Paying Sky for F1....

[red748]

Am I the only F1 fan that isn't paying Sky?

I have followed F1 to Spa, Silverstone, Magny Cour, Monaco,
Estoril, Kyalami and Monza over the years and religiously
gorged on the TV F1 transmissions of F1.

I am not going to pay Sky TV for it this year.

Am I a minority fan, or a majority one?

[010010011010]

I for one have absolutely no notion of buying sky either

[lebesset]

Am I the only F1 fan that isn't paying Sky?

I have followed F1 to Spa, Silverstone, Magny Cour, Monaco,
Estoril, Kyalami and Monza over the years and religiously
gorged on the TV F1 transmissions of F1.

I am not going to pay Sky TV for it this year.

Am I a minority fan, or a majority one?

I won't pay murdoch , thats for sure , matter of principle ; I even gave up reading The Times on line [ my favourite ], and that is just £1/week [ I think ]

for the non BBC races I will just accept an inferior service..at the moment I am in portugal but wouldn't be up at 5am to watch OZ , so the BBC highlights would do anyway , next race in spain [terrestrial ], then race 3 in france TF1 terrestrial
later UK [ RTL + radio5 live ..I don't speak german , not that it matters much as commentators generally tell you what you have already seen ]

in short , not as good as the beeb , but will not lose it all

as a matter of fact , I haven't yet talked to anyone who WILL take out a new sky subscription , for most I think the reason is that they would have to pay £20/month for the basic rubbish channels in addition to the HD charge ...how long before you have to buy the sports channel charge as well ?

if no one joins murdoch would have paid a lot of money for no extra revenue ..and would soon give up

[A13EX_f]

I'm refusing to pay for it too. Luckily my mum & dad have the sports and hd pack at their house so I'm using their sky go login to get the feed on my laptop which is connected to my stereo and tv, not quite as good but better than paying for it.

[Shakeman]

No, I refuse to pay for Sky.

If the Sky package constituted value for money we'd have but we never watched anything other than terrestrial channels anyway.

Freesat HD for Live races and listening to 5Live for the other races. I love Cricket on the radio and when I've been travelling the 5Live boys have done a great job of conveying the action.

I hope F1 on Sky is an unmitigated disaster and it returns to terrestrial TV asap. I hope it's another MySpace for Murdoch.

[elf341]

I think you guys will be seriously disappointed.

I bought Sky because it seemed like excellent value for money. I pay £30 / month for phone-line, TV, and broadband - that includes phone line rental. Assuming that you pay £20 a month anyway for your phone line and your broadband, it's only an extra £10 a month.

£120 a year is a very good price for the value you get from Sky HD. First, the sky box includes 1TB harddrive that you can record up to two programmes at once. So that's an end to me missing practice session 3 that BBC never bothered to put up on iPlayer. Also, the practice sessions are in HD which you never got on the "Red Button".

The Sky features also look amazing, you can follow any driver you want, plus if you have a couple of laptops laying around you can login to the web and follow your favourite two drivers whilst having the director's cut on your main TV.

I have a feeling Sky a really going for it in terms of features. They will blow BBC away. I will miss Eddie Jordan and Coulthard though.

If you're not willing to pay £120 for that, then I don't think you can really consider yourself a true fan - most people spend that much within a month just going to the pub!

[Websta]

I'm getting a little bit sick of this "I won't pay for Sky" nonsense really. Many other sports fans around the world have to pay out of their noses for coverage - I for one had to pay for F1 when I lived in NZ, and that was very basic coverage, and I didn't think twice about it. I have to pay for the equivalent of Sky here in Australia to watch Rugby and other sports as well. Why should sport be free? I bet half the people who whine about paying for Sky to watch F1 would pay money for bottled water without thinking twice. Now if you want to talk about getting ripped off, there is a proper topic.

[natehall]

we upgraded to sky HD and was kinda pushed towards it... However we always planned to as we hid all the HDMI cables to our TV when we redecorated, as well as putting in duel feed cables under the floor ready for when we had it fitted.

I just think of it as the straw that broke the camels back when it came to resistance - have wanted it for 2-3 years but never got around to ordering it.

[Ral]

I'm getting a little bit sick of this "I won't pay for Sky" nonsense really. Many other sports fans around the world have to pay out of their noses for coverage - I for one had to pay for F1 when I lived in NZ, and that was very basic coverage, and I didn't think twice about it.

I don't think it's paying for it per se that's causing all the furore. Certainly lebesset expressed the other reason why people are not happy with this development: again, not just because of the money, but because of who the money is going to.

There are a lot of inquiries going on in the UK at the moment into the business practices of Murdoch's news empire and it's not making his businesses look good, to say the least.

[Websta]

I disagree - I think the majority of people who are complaining are doing so because of the cost. Sure, it sucks that you have to pay - but to go on and on about it, and to try organise boycotts etc (not on this forum) is waaay over the top.

[CZOLG]

I got the sky last Saturday specifically for F1 as I barely watch TV and everything was on Freeview anyway.
While I would clearly have preferred to carry on with BBC I am sure I will find recording of free practices useful.
Looking forward to it!

[Miguel]

Having attended three GP's on my life, projecting a trip the British GP before I leave the UK, and having the long term aspiration to attend the Belgian GP as well as the 24h of Le Mans, I still don't consider getting Sky an option.

My parents used to have pay TV, and it had some very nice features. Nevertheless, it didn't really offer that much value to them, so after a few issues with customer support, they unsubscribed. Given the hobbies of my family, where we watch tops 1h TV per day, even the TV license is hard to justify. Yes, I know, on average it's less thant 50p/hour. For the fee, I'd rather go to the pub to see the race (F1 fans in Putney?), have a drink and hopefully enjoy a bit of the atmosphere.

PS: I absolutely love the Sky billboards advertising "Full coverage uninterrupted F1" as something new. Ah, as if we didn't get the same deal with the BBC.

[Ral]

I disagree - I think the majority of people who are complaining are doing so because of the cost. Sure, it sucks that you have to pay - but to go on and on about it, and to try organise boycotts etc (not on this forum) is waaay over the top.

No, you're not disagreeing. This is what I said with added bolding for emphasis:

I don't think it's paying for it per se that's causing all the furore.

Yes, most people just want everything for free, including F1. But there is a not insignificant number of people in the UK who are increasingly weary of Murdoch and his businesses. Including several in this thread.

[Richard]

For me the galling bit is that the BBC is meant to be a public service broadcaster. There was a rival offer from Channel 4 to show F1 on terrestrial free to air. However, the BBC chose to ignore their public service remit and went for 50% free to air, when a 100% free to air offer was on the table.

It is also galling to have Sky gloating "this is great news for fans", that was just taking the piss.

I don't need the hassle of new boxes & satellite dish etc. My family will be pleased that I'm not glued tot the TV for as long. So I suppose it is great news for fans, because their families will be able to spend more time with them.

[Shrieker]

The TV rights here in Turkey have just this week been bought by a "pay per view" network. I won't be buying it, gonna watch RTL, though it'll be tough going back to sd after hd experience.