Murdoch muscles BBC out of Formula One driving seat
BSkyB has snatched the full Formula 1 broadcasting rights from the BBC, which had been the exclusive channel showing the live races since 2009. It's a deal sure to upset fans of the Beeb's recent slick coverage of F1, which has won bumper TV ratings. BSkyB will – from the start of the 2012 motor-racing season – broadcast every …
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break clause
I was interested that brundle implies he was out of contract
http://twitter.com/#!/MBrundleF1
so maybe there was some sort of break built in.
F1 goes subscription
Great, this is the first time F1 has not be freely available to standard licence fee payers. This maybe a great day for the Beeb and Sky but for consumers it is a dark day indeed. I hope the F1 viewing figures drop by as much as they deserve to....
Another reason I paid the licence fee just disappeared. If I was not such a rolling news junkie it would be toast.
Agree
It's all Pay TV now, only with some Pay TV, we have to still pay but there's nothing we want to watch.
There's no point in a compulsory TV tax that doesn't even get us the basics.
^ ^ What this person said ^ ^
No point in paying into a license fee structure if the actual stuff you want to watch is outside of that structure...
Time to get off our arses and off to work - maybe BBC's F1 coverage caused Britain's recession? There can't have been much work getting done from Friday to Sunday evening during the F1 season for the last two years..
How long has that recession being going on for now?
Getting my coat, off to work as my weekends have suddenly become available!
It's better than that
The Concorde Agreement, which is not yet up for review, requires that Formula 1 races cannot be exclusive to pay channels. Ecclestone has broken that agreement, and now every team in F1 has the right to withdraw.
I refuse to enoble a simple forum post!
yeah cos thats gonna happen....
watch this space...
you never know.
the poisoned dwarf has plenty of enemies up and down the pit lane
F1
F1 charges a lot for broadcast rights for its races. I'm glad the BBC1 are not going to pay it, maybe then they can spend their money making good shows like Horizon and not on that shitty boring sport. What Ekkelstein should do is move all the races out of Europe and put them in the countries he really cares about, like China, the Middle East, India, and Eritrea. Britain is a tiny market and losing BBC fee payers will not worry F1 one bit. Ekkelstones is a greedy money grabbing midget commoner whose death I am really looking forward to. I think Apple should buy F1 incidentally.
Pissed off
It was bad enough when it was on ITV but at least you could watch it. No way am I giving Murdoch any of my money.
F1 will now get a LOT less popular, which is not exactly good news long-term for the sport, is it? It suffered with a lack of intereseting drivers and crap ITV coverage, only in the past few BBC-years has it improved again.
Short-term gain, long-term loss. And I though Ecclecake was smart.
Annoying decision
I do subscribe to Sky but only one pack at the moment. I think it's unlikely I'll subscribe to Sky Sports just to get F1. If they do a pay-per-race like last time (including all the support races and stuff so that I can make a weekend of it) I might be interested but £20pcm just for one sport is silly. What really annoys me at the moment though is the way that all the parties involved are claiming to be happy and portraying it as great news.
It isn't great news.
Perhaps it's better than it might have been but why can't they be honest. Admit that we nearly lost it completely on free TV and that this is the best /compromise/ they could come up with.
There is no possible comment.
Not once the at the beeb can say with a straight face that half the races = all the action.
Cretins.
And like so many others, Murdoch isn't getting my money. Another viewer lost, Bernie.
WHY?????!!!!!
So, after the excellent coverage of F1 by the BBC and the fact that we can watch ALL the races and qualifying (and practices on the red button) FOR FREE, and with a 10 year high viewer rating, it's moving to Sky Sports.
What the hell are these people on???!!!!???
Who wants to watch only some of the races? Did Sky think by doing this, everybody will immediately sign up to Sky Sports.
DELUSIONAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That's the only thing that comes to mind...
Bernie, you have failed Formula1 fans!!!!
DISAPPOINTED, to say the least!
Sadly yes
Yes, even though it boils down to blackmail, idiots will line up to subscribe. These are the same folk who in 2 years will be singing sky's praises but moaning that the subs are increasing. Well you have justify being a fool.
For the record i HATE Sky and they will NEVER see a penny from me.
Sigh
Here's a quote from a Sky PR drone on this wonderful news: "We will give F1 the full Sky Sports treatment"
So that would mean masses of adverts, an overload of tasteless graphics and sound effects, and second rate sexist commentators?
Dull
F1 is dull and seems to be getting duller. If they cut the races to a third the length they are things would be more interesting, but even so it would still be blander than many other series because of the tech involved.
19.2e kit required
I will be buying it and hoping I have room for another dish on the back wall.
Do I need a new receiver or will my Humax HDR pick up RTL?
Surely no new dish needed?
Afaik you don't need a new dish in most parts of the UK, just a twin arm (not the right name) so you can have two separate LNBs, and any sensible industry standard (non-Sky) DVB-S receiver should be OK for RTL (and a whole load of other channels too).
Go, RTL.
Good
F1 has been an expensive bore fest for at least a decade now. The BBC should go back to showing stuff like the BTCC which is what real motoracing is all about, not a bunch of overpaid primadonnas following each other in a procession for 90 mins, the winner decided by who does the quickest tyre stop.
Touring cars lost it in the 90s
If I wanted to see random results predermined by weight penalties, I'd watch someone rolling loaded dice all afternoon.
Nope....
It *was* an expensive bore-fest, which is why I ditched it for nearly ten years. But now it's better than ever, and I'm back into it. As is the misses, who up until this season had zero interest in motorsport.
There's tons of action, plenty of 'takes, interesting politics, tight racing, some great and charismatic drivers, and brilliant BBC coverage by people who know what they're talking about.
Come back and actually give it a watch.
BTCC? Seriously? Are you mentally ill?
The BTCC has been nothing but a clump of shitty little chavmobiles for years. You can see exactly the same thing on a Saturday night in any Essex Halford's car park.
The only way you could make the BoringTwatmobileClusterofCrap more interesting is to buy a couple of main battle tanks and have them drive round the circuit the other way at the same time at least then the world would have a few less chavved up Vauxhalls.
Erkle ?!
Given the BBC's usual incompetence, when they say that the Beeb will show half the races, is it a safe bet to assume they'll show the first half of each race?
I love paying my licence fee to fund the beeb, oh yes. no, really I do. honest.
This is not a good thing...
Can't understand why the beeb are so cheerful about this.
Also curious about Bernie's statement duing this morning's free practice:
"When asked whether he felt it was a shame a terrestrial broadcaster would no longer be showing every race live he said: "It was not us who made that decision"."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/motorsport/formula_one/9550970.stm
Well I'm not watching half a the season....
....so I won't bother watching any of it... I've watched races with cars with 6 wheels, giant fans on the back, ground effects, Brabham, Tyrell, Hesketh, James Hunt, Ayrton Senna, Monza 94... everything... but looks like no more... very sad day.
Older...
I go back further than you, I watched the BBC Eurovision races from back in the early 60s, when Coopers and Lotuses competed with the sharknose Ferraris, Monaco, Monza, the original Spa etc. But, though I have a Sky sub, it doesn't include Sky Sports, and it's not going to. Yet another viewer lost.
Booo
Can I downgrade my my TV licence to a cheaper package now please.
Another one bites the dust
Another sport disappears (ok, half in this case) off to a place where those who a) value decent coverage, and b) don't want to hand any more cash or clout to Murdoch just won't follow. While F1's revenues may not suffer, I'm pretty sure many of its less dedicated followers will move on to something else.
I've never understood the beating the BBC takes over its sports coverage, which in almost all cases I think is excellent. Sky's coverage on the other hand always has the air of a slightly breathless tart wetting her knickers because Take That have been spotted in the local chippie.
I shared a house years ago where someone else actually paid for it, and the Sky coverage of the Cricket world cup at that time put me off for life. The clipping of the beginning and end of overs to squeeze in ads (whats the fee for then?) killed the atmosphere, frequently missing wickets or great deliveries/strokes. Commercial TV is more "innovative"? Anyone who remembers ITVs coverage of the 1995 Rugby world cup probably shares my allergy to innovation in sports coverage. ITV crowed about it for weeks in advance, then had to start rewriting the whole setup more or less the day of the opening match due to the switchboard catching fire from the volume of complaints - vile doesn't begin to do it justice. By the end of week two they'd cobbled together something that was vaguely palatable provided you'd been in the pub for a good while before kick off and didn't particularly like rugby.
Screw Sky, screw F1, screw Ecclestone, and sure as hell screw Murdoch. Like my father 60 years ago I'm reduced to cricket on radio 4. When the greedy fuckups that run the game finally put paid to Test Match Special to hand the exclusive radio rights to a consortium formed by exiled middle eastern dictators and Russian oligarchs and fronted by some too-clean-shaven sporting has-been in a suit, I'll give up on that entirely and devote my sporting energies to following Synchronised Fly Swatting.
Fuck 'em.
Satellite
I studied TV as part of an electrical/electronic engineering degree in 1988. One day, the lecturer, Mr Hutton, said that satellite TV (encryption) was the first time in history that a consumer technology had been used to the detriment of the consumer, ie. to simply take way something they already had - football in that case, F1 now.
Some F1 wonk on the radio today says we can all watch it down the pub. Great, encourage the fathers of the nation to spend 3 hours in the pub every other Sunday. That'll help.
Lipstick on a pig
So losing half your coverage is a good deal?
What really baffles me is that the terrestrial broadcasters won't cooperate to buy the rights to this sort of stuff. I'm sure it would be more complex contractually, particularly if they shared 'talent' in the commentary box.
But, for example, what's stopping C4, BBC and C5 co-operating on the home international cricket? The first two agree to share the live coverage (alternate matches) and C5 get the highlights. They use the same commentary/production team which would cut costs for them.
Even if they didn't win the bid, at least they'd make Sky have a nosebleed outbidding them.
Trying giving the right person a nose bleed
>Even if they didn't win the bid, at least they'd make Sky have a nosebleed outbidding them
Because of course Sky are ecstatic about having to pay vast sums of money when sourcing their material so deserve to be punished. How about we give FOM the nosebleed (much like the Premier League) for being greedy bastards. I'm pretty sure Sky would love to join give them a good kicking as well.
disaster
This is going to be a total disaster for F1! Who on earth wants to watch half the races?!? It's unbelievable that the BBC's announcement is trying to put a good news spin on this.
Now F1 coverage is subscription only, I'm not paying for a full sky sports subscription to get F1.
Viewing figures in the UK will plummet. ITV coverage was bad enough with adverts all the time but this just takes the biscuit.
Half the Races?
The thing about F1 (unlike most sports) is that it's not about the race, but the season. Losing half the races means that I'll probably lose track of what's going on and give up with it.
And as I've just ditched my Sky+ box, I'm not paying £32/month just for F1.
I'm really angry about this
For the past 2 months, FOTA have been banging on about how they could not even consider F1 not being Free To Air in their major markets, since a lot of their income is derived from advertisers - and advertisers will pay less if it is only shown on subscription channels.
I actually already subscribe to sky sports, so it's not going to affect me that much. However, I can't get 'real' sky in my flat (I only have one sat feed, sky hd requires 4, sky+ requires 2,), so I have Sky player, so I won't be getting these races in HD, nor will I be able to record them, nor pause/rewind, have to turn my computer on and pray silverlight doesn't crash for 2 hours.
The 'revolutionary' features Sky will offer will be similar to BBC - the main feed will be identical, since it will simply be the same 'World Feed' offered to all broadcasters, and we'll have perhaps some more car feeds (again, not for me and my streaming though). I guess this year will be the only season I get a complete HD race archive.
I also don't buy this 'we had to do it or they'd have got the lot' argument. FOTA simply would not accept F1 solely on Sky, so Sky had no chance to whip the rug from under the BBC. More likely is that by allowing Sky this deal, they avoid ITV getting the rights, although even that is tenuous - ITV are more skint than Auntie.
Which Channel?
Which channel will it be on?
I assume it will clash with footie on SS1 a lot of the time so I would assume SS2? Or will they be a total pain in the arse and mix and match it between channels so I have to subscribe to fucking both of them?
I could live with £12.50 a month extra - £20 extra, not so sure..
Bernie. You're a wanker. Simple as.
Just don't spend the money
The more money we hand to Murdoch the more his organs will protrude into our lives :-)
Someone earlier in the commentary thread pointed out that people are (apparently) happy paying through the nose for things that they used to be able to watch for free.
Just don't be one of them.
RE: Which Channel?
In relation to this news I will be watching on SopCast
things that they used to be able to watch for free
So are you a TV tax evader, or do you know of some sneaky way to watch TV with out paying the BBC TV tax?
title
"So are you a TV tax evader, or do you know of some sneaky way to watch TV with out paying the BBC TV tax?"
You watch it on iPlayer after it's been broadcast. The license only covers broadcast TV.
iplayer
Luckily for you they will still be shown on iplayer after the race next year, so this story shouldn't concern you at all.
Free in the sense that...
You still have to pay the TV tax if you watch a Murdoch tentacle. So in the cost equation, it sort of cancels out :-)
another title
"Luckily for you they will still be shown on iplayer after the race next year, so this story shouldn't concern you at all."
I thought they're only showing the races that they air live on iPlayer. If they're still showing *all* races on iPlayer then you're right it's not so bad for me.
I rarely get chance to watch live as it is, but it has helped me to become a black-belt in the art of not finding out who won.
Half arsed
Who at the Beeb thought up the half the races idea? How bizarre. By all means save money by showing just the highlights but this is neither one nor the other but, as the comments show, is upsetting nearly evryone.
Dissappointed
Like many others I have been a huge F1 fan for many years (since the very early eighties). It is one of the highlights of every-other weekend and my kids are both great fans now too. One of my big concerns with this move is the damage it will do to the UKs leadership in F1. Bar Ferrari, all the teams are based in the UK. All the drivers have homes here (albeit domiciled in Monaco for Tax purposes!) and the Universities around Silverstone and Brands Hatch dominate motorsport research across the world.
By removing F1 from the public conciousness there will be few younger people wishing to get into the sport and we will lose another or the increasingly few things we are good at.
As for my interests in F1. That is now at an end. Perhaps, if a significant number of people refuse to watch, they will get the idea but I doubt it. Bernie is only interested in selling the rights for the maximum he can get and UK based sponsorship of teams is virtually zero so I doubt it will bother them as they chase the asian and middle eastern viewers.
Not happy about this
I don't really watch sports, so have no need to purchase Sky Sports at Exhorbitant prices.
BBC coverage was awesome, the pre race build up was in my opinion one of the main reasons so many people got hooked into the past few years - highest viewing figures in 10 years - for it now to move to a paid service?
title
"BBC coverage was awesome, the pre race build up was in my opinion one of the main reasons so many people got hooked into the past few years"
You nailed it there. I've only been into Formula 1 since mid-way through the 2010 season after constant pestering from my brother who insisted I'd love it. Turns out he was right and what got me truely into it was the pre-race/qualy build up.
For someone new to the sport the build ups give insight into F1 tech, the teams and the cars.
The BBC F1 team are like James, Richard and Jeremy on Top Gear, they all seem to work well together and I fear if not in that combo, just won't have that edge.
Beeb shoots self in foot!
BBC F1 coverage was the best. Great team, great coverage, insight and analysis and the 'red button after show' often bought up great interviews such as the one with Adrian Newey.
So now, BBC viewers will dwindle, Sky will gain a few die hard supporters but won't come anywhere near the BBC viewing figures, and sponsors must already be questioning the cost of a reduced audience.
All round a huge FAIL. The teams lose out, their sponsors lose out and the loyal fans lose out.
The only winner in this deal is Bernie!
Driviiing driiiiving!
Oh please, it's not a sport, it's a bunch of twats playing with expensive cars and bribing each other. This is good news, the BBC shouldn't be spending money on it.
title
Are you just jealous that you're not good enough to drive one of humanity's greatest engineering achievements? You sound it.
Say what you like about the suits, but if you can't appreciate and respect what the drivers do then go to YouTube and watch a Monaco lap.
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