situation. After the most exciting season in race terms, that has, most likely, brought hundreds of thousands of viewers, if not more, back to the sport, and it's being taken away. It's a bad day for the sport, but people will still pay it.

Edit: I have just looked and the cheapest route for those refusing to get the whole package, topuptv do sky sports 1 for £19.99 p/m with no contract, so I guess you could just sub for the months that have races, and not have some halfwit drill holes in your wall. There are 9 months with races, so that works out at £179.00. Still a joke, mind you...

Also if you have friends or family with the sky sports package, you can ask to use their sky player account, and just plug a laptop into your tv for free viewing pleasure

[doink]

Btw, was loving Brundel's job centre quote!

[forty-two]

Edit: I have just looked and the cheapest route for those refusing to get the whole package, topuptv do sky sports 1 for £19.99 p/m with no contract, so I guess you could just sub for the months that have races, and not have some halfwit drill holes in your wall. Still a joke, mind you...

For those of us who will never put money in the back pocket of a man whose organisation would illegally tap into the voicemail of a murdered teenager and delete some messages on it to allow room for new ones, giving false hope to her family that she was alive, that's still not an option.

I am afraid that also am not happy with watching only half a season live, so i for one will be switching off in 2012, and actually it's this "removal" of the only sport I follow and follow with a passion that hacks me off the most.

The BBC now know it, and Bernie knows too. But it seems that neither one gives a monkey's.

Well, if that's the contempt with which they'll treat us, I am left with no option but to do the same to them.